Apple iPad mini with Retina Display: Reviewed
I suppose there's only one way to start this review, and that's by looking back at last year's iPad mini review. In that review I had a section dedicated to the possibility of an iPad mini with Retina Display.
Context & Ripple Effects
The 2012 iPad mini launched with a non-Retina panel that became its most-criticized attribute: DisplayMate ran a dedicated display technology shoot-out against larger iPads within days of launch, and TechCrunch put the screen under the microscope, finding it well short of the iPad 4th gen though ahead of the iPad 2. AnandTech's own 2012 iPad mini review devoted a section to the prospect of a Retina Display model, treating the upgraded panel less as a question of if than when.
A year later, that predicted product has arrived and is being reviewed across a wide bench of outlets — AnandTech, Engadget, Ars Technica, PC Magazine, Daring Fireball, SlashGear and others all weighed in around November 16, 2013 — while MacRumors' companion report that some Retina iPad minis exhibit image retention shows the new panel is drawing scrutiny of its own.
First-order effects
- Buyers choosing between last year's discounted original mini and the new Retina model now get the sharper panel at the mini's size, removing the main reason reviewers steered people toward the full-sized iPad.
- Early purchasers face a quality-control wrinkle: some units reportedly show image retention, giving return-and-replacement traffic to Apple retail in the launch window.
Second-order effects
- Display quality stops functioning as the standard knock against the mini in comparison reviews, forcing reviewers and rival vendors to compete instead on price, weight, and performance-per-dollar.
- Apple's supplier base absorbs the cost of fitting a high-pixel-density panel into a smaller, cheaper chassis, pressuring the bill-of-materials margin that made the first mini profitable.
Third-order effects
- With both iPad sizes on Retina-class panels, the spec distinction between small and large tablets narrows to screen inches alone, raising the structural question of whether the mini remains a separate product line or a size variant of one platform.
The trend: Late 2013 marks the point where high-pixel-density Retina-class displays stopped being a premium-tier differentiator and became table stakes across an entire tablet line.