The iPad Pro is the Apple tablet of my dreams.
I’ve been lusting after Apple’s crazy-big iPad since the first whispers of the device echoed around the rumor mill a few years ago. When Apple finally unveiled the Pro at the September keynote, I was beyond stoked to fork over more than $1,000 for an iPad big enough to host Thanksgiving dinner on.
The display is breathtaking. The graphics are mind-blowing. The Apple Pencil is magical. Even the freaking speakers are better. But after weeks of debating whether the Pro is really worth it, I’ve realized its diminutive little brother, the iPad Mini 4, is really the perfect tablet for me.
Here’s why the mini 4 might be the best iPad for you, too:
It’s super-portable
The big appeal of the iPad Pro to me is having a laptop replacement I can take almost anywhere, like all the chill hiking spots I hit up in Arizona. Being able to shoot photos and video out in the wilderness, then edit them immediately at the campsite on the iPad Pro’s huge screen, sounds awesome. But lugging around the 1.57-pound tablet doesn’t.
Sure, 1.57 pounds doesn’t sound like much, but every gram in your backpack adds up. Why haul around something so beefy if you can get nearly the same features in a much lighter package? Apple engineers put the iPad mini on a diet and dropped its weight down to just 0.65 pounds. That’s less than the Moleskine notebooks I carry around.
It’s a stellar deal
Last year’s upgrades on the iPad mini 3 were a gigantic ripoff. $100 for Touch ID and gold paint, Apple?! C’mon, Tim.
This year, Apple redeemed itself by making the iPad mini 4 every bit as good as the iPad Air 2, only it’s $100 cheaper. Paying more than $500 for a tablet right now still seems a bit crazy, too. I would have most likely spent double that on the iPad Pro because 32GB just isn’t going to cut it for most people. At $949 for the 128GB model, that’s more than my MacBook Air cost — and I’m not confident the iPad Pro can completely replace it quite yet.
iPad mini 4 is thinner than the iPhone 6s
Just look at how much thinner the iPad mini 4 is than the iPhone 6s. According to Apple’s website, it’s 18 percent smaller than the last two versions, but the way it feels when you pick it up is astonishing. It’s so dangerously thin it feels like you could fold it up like a newspaper.
It’s just as good as an iPad Air 2
The A8 processor in the iPad mini 4 isn’t quite as powerful as the A8x chip in the iPad Air 2, but it’s pretty close. (The Mini boasts 1.3x faster CPU performance and 1.6x better graphics versus the iPad Air 2’s 1.4x faster CPU and 2.5x faster graphics.) The iPad mini 4 also boasts all the internals found on the iPad Air 2, like an 8-megapixel iSight camera, slo-mo video, Touch ID and Apple Pay.
The iPad mini 4 screen is the perfect size
The form factor of the iPad Mini 4 is perfect for reading. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it will be to lay in bed with a giant iPad Pro weighing down on your chest. Sure, you’ll be able to see four pages at a time, but your arm will fall asleep holding it up.
In some ways, the mini 4’s screen is actually better than the iPad Air 2’s, even though it’s smaller. With a 2,048‑by‑1,536 resolution at 326 pixels per inch, compared to the 264 ppi display on the Air 2, you’re less likely to be able to see any pixels on the mini 4.
I’m no artist
The Apple Pencil looks incredible. I’ve devoured the demo videos of Pixar and Disney artists testing the new stylus, and it’s totally lustworthy. I would have bought the iPad Pro just for the ability to use the Pencil, but alas, I am not an artist. No amount of pressure- and tilt-sensitivity is going to change that.
I miss my iPhone 6 Plus
I downsized from an iPhone 6 Plus to the iPhone 6s this year. My crotchal region is certainly glad to be free from the 6 Plus pinch, but over the last few weeks I’ve missed being able to read, watch videos and play games on that bigger-than-big display. The Plus-size iPhones are really like mini-mini tablets, which are perfect for people that don’t own a tablet. Now that I don’t have a mini-mini tablet, I need an actual tablet to read books, play Vainglory and edit photos on.
