Using the first iPad Mini, 8 years later - Review By 91Tech

The iPad Mini was introduced all the way back in 2012 and brought a design never before seen in the iPad line, all in a smaller form factor: hey how's it going I'm josh from 91 tech, and today we're taking a look at the first iPad Mini. How does it hold up? Eight years later, the iPad Mini essentially looks like a shrunk down version of the iPad Air. But, interestingly, it actually came out the year before making it the first major redesign to the iPad line. Besides the iPad 2, assuming you consider the iPad 2 to be a big change, this iPad was quite popular, both as a budget option and one for those who didn't really need a full iPad, but still wanted something. A bit bigger than a smartphone, don't forget back in 2012 iPhones had always been 3.5 inches up until the 4 inch iPhone 5. So, although this iPad Mini doesn't feel much larger than my 11 pro max, it is significantly bigger than an older iPhone too bad.

This iPad Mini didn't age as well as the 2012 iPhone 5. Ios 9 on it isn't exactly a pleasant experience and yes, this one has a pretty brutally cracked display, and I apologize for that. I bought this year's ago back when I wasn't getting that much money from YouTube, and it was cheap, and so I picked it up for a video and as bad as it looks. It actually doesn't impede the experience too much- and I don't really use this in my day-to-day life anymore, so I did use it for a while as a streaming player before I got a bigger iPad, slash, MacBook, slash, etc. These were great Netflix and YouTube machines, and they're, not even terrible today, but let's take a moment here and go over the design of the first iPad Mini, or should I say, the iPad Mini in general, because the design up to the fifth generation really hasn't changed much.

We have a basic thin and a light aluminum body with a 7.9 inch display and resolution of 768x1024. This is non-retina, which means even without the crack in it. The screen really doesn't. Look that good. You can see pixels and the crispness you expect from iOS devices just isn't here below the screen is the home button, which serves as a plain old home button without touch ID.

This is a bit annoying now, because, if you want security, you'll need a passcode, but for 2012 it was the norm. Heck apple didn't even introduce touch ID until the next year. The iPad Mini did come in a couple: colors slate and silver. The slate was removed the next year and replaced by space gray, which is the one I have here. Black and slate was on the iPhone 5 as well.

In my opinion, it's a gorgeous color when the condition of the device is pristine, but unfortunately, with use the paint tended to chip away too easily. I also like the space gray, though so no harm no foul again. This essentially looks identical to the newest iPad, mini 5th generation being sold by apple right now. So in that sense, it actually has aged pretty well assuming you're, ignoring the poor performance and fuzzy looking display battery life, I will say, actually is pretty decent, which makes sense, considering the under powered hardware and decently sized 4 490 William hour battery, keep in mind. This is essentially a bigger iPhone 4s with a worse quality, albeit bigger display.

So there's not a ton of power to push I'd say. Most of these things should be able to pull out a day's use, if not more, when it comes to light streaming use or web browsing, which is probably all you'd be doing with an iPad. This old anyways and we'll talk about all that. But first, let's look at the camera. We've got cameras on the front and back the rear sensor boasts a full 5 megapixels and takes just beautiful photos that sarcasm.

It doesn't. Is the camera an important part of the tablet, probably not for most, but that doesn't make these photos any less disappointing. It's the same camera as in the 5th generation iPod touch, and I honestly think they should have just put the 4s's 8 megapixel sensor in here, but maybe that would have raised the price I don't know considering it's from 2012 and a tablet. I'm not too unhappy about the camera, we're somehow able to take 1080p video with the iPad Mini and well it's about as bad as you would expect, and definitely doesn't look high definition, although technically it is back in the day. What was more important than how good the video was is that it took video in the first place, so I can give it a pass.

The selfie camera is pretty low quality with 1.2 megapixels same again as the 5th generation iPod touch. While this doesn't look good today, it's very of the era, and so there's really no complaints I can make. After all, it served the job for FaceTime or whatever you needed it for all in all, while they could have put a better camera on the back. They didn't need to that said. Using this thing, eight years later, definitely don't take photos with it.

