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Tablet Wars
Despite the obvious cost difference: Nexus 7 or iPad Mini?
From what I have read the Nexus 7 is a bit faster than the iPad mini.
If I'm in the market for a 7 inch tablet - what is the reason to go with the iPad mini?
Aside from owning an Apple IIc in the 80s, my first Apple product is the iPhone 4s which I got 4 months ago so there's no loyalty issue.
We are a tablet free home at the moment and I promised my husband we would get one after the holidays. He's sold on the Nexus but many of our friends tell us the iPad mini is much better for a family tablet?
Priorities are:
- games for a toddler
- speed capability
- ability to watch movies/tv with capable volume
Played: Ultima Online - DaoC - WoW -
Comments
Get the Nexus 7. Not only does it have better hardware than the iPad Mini it also has a better 16:9 screen which is the same format most movies/TV shows you will download so "Full Screen" will actually be full screen. Apple for whatever reason used a much lower quatlity screen in a 4:3 format (The same as old tube TVs) so it's inferior to the newer 7" Android tablets. The Apple drones are eating it up of course but those that are tech savy are going with the newer Android tablets. Get the 32GB version though. It's $249.00 so for 50 extra bucks you get twice the storage space. Hope this helps.
Bren
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I think both products are great. However, for a kid AND adult, I too have to recommend the Nexus 7. I've tried both and even though I loved the iPad Mini, the nexus 7 won out for a few reasons.
For one, I share it, its awesome to have different user accounts. When my niece wants to use it, I just log it into hers and then everything is catered to her. All her games ready for her to access and go.
Second, the bezel around the screen was easier for her little hands to work with. On the iPad Mini she hit the screen to causing unwanted results.
Third, the nexus is quite a bit faster!
Fourth, the screen on the nexus is really nice! Great for movies/tv (I use netflix on it).
Fifth, there are TONS of apps now for android. MANY from iOS are on android now. The Nexus 7 happens to be very compatible with a majority of them too. As for toddler games, again, my niece is very happy with it. The last one we went through together was an interactive pop-up book game based on snow white. If you were worried about apps... well trust me there is ton. From GTA 3 and Vice City, to Final Fantasy/Square Enix games. The devs of Sword and Sworcery even said they wouldn't release their game on android as it wouldn't be right for the game (makes no sense), well they couldn't hold out long, 2 months after that statement and its on android now.
Now I am not a fanboy of either side, I even use a macbook retina (mostly in windows hahah), but I'd deffinitely side with the Asus Nexus 7 in this case.
One thing, sound volume is comparable to the iPad Mini, I liked the quality better on my Nexus (just me), but I still don't find it super loud or anything. If you are in a loud room I'd recommend head phones for either. Oh, and battery, its great too! Any other questions, just ask.
Also, not sure of your requirements, but iTunes on the iPad Mini is handy for some. Google does much of the same now through Google Play (not for me in Canada though), and Amazon as well (again, not for in Canada though). For me, its a non-issue. If I really wanted to take something over that bad I'd just convert it.
The biggest benefit of the iPad mini is pretty much only if you are already invested in the Apple ecosystem.
I wouldn't recommend a Mini to anyone - it just isn't really worth it - the hardware is inferior for the price - coming from a household that owns 2 iPads, 3 Macs, and 2 iPhones.
The iPad with Retina display, on the other hand, is nice, but it doesn't sound like it's in the category you are shopping for in the first place.
Regardless, apps you have bought for your iPhone transfer over to either iPad for the most part - all your Apple devices are keyed in on your Apple iTunes account. So if you had a lot of apps on your phone, it may be worthwhile to stay inside the Apple garden - but that would really be the biggest reason to consider an iPad Mini. There's also the size of the App Market - iOS has hundreds of thousands of apps - most of them probably junk. But it's an order of magnitude larger than the Android Marketplace, and is not fragmented like the Android Marketplace is (yup - the same argument Microsoft lovers used to use against getting a Mac - there's more software). Apple's walled garden is a bit better manicured - not perfect by anymeans, but far less malware/spyware/viruses than the Android side - but most of that can be mitigated via common sense anyway.
Speed - not really a huge consideration in a tablet I've found. My original iPad, with it's old pokey A4 processor and non-Retina display, still gets a lot of use and is still plenty fast enough for everything that runs on it, it just can't run iOS6 or anything that requires a camera.
If your new to both, and want a 7" tablet - Probably the Nexus. Apple only has a 7" tablet to say they have one. If you just want a tablet period, iPad all the way.
What tablet you should get depends tremendously on what you want to do with it. There isn't a standard "this is what tablets are for" usage model.
If you're looking for performance, then the Google Nexus 10 (not Nexus 7) and iPad 4 (not mini!) are the only tablets on the market I'm aware of with the new generation of processors--and the new generation may well double the per-core performance of the old. The only ones that support modern graphics are a couple of aging AMD-based tablets that run Windows 7 and are probably discontinued, and a few AMD Z-60-based tablets that run Windows 8 and may or may not be out yet.
In coming months, we'll see a ton of tablets that offer both. Nvidia Tegra 4 is rumored to debut as soon as CES (January), though even if that's correct, I have no idea when products using it will actually come to market. AMD Temash is scheduled to arrive around the middle of 2013. Tablets with ARM Cortex A15 cores paired with PowerVR Rogue graphics should be nice, but I have no idea when they'll show up.
If you want a Windows 8 tablet that is any good, you'll have to wait at least for AMD Temash, and that's mid-2013. There will probably be a number of good Android tablets out before that.
If you want a 7" form factor as opposed to the more common ~10", then I don't know how quickly the new hardware will filter down to there. Smaller form factors generally mean you can't fit as much stuff, but if the tablet is based on an SoC that has enough functions in a single chip, I'm not sure how much of a problem that is. You can certainly bring power requirements down by using a dual core processor rather than quad core, and fewer shaders and what not in the GPU.