I don’t need a Pro-fessional tablet
Artists and creative types that push their devices to the limit stand to benefit the most from the iPad Pro, but I’m not really one of them. Nearly 95 percent of my computing time is spent writing and researching blog posts. All I really need is a browser and a good keyboard. Working on an iPad Pro isn’t going to be a better experience for me. Editing photos and videos would be nicer and faster on the Pro, but I just use iPhone apps like VSCO and Snapseed, so I wouldn’t see much benefit from the revved-up graphics.
In a few years, the iPad Pro will be more appealing to everyday users, but for now it’s mostly just perfect for graphic artists, designers and the like. The iPad Pro might be the best tablet Apple’s ever created, but the iPad mini 4 is the most practical tablet yet to come out of Cupertino.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
32 responses to “Why I skipped the iPad Pro and bought the iPad mini 4 instead”
You didn’t need the iPad mini 4. The last year’s model or the one before that was just as good for Facebook, web and videos. This article is the perfect representation of first world problems.
Go cry me a river…why do you care what he does with his money? He did earn it ya know….
Oh by the way, you need to read up on processors and what it can do….
You missed my point by a long shot.
Did it make you feel good saying “first world problem?” Is that how you’re saving the world? Or are you just a whiner looking for something to whine about? The article was perfectly legit. Your complaint wasn’t.
A perfectly legit article would be titled “Do you need the new iPad or is the old one just as good?”
Actually, I am from a THIRD world country, so I think I am in a good position to share my opinion. More than in any other economy, it is crucially important to buy the right device, something that will last for a more than just a year or three, something you won’t regret. Our exchange rate is such that the cheapest iPad costs more than the AVERAGE monthly salary of a degreed employee. An older iPad would therefore have been still quite expensive, but wouldn’t have lasted as long. So from that point of view, this article makes a lot of sense, helping me understand what the best purchase will be should I want an Apple tablet.
PS: My MacBook Pro was purchased based on an article like this, it’s now 6 years old and still going strong.
I have two of the original Mini’s which I loved until I got my 6+ and now 6s+, but it’s almost redundant for me now. I ended up putting it in a super thick foam case with a handle as well as putting on a glass screen protector for my 5 and 3 year old boys to use. My wife still has hers and wants something bigger next time. IE: iPad Air 3. ;)
Options are great. It gives us the ability to pick the right tool for the right job. Bigger isn’t better, but how and what you need it for matters more. I would say the majority of users, the mini is a perfect tablet, but for some the Pro is more ideal to what they want to do. For me I am happy with any format, I can adjust. I think most are like that too. If you want to spend less or more, that is on you. I dig that Apple is giving us more of these options, it makes it rather nice.
The big advantage I see for iPad Pro is that 13.3″ is the perfect size for PDFs… the Apple Pencil combined with Acrobat will be great for putting annotations on digital PDFs, and I actually think its a great buy over the Sony DPT S1 13.3 digital paper e-reader / e-writer.
They both cost $799, but I’ve seen a few DPT S1s on set of productions, where the script can be easily annotated / re-written, etc. with a pen. Now you can do that and a whole lot more with an iPad Pro.
I honestly thought this article was going to end with, “Why I didn’t buy an iPad Pro but bought a Surface Pro 4 instead”.
Because you are comparing Apples (lulz…) to oranges here. The iPad Pro doesn’t compete with the iPad Mini and never did. Its competing against the Surface Pro 4.
This is sort of like saying, “Why I bought a bulldozer instead of a container ship.” They are two completely different tools, geared towards two completely different sets of people. The iPad Mini is a content consumption device, and the iPad Pro is a content creation device, which ought to have been clearly obvious with the Apple Pencil.
The real question to be asked is, “Which device is better for content creation, iPad Pro or Surface Pro 4?”
Write that article…
Perfect.
You nailed it.
