iPad vs iPad mini

grizzly1911

mrochester wrote: »

They won't, but buying a product from a company who has a reputation for making excellent products would be a wise move in my books.

Emperors clothes.

It is all a matter of subjective opinion.

RobertoMoir

I've used an ipad, an ipad mini and the nexus 7. And a few others besides.

They're all acceptable devices, as is the Kindle Fire HD if your needs don't go outside its limits. As to which one is "better", this is very subjective. If cost is the major issue then the cheaper one is better. If she has poor eyesight then a larger/higher quality screen may be useful. Besides details like that, its almost impossible to go wrong if you get a "current" tablet from one of the major manufacturers. They're all more than good enough for most people.

Apple and Amazon tend to operate "walled gardens" for their apps, e.g. a closed store where all apps require approval. I think this can be turned off for the kindle but not for the ipad without some hacking. The nexus family of tablets tend to have more openness in how you obtain apps.

The walled garden approach has its pros and cons, as does the open approach, but I'd suggest that if the tablet will mostly be used for one or two well-defined things then this isn't worth geting too worried about either way.

One thing I would say is that if you are already used to one platform and have no experience of any other then it might be worth getting her the one that you're used to using yourself.

If she's very non-technical then having someone around who *is* comfortable with the technology will give her confidence to try things herself safe in the knowledge that you can 'rescue' her.

As for the "ipad mini vs. ipad" thing, I own an ipad2 and I helped my brother set up an ipad mini for my nephew this christmas. Both quality products. I think the ipad mini is a great