[toksaitov]

At first I thought it’s a pointless device for me, but after several hours with it I think it’s one of the greatest casual gaming devices on the market. The screen of iPod and iPhone is too small and ‘the new or whatever’ iPad is too large by itself. This holiday season it’s a much better choice as a present for kids than iPod touch.

[metatronscube]

I got my ipad mini on an impulse buy (actually was after I went to Apple's website to see the apology thing) and looking over the design and spec's and went to my local Tesco's to pick one up. Its a really impressive device, way lighter feeling than my busted Nexus 7 and with a nicer balanced screen. Its really tough feeling as well. Not to mention fast, its just snappier feeling and im getting 12+ hours battery from it as well. Great all round device.

[czr80]

> (actually was after I went to Apple's website to see the apology thing)

This is a fascinating example of "no such thing as bad publicity" :-)

[ZanderEarth32]

It's interesting how all of a sudden with the option of having a smaller iPad, the "old" iPad has become much to large for a lot of people but when the smaller device was just a rumor a lot of people didn't feel they could fit it in their life. Fascinating how just a few hours with the device are changing people's preferences on the entire tablet market.

[ZeroGravitas]

Every year the old version of Apple products become surprisingly worse in the space of a few hours as the new products get released and flaws that the community couldn't previously acknowledge become validated, and even accentuated in light of the new version.

[arrrg]

Apple moves at a steady and surprisingly predictable pace (at least once they have introduced a new product). They have a small lineup and they often replace products instead of continuing to sell both products. They take good care of making sure that they never have too many or too similar products.

For me those are great virtues. Those are things that make Apple a great company that understands me.

Those are also things that make some people claim that Apple is running some sort of scheme to always get you to buy the newest stuff. I think that’s a bullshitty strawman.

[ZanderEarth32]

I guess I've been lucky to not get roped into that thinking. I'm still happy using my refurbished first gen iPad and a mid 2009 Macbook Pro. But I will admit that I think I might grab an iPad mini when a retina display gets added in.

[ZeroGravitas]

A case in point:

http://www.splatf.com/2012/11/ipad-mini/

7 inch tabets are stupid, 10 inch tablets are perfect, but actually now that Apple's released a 7.9 inch tablet it turns out that that is the perfect size.

(7 inch tablets are still stupid by the way, I don't think the community has settled on a rationalisation for this. They could have gone for 16:9 being the wrong ratio, but it turns out, after the iPhone 5 adopted it, that it was actually very good for video.)

[rimantas]

Well, recall the reaction to the first iPad itself: many felt there is no need for the big one either.

[ZanderEarth32]

Very true. Most people don't seem to be able to visualize how a tablet, or possibly any piece of technology, will fit into their lives until they have one and use it. I would guess that showing how these tablets, or any piece of new technology, fits into the prospective users lives should be a goal of advertising campaigns, but that doesn't always seem to be the case especially in the case of the Surface. The commercials I've seen have not demonstrated how a Surface fits into my life at all, unless I dance a lot. But to be fair, a lot of iPad ads don't do it either.

[bitsoda]

This is what I found as well. At first I regretted my purchase as I was trying to use it to replace my laptop. Then I played one of my favorite iOS games -- Eliss -- in 2x mode. I've never experienced the level of interaction while playing a game as I did at that moment. There is no reason, save for pocketability, that any kid would pass up an iPad mini.