I’m going to buy an iPad Pro but not for content creation. I have Macs to do that. I want the larger screen just to use for consumption. I’ve had a Samsung Note Pro 12.2 for a couple of years and while it’s nice, Android is just awful compared to iOS.
Yeah, 13.3 is nicer than Surface Pro 4’s 12.3, that’s for sure. I like the 13.3″ screen of the Sony DFSA1, but its only an ereader, which means its only good for black & white PDFs.
A lot of the PDFs I read are color textbooks or technical or academic books, so that rules out that $799 device. But what sold me on SP4 over IPP is that, if I’m going to spend $999 for a device (I want lots of storage, because I need about 40 GB of PDFs available at any one time), then I might as well get something that can be plugged into a mouse / keyboard / dock and have low-end desktop functionality.
I just don’t see a compelling reason to purchase the iPad Pro over an SP4, unless you’re already locked into the Apple ecosystem (iPhone, iMac, Macbook / Pro, AppleTV, etc.).
Businesses seem to be moving in this direction, as all our C-level executives have maxed out Surface Pro 4s on order, with docks and TypeCovers ready to be deployed. A lot of the junior executives have put in requests for mid-range SP4s (Core i7s, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD) and were approved. I put in for a Surface Book i7 / 8 GB / 256 GB SSD because I wanted the 13.5″ touchscreen.
Lol! What the OP really want to say is, he couldn’t wait for a new toy, so he bought the iPad mini 4. Stay tuned for the article on how he sold it craigslist and bought the iPad pro. He wrote this article for approval.
Totally agree on every count Buster. Now on my 3rd mini having also recently updated to the 4. I use it all day every day and it remains for me the most utilitarian form factor of all the iPads!
I’m in the same boat, but opted for the Air 2 instead
Same here… I love the screen on the Air 2.
Same here. I do a lot of presentations and present lessons from my Air 2. Prefect size and I save a lot of money on paper
How can you skip a product when it’s not even out yet
Did anyone read/edit this before publishing? Horrible.
Big Apple fan here and I have many of Apple new stuff. Mac Pro, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 2, Mac Book 1015, Apple Watch, iPhone 6s, new Apple TV 2015 etc. I list them here to show I am a huge fan. After saying that, I think iPad Pro is a mistake and I hope it fails. I just think Apple is under pressure to come out with this awful iPad Pro just to compete with MS Surface hardware. Where is the Apple I know that sets the trend instead of releasing a ridiculously big iPad?
iPads are meant to be used comfortably in your hands and the iPad Air 2 is as big as it should get. Anything else will fail. I hope it fails so that Apple can snap back to really releasing well thought out products like they have been.
iPad Pro will fail.
AMEN — I absolutely loved all the stuff that came out of the Steve Jobs Apple — the stuff that is coming out of Tim Cook’s Apple, not so much.
Tim is basically proving that all His Apple is capable of (and retired to do) at this point is to be the next PC vendor, hence innovator in name only — the result: a race on tech specs and a complete lack of new ideas and better experiences — I mean seriously — who gives a hoot about the fact the processor is 78.2% better than the last one or that memory is doubled — sounds like a PC too me. AFAIC the last marginally smart thing from Apple was watch (and guess who’s idea that was – hint: not Tim’s). The rest is either mee-too’s (TouchID), or flat-out disasters; ApplyPay (the only credit-card accepted nowhere), Apple Maps (we will have most national monuments back in place soon) or Siri (still tone-deaf).
The scary thing to me is that there is a pattern here; Apple build nice devices, but anything that is not embedded in the device, they @#$% up with religious precision, because they flat out don’t get how to provide and integrate cloud-services in their experience (and no, iCloud is not a cloud service, it is a glorified backup drive). This reminds me a lot of a PC makers of decades past — the value is in the experience, and Apple captured that in the device age, in the cloud age where the experience and value is moving to the cloud-software, they are stuck in the hardware and (insert-device name here)OS space, and are rapidly becoming the next PC maker (only it is called something else).
