Hands On
Peter Moon
In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Santa’s elves, most of whom are contracted out to Apple, Amazon, Sony and Nintendo these days, are rolling out perfect gifts for every good boy, girl and chief executive just in time for Yuletide.
We took a look at Apple’s new iPad Mini and Amazon’s latest Kindle Paperwhite e-reader this week, and they’re both welcome in our stocking.
At the risk of being unseasonally churlish, it could be said that both these models correct design defects in their predecessors.
The original Mini was a sensational pocket-sized tablet let down by its low resolution display. Alongside the early full-sized iPads it looked fine, but Apple had already released the new iPad with its gorgeous Retina display, so the Mini with its relatively grainy graphics were painful to work with.
The 2013 Mini scores a 7.9-inch Retina panel and looks a million dollars, which is, unfortunately, approximately what Apple wants to charge for it.
Sporting the new A7 chip with the same 64-bit architecture as a desktop Mac, it runs fast and smooth, handling video playback and intensive tasks like gaming and video editing with ease. Anything the new iPad Air does, it can do smaller, weighing in at a tiny 341 grams for the cellular-enabled model.
High-res screen is point of upgrade
But the high resolution screen is the real point of this upgrade. Because of it, the Mini is a feasible business computer. Teamed with a Bluetooth keyboard, it’s possible to employ it as a word processor. In fact in some scenarios, such as an aircraft tray table, it is ideal for the task.
If you want to travel as light as possible but still be able to work at a pinch, this is the solution.
Apple hasn’t shown much Christmas spirit with its pricing. If you want cellular data access and a modest 32GB solid state storage drive, prepare to part with $ 749. For the flagship 128GB model, the swing tag says $ 949.
In both cases that’s only $ 100 less than the full-sized iPad Air. That’s the buyer’s conundrum. The Mini is beautifully mini, but you really need to value that one virtue to justify investing in it instead of its bigger sibling.
But if money is no object, buy both. You’ll find yourself picking up the Mini far more often when you want to read a book or check the television guide.
The one time you won’t want either Apple device is in bright light. Their shiny, glassy displays reflect far too much to be usable outdoors, unless it’s cloudy or you can find good cover. That’s where you need a dedicated e-reader like Kindle, usable in the brightest sunlight.
Make sure you’re getting the 2013 Paperwhite
Last year saw the first edition of Amazon’s Paperwhite, touted as a revolution in e-reading. The touch screen was said to be whiter than ever before, the text contrast sharper, and patented screen lighting technology enabled reading in any conditions, from bright to pitch dark, without external lighting.
It is indeed a fine reader but the company overhyped it. In particular, the filaments that light the screen from bottom upwards cause a noticeable flaring at the foot of each page. Frankly, it doesn’t worry us and we have found the original Paperwhite a pleasure to use.
But optics are a very personal business and many buyers were bitterly disappointed.
After all, if you’re going to give an e-reader a name like Paperwhite, you’re setting expectations pretty high.
This month’s upgrade almost entirely solves the flaring problem and also delivers a noticeably whiter e-page with even sharper contrast. Had this been last year’s release, it would have garnered universal acclaim. The reading software has been improved, too. It now allows easy fast scanning forwards and back within a book, for lack of which earlier Kindles have been unnecessarily awkward to use.
If you have an avid reader on your Christmas list, this is a perfect gift, but be careful to hunt down the new Paperwhite, not the 2012 release. In the past, some Australian retailers have sold off stocks of older models to unsuspecting buyers who were unaware a better deal was already on offer elsewhere. We imported ours from Amazon to be sure.
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Peter Moon is a technology lawyer at Cooper Mills Lawyers. peter.moon @ coopermills.com.au
The Australian Financial Review
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