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This review is presented in reverse order for the TLDR crowd 
Summary:
- Rating: 80%
- Verdict: Buyer's Remorse, should have stuck with Android
Pros:
- Excellent build quality, industrial design
- Excellent battery life
- Excellent screen
- Good resale value
- Vast selection of apps
Cons:
- Stock keyboard is cumbersome and 3rd party keyboards are similar. Keyboard selection not sensed by all apps.
- Font handling is inconsistent between apps and different areas of the screen
- Relatively high price for the RAM/storage capacity
Background:
Having recently bought a Macbook Pro was enamored with the thought of getting an Apple tablet to replace my aging Nook Color running CM7. I wanted a better screen, better battery life and ability to run modern apps like Netflix.
So I researched a little and settled on the Ipad Mini 2 as the sweet spot for price/performance in the Apple tablet offerings. Not terribly expensive yet offering most of the features of the Ipad range. So I fondled the Ipad Mini 2 at a local Apple store and it seemed great: looked good, seemed responsive
I got what I needed out of it:
- An awesome screen. This thing is beyond HD and it shows - it's crystal clear wonderful to look at
- Great battery life. Over several days of light use, an OS upgrade and many app installs, then leaving it on standby, I was only able to use 25% of battery. I can imagine this thing running for weeks with light use.
- Apps are smooth. It was cool to zoom in on a video and it automatically made it full screen Some things are definitely well implemented.
Annoyances:
- The stock virtual keyboard is in the stone age. The keys are ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME. (Jailbreak hack required to fix)
- A 5th row of all number keys is unavailable without a 3rd party keyboard. Those 3d party keyboards don't offer swype/flow text input.
- Swiftkey, which on Android is awesome, doesn't offer swype/flow input, 5th row numbers or long-hold special characters on the Ipad platform
- Fonts can be scaled on the platform or within some browsers. But the URL/search bar and menus still remain small although the main page is scaled. Weird!
- Some apps don't recognize the installed custom keyboard
- The 'dock' can't be deleted. Apple wants it there for some reason. The only way to reduce the clutter is to Jailbreak and install a transparent dock
- Wallpapers don't scale properly. A 3rd party app is required to fix this.
So, if I had to do it again I'd probably go with a Samsung Tab. My Note3 phone is awesome in all respects. I had iphone 6 envy at first but now see that they also suffer from the same limitations as the ipad.
Summary:
- Rating: 80%
- Verdict: Buyer's Remorse, should have stuck with Android
Pros:
- Excellent build quality, industrial design
- Excellent battery life
- Excellent screen
- Good resale value
- Vast selection of apps
Cons:
- Stock keyboard is cumbersome and 3rd party keyboards are similar. Keyboard selection not sensed by all apps.
- Font handling is inconsistent between apps and different areas of the screen
- Relatively high price for the RAM/storage capacity
Background:
Having recently bought a Macbook Pro was enamored with the thought of getting an Apple tablet to replace my aging Nook Color running CM7. I wanted a better screen, better battery life and ability to run modern apps like Netflix.
So I researched a little and settled on the Ipad Mini 2 as the sweet spot for price/performance in the Apple tablet offerings. Not terribly expensive yet offering most of the features of the Ipad range. So I fondled the Ipad Mini 2 at a local Apple store and it seemed great: looked good, seemed responsive
I got what I needed out of it:
- An awesome screen. This thing is beyond HD and it shows - it's crystal clear wonderful to look at
- Great battery life. Over several days of light use, an OS upgrade and many app installs, then leaving it on standby, I was only able to use 25% of battery. I can imagine this thing running for weeks with light use.
- Apps are smooth. It was cool to zoom in on a video and it automatically made it full screen
Some things are definitely well implemented.Annoyances:
- The stock virtual keyboard is in the stone age. The keys are ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME. (Jailbreak hack required to fix)
- A 5th row of all number keys is unavailable without a 3rd party keyboard. Those 3d party keyboards don't offer swype/flow text input.
- Swiftkey, which on Android is awesome, doesn't offer swype/flow input, 5th row numbers or long-hold special characters on the Ipad platform
- Fonts can be scaled on the platform or within some browsers. But the URL/search bar and menus still remain small although the main page is scaled. Weird!
- Some apps don't recognize the installed custom keyboard
- The 'dock' can't be deleted. Apple wants it there for some reason. The only way to reduce the clutter is to Jailbreak and install a transparent dock
- Wallpapers don't scale properly. A 3rd party app is required to fix this.
So, if I had to do it again I'd probably go with a Samsung Tab. My Note3 phone is awesome in all respects. I had iphone 6 envy at first but now see that they also suffer from the same limitations as the ipad.
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