The real questions to new experiences are; “Is it allowing me to do new things?”, “are you showing me new and smarter way to work?”, “is it expanding my digital experience in a meaningful way?”, not “do you have a new device that with 29.45% better graphics and 47% bigger screen?”.
Now, take something as simple as Google cardboard; it is making my experience fantastically better, not because I have a higher spec iPhone with “the bigger GBs and the WiFi’s” (tongue-in-cheek), but because I have a $20 folded piece of cardboard that all of a sudden turns any device into a full cloud enabled VR viewing platform — now that is experience innovation.
Like you, I’ll properly keep buying Apple products, but no longer but pure reflex, and the search for something beeter is on. I strongly suspect that Apple’s decade of meaningful innovation is over, the stock market and the great unwashed just don’t know it yet; the innovation engine is sputtering and the products are increasingly mediocre (just look at AppleTV; non-4K with Siri voice search — really, that was the best you could come up with?, Hint: TiVO the company is up for sale…).
Interestingly enough both Google, Microsoft and a slew of smaller companies seems ready to take over; they clearly produce great devices and unlike Apple they actually understand how to use a cloud as part of an experience, while Apple still thinks it is a backup location…
B.S. Apple is responding to consumer demand, just like they did with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, people want larger screens, so Apple is now offering them. And this is not “ridiculously big.” Samsung not only has had a 12.2″ tablet out for two years, they are launching an 18″ tablet. HP and other brands have 13-14″ tablets. There is a market for them. Just because you are not the target market doesn’t mean you should be hostile and want them to fail. And, btw, a 12.2″ or 12.9″ tablet can be comfortably used in your hands. I’ve used one for two years.
Why I skipped on Journalism and bought in to Clickbait instead
BY BUSTER HEIN
I guess it’s all a matter of perspective! I’m keeping my 6 plus so an iPad Air 2 is fitting! But the nexus 6p has my attention and if I made it my daily driver the mini 4 is my first choice to stay connected to iOS and my Mac mini
Know this is cult of Mac and I’m all Mac, but it sounds like a surface would be perfect for the author.
Perhaps. I haven’t seen anything about the iPad Pro to make me think it’s better at creating anything than another iPad other than perhaps art with the pencil. Otherwise it has the same apps as any iPad. However, while the Surface Pro 4 gets a lot right, it’s still a $1000+ tablet that is a mediocre tablet because A), it’s underpowered as far as storage, and B) it’s far too expensive compared to laptops. (You could also say the $150 keyboard is crap compared to a real laptop. The Apple keyboard has had some big critics so far too). Sure, it’s the best of any combo/hybrid product. But that doesn’t mean it’s great. That said, the iPad Pro has the same negatives – not enough storage space – even worse no SD card slot to expand, and too expensive. I’m buying one for fun because I can afford it and want it but I’m in the minority there. Apple’s oh my gosh it has stereo sound statement the last few days is embarrassing. Other tablets have have stereo sound for years. Apple certainly is not as good as spinning things or creating that reality distortion field as Steve Jobs was.
I have a client who’s senior management team uses them as their primary machines. They love them. The don’t do one thing perfectly, you’re right. But they do a lot of things very well. The iPad is much, much more of a niche product.
Ridiculous article. I have the iPhone 6, iPad mini. iPad 2, the desk top “Big Mac” and just pre-ordered the iPad pro. Each one serving a different purpose in my busy life. No one is better than the other. They are all great.
Dudes, the iPad pro is not even out yet and we are all writing it off?
Why all the hate for Buster? His opinion is just as valid as any other writer on this site, and he took the time to explain his reasons – and they are all personal to him and his circumstances. You can’t disagree with any of those reasons because you aren’t the same person as him. After reading this article I agree that the iPad Mini is definitely the right choice for someone with his lifestyle.
The iPad Pro isn’t suitable for me either. It is too heavy and too expensive for what I want to do, which is to browse the web and watch videos. I’ll be getting the next iteration of the iPad Air, hopefully it will be announced early next year.