Today, October 23, 2012, Apple has announced the iPad mini at a special event in San Jose. If you are tech savvy enough, you should know that a smaller version of the iPad is imminent because there is a demand for small-sized tablets.
As an entrepreneur or small business owner, what are the new features that are appealing? Is it worth the price? Should you be getting one?
In this special blog post, we will answer all the questions above and hopefully, you will be able to decide for yourself whether the iPad mini is going to be a good buy.
Easy to Carry Around
The 7.9-inch iPad mini will be so much easier to carry around because it is smaller, thinner and lighter. As you can see from the image above, you can hold it with just one hand. That’s how small it is.
Getting Mini Things Done
Despite the small size, the device has the same amount of resolution as its predecessor, the 9.7-inch iPad. It also comes with a dual-core Apple A5 processor. This means that you will get the same experience across all of the existing iPad apps.
For business owners and entrepreneurs, as the device is highly portable, you can basically get tasks like emails, web browsing, news reading and even minor document editing done wherever you are.
Great Reading Device
Reading books and constantly learning new knowledge is key for an entrepreneur and small business owner as it widens our perspective. The new iPad mini comes with iBooks. This app allows you to buy books via iBookstore and to do some reading while you are commuting to the office, before going to bed or while having your breakfast.
Useful features of iBooks include the ability to highlight and take notes, sharing a passage via email, Facebook or Twitter, multiple reading themes and VoiceOver, which is a feature that lets the iPad mini read your books to you.
High Speed LTE Connection
Fast Internet connection is becoming a need for many business owners as our reliance on the Internet grows by the day. Many mobile apps today require a fast data connection as well to serve the best experience. The iPad mini offers high speed LTE connection that is going to provide an optimal web browsing and app usage experience.
If you are constantly out of the office or working with a virtual team, a fast LTE connection will allow you to participate in business meetings and conference calls anytime and anywhere you want.
Optimized App Experience
Phil Schiller, Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing at Apple, did a comparison of apps running on the iPad mini and the Google Nexus 7 (a 7-inch tablet running on Android) during his keynote.
The results are clear. Most of the apps on the Android ecosystem are basically scaled up from the versions made for mobile phones. On the iOS app ecosystem, however, apps are optimized to deliver the best user experience on a tablet.
10 Hours of Battery Life
As entrepreneurs and business owners, we want a device with a battery life that is able to last throughout most of our working hours. It is a pain if a tablet is running low on battery when we need them the most.
Apple claimed that the iPad mini comes with a 10-hour battery life, which is good for many of us. Of course, this may differ according to our usage pattern.
The Cheapest iPad in the Market
What about the price? Although the price is slightly higher than many tablets with similar sizes such as the Google Nexus 7 and the others offered by lesser known brands, it is the cheapest tablet from Apple to date.
The price of the 16GB Wi-Fi model is $329. The price of the 32GB and 64GB variant is $429 and $529 respectively. The version that comes with LTE is priced at $459 for 16GB, $559 for 32GB and $659 for 64GB.
Android OS Alternatives for the iPad mini
If you are just not that into the iPad mini, here are some alternative tablets that are running the Android operating system from Google:
Will You Buy an iPad mini?
What do you think about the brand new Apple iPad mini? Do you think that it will become an essential device if you go out and get one? How do you plan to use it as an entrepreneur or business owner?
Share with us what you think in the comment section below.
About the Author, Wayne Liew
Wayne is the Founder of Sprout Geek, an online publication with insights, tips and tricks covering all startup and small business aspects, for entrepreneurs and business owners. Connect with Wayne on Google+, Linkedin or Twitter today.
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Great review, Wayne. There are an ever increasing number of mobile devices on the market, all hugely useful to entrepreneurs and small business owners…not to mention, more specifically to bloggers and social media professionals. I wrote a post on Nexus 7 and its possibilities for mobile blogging inspired by my friend business blogger Jim Connolly. Thanks for sharing!
Yup, it’s exciting to see all these devices coming up. I really like Google Nexus 7 a lot too because it comes with a quad core processor and the high resolution as compared to the Apple iPad mini but the thing is, unlike iTunes, the books, songs and movies sections of Google Play is not available in Malaysia yet. This is really a killer for a tablet since it’s going to be primarily a device to consume content.
Hmmmm…tempted and definitely one of my buying list for Christmas!
Btw, any idea when will it be available in Singapore?
Wow… Awesome! It will definitely be before Christmas for Singapore. I saw it in the list of the first few countries to get it. Singtel and StarHub is on the list of telcos that they are working with right now (for LTE I guess).
Over here, we don’t even have the official iPhone 5 yet.
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