Honestly, I'd say just don't use one of these in general anymore, probably a good tip, but there could be a few use cases for it, and we'll get to that. But first, let's take a look at the hardware. The iPad Mini features the iPhone 4s, a5, chipset and 512 megabytes of ram. This isn't exactly a powerful device and iOS 9 causes it to struggle with even the most basic of basic tasks. This is mostly down to the ram, not the chipset.

The a5 back in 2012 was actually still fairly impressive in terms of performance, which is why apple seemed to be cramming it in all their devices left and right. Unfortunately, due to the dual-core nature of the processor, giving it more life, it resulted in apple over updating it. Basically, they kept giving it updates until it got slow if there were ever evidence of apple, pushing planned obsolescence. The idea where they're trying to slow down old devices to force you to buy new ones. The best example is any device with an a5 chipset, the iPhone 4s, the iPod touch 5, the iPad Mini the iPad 2, the iPad 3.

These are all very slow devices, and they never used to be iOS 9, iOS 8, even iOS 7 really just started to bog all these things down and with all the new features the old hardware just couldn't keep up. I would argue that planned obsolescence has been debunked for the most part, with the 5s getting six years, but yeah. If you want a reason to slam apple. These devices are a good start when initially shipped with iOS 6, the iPad Mini was fast and fluid, but not so much anymore. That said, thanks to the relatively recent software supports, you can download fairly recent versions of most apps.

Really, the only practical use I can see for the iPad Mini anymore is streaming. Media YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, prime and so on. Unfortunately, Disney plus isn't compatible with iOS 9, but this thing could still be somewhat useful. If you already have one, definitely don't want to go buying one of these things anymore. Can we speed this iPad up at all, well, actually kind of with jail breaking? We do have options like shortening animations and whatnot, but we can be also dual boot with an older version like iOS, 6 or even fully downgrade to iOS 8.

So there is some life that could be squeezed out of this thing if you had to or if you're interested in jail breaking. This is just a great device to mess with Lydia really hasn't changed a lot since the older iOS days, and so, if you want to get into it pretty much any older device is an option, but the truth is even for streaming. A 7.9-inch iPad Mini generally isn't going to appeal to very many people. Even the iPad, mini 5, currently being sold by apple, is barely ever marketed and is just kind of there for the small base, that's interested in it. It also doesn't really make sense in their lineup.

Why would you buy this iPad Mini when you could get the 7th generation iPad for less money regardless? If you do have one of these stuffed in a drawer somewhere, I'd encourage you to pull it out and mess around with it. It's always fun for a nostalgia trip and who knows maybe you'll actually find a use for it, because, as old as these things are, they aren't completely useless. It's too bad that iOS 9 ruined this iPad, because the hardware was actually great for the time. This was a thin super light device sized in between the iPhone and iPad. That was really appealing out of curiosity.

How much do one of these go for nowadays? Well, turning to ebay. com we're looking at around 60 to 80 dollars for a fairly well-used device. Besides, the worry of how battery life is. This is honestly just too much for what this iPad is worth, at least, in my opinion, the size is perfect for some. I understand that, but the value is just not there, and you'd be better off spending your money elsewhere.

Trust me don't buy one anymore, they're too old. If you have one already, that's a different story and definitely use it to its full potential if you can and want to, but with that, I think I'm pretty much about done here. The iPad Mini was a perfect fit in the lineup. For 2012, and while it is still there today, it's not nearly as prominent or relevant iPhones have gotten bigger and because of that, the need for an iPad Mini. Just really isn't there anymore.

That said, this iPad did manage to get 4 years of iOS support, and it isn't completely useless 8 years later, and that's honestly impressive in and of itself did you ever have the first iPad Mini. Let me know in the comments down below, if you found this video interesting, maybe hit that like button and consider subscribing for more content. Just like this, you can follow me over on Twitter and Instagram at 91 underscore tech. If you'd like to for some reason, we also have a discord link in the description. Thank you so much for watching I'm josh from 91 tech, and I will see you all next time you.

Source : 91Tech