Gaming

so this is the new ipad mini for 2021 it's very small i love the form factor but this videos come from the perspective of someone who's never owned any of the mini ipads before this was the first one that i've ever had in here and it's really small so when i first got in i pulled out of the box i'm like this feels really cool it's neat but is it too small because when it comes to tablets for the stuff that i do small stuff is always cool right but there's this point where you start to lose functionality if it's too small and i was worried that that might be the case with this particular device but the truth is this is my favorite tablet size this is perfect it's ideal for the stuff that i do let's get into it so when they make a device that's small like this they have to make some adjustments and it's kind of tweaks to the form factor like when you have the apple pencil attached magnetically to the device there isn't much more room to the left and right because it's such a small machine that they've had to move the volume adjust buttons to the ends of the ipad instead of it being where they used to be but the overall product is very much just a really small ipad now i want to focus on the screen first this is an 8.3 inch screen it's a bright ips panel it's a good size for content consumption it is however not an oled display nor is it lit by mini leds so it's always going to be a step down compared to like the top end stuff from apple it's a nice looking screen but if you're looking for like the best possible image quality this won't be able to hit that it's also only a 60 hertz display now when i first saw the announcement i was like man i wish they made this 120 hertz display having used this for a bit there's a like the reality is for the stuff that i would ever do on a screen this size there's no reason for this to be 120 hertz display it's just not what i would use this for i'm not playing fast paced shooters on it but i do notice that slower refresh rate like in the ui the animations and particularly with the pen work right if you have the upper pencil 2 and you're using it on the screen for any kind of illustration or coloring or anything to deal with this pen and this screen that interface the latency and the lag the visual lag is noticeable it's very slight but it depends on what you're purchasing this for right if you want to pick up an ipad with the main intent of using it as a you know illustrative tool i would go for a pro model because that 120 hertz does make a difference like the pro motion makes the whole experience smoother and it makes it better the experience is better it's not like you're going to be a worse illustrator because you're using 60hz but the experience of it is less enjoyable now there's also some black bars you'll see on the sides of the screen with certain games that just comes from the aspect ratio of this display uh one other thing about the bezel so when i first saw this in the pictures and when i pulled out of the box the bezel does feel a little bit thicker than i would have liked it i mean obviously they have to keep a good amount of bezel around the device to keep it functional and comfortable to use as a tablet because no bezels makes it a terrible tablet experience but it could have looks nicer it feels shrunken a little bit and still would have been just as functional so speakers they're now stereo left and right while it's in landscape which is really nice they're reasonably loud but if you're playing games if you're watching the device with your hands like holding it your hands kind of cover the speakers a little bit but it's a good speaker experience obviously not as good as the pros or even the ipad air now one thing i thought was kind of neat because the volume button is mounted on the side now and i was concerned like how does the device deal with volume controls when you flip the orientation right but it turns out if it's like it's there's a gyroscope in here so obviously it knows what's up so when it's in this orientation if you press the volume up like the higher button it goes up but if you flip it it's the reverse the buttons automatically reconfigure so that this up now is volume up it's kind of neat so they've thought of that at the very least because otherwise would have been confusing i have actually used a tablet i forget which company was that it didn't do that and it was very disorienting as to like which was up and down okay let's talk about performance the a15 bionic chip is fast like you'd expect it to be right six core cpu five core gpu on the ipad mini it benchmarks well and if you do any kind of photo or video work it's going to perform a lot better on this machine than the previous minis now in terms of games because this doesn't have the 120 hertz promotion panel you're not going to get the best possible ipad gaming experience right you do need to pick a pro device for that this only has the 60 hertz poverty motion for amateurs it's still a really good performer though so in something like gentian impact it plays well but you get the most consistent performance at 30 frames per second you can bump up to 60 and it's smooth sometimes but you start to drop some frames when you get into some graphically intensive areas but the other thing is the form factor because it's a smaller device if you're ever playing a game without a controller just using the screen it's just a nicer device to hold in your hand than a regular big ipad now in terms of the cameras the rear camera has been upgraded this year but now there's a bit of a camera bump it's not the worst thing in the world but camera bumps are still camera bumps but if you do have it in the case that apple sells it's flush with the case but the front-facing camera that's the best stuff man it's got the ultra wide lens with center stage and i love it i'm so glad that apple implemented it into the ipad mini because i feel like in some other alternate universe apple could have just twisted it and made it so you had to get the pro models to be able to get that feature but it's nice it's a fun kind of family face time feature quick note about the battery so they claim it a 10 hour battery my testing got eight eight and a half i don't feel like that's different from any of the other ipads i've used it's always around eight hours there's a usbc port this year for charging and connectivity but it doesn't support thunderbolt and then the sleep wake button supports touch id which is a fast way to get in and out it's very quick like you'd expect now in terms of pricing this starts at 4.99 for a 64 gig model which i think is fair uh it's a hundred dollars more than the mini from the previous generation so it's more expensive obviously you're getting a whole bunch more features i feel like it's fairly priced i i don't love the color selection the starlight color here is uninspiring to me like i feel like it's just not a color for me but they don't have like the more fun vibrant colors like they often do with ipads the other thing those the storage so they have a 64 gig model at the base and then 256 there's no 128 right down the middle i feel like that's the one i would go for personally but if they had a 128 i would go for that but i'm probably just going for a 64. but i feel like they do that split with intent right i feel like most people would actually want 128 instead of a 64. like they'd probably pay for it but that's the ipad mini i think it's a good device if you're eyeing it if you're looking at it uh yeah i like it just make sure that if your purpose of picking this thing up is for drawing you want to like use it for illustration and coloring and just you want to use the pencil a lot i'd go for the pro models like you're just going to get a better overall experience for that kind of stuff but otherwise it's a good one okay hope you guys enjoyed this video thumbs if you liked it subs if you loved it see you guys next time [Music]