There are a lot of reports recently suggesting that Apple are ready to phase out the iPad Mini. While I’ve not personally owned one, I think it would be a shame to see it go. Writing on Mashable, Stan Schroeder outlines his appreciation of the Mini:
All the other iPads — the 9.7-inch models and, definitely, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro — basically need to be carried in a laptop bag. They’re great for lugging around the house for a quick read or a YouTube session, but if you want to go outside, they’re as about as practical as your laptop.
1 He continues:
Not so with the iPad mini. It fits in cargo pants pockets. It fits in larger purses (and murses), and (if you’re brave enough to carry one) even an occasional fanny pack. It can be stuffed in pockets of many jackets and coats. It’s small enough for you to casually carry it around in your hands, like you do your phone, as you wait in line at an airport or on your daily commute.
The Mini is the only iPad you can carry around one-handed, and that will fit in a jacket pocket. That makes it the perfect travel companion. The argument that the Mini is too similarly sized to Plus-sized phones is not really a valid reason to lose the Mini. The majority of people don’t want a Plus sized phone, and even if they do, the Mini still offers a better experience for gaming, reading, watching and browsing.
Stan offers some peace of mind that Apple is working on a replacement of sorts:
There’s one great solution to this conundrum. Rumours claim that Apple is working on a 10.5-inch iPad variant that’ll basically be all screen, with significantly smaller bezels than current models. If this is true, and that same bezel-less design later trickles down to the 9.7-inch iPad, that model will effectively become the new iPad mini, as its physical dimensions would be in that same ballpark.
A 9.7 inch bezel-less iPad would be a great modernisation of what the Mini currently is. I hope that’s something that’s in the pipeline in the not too distant future.
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My only issue with the above is the opinion that the 9.7 inch model is about as practical as your laptop when outside. Having travelled with one many times, it’s far more practical than a laptop in terms of size and weight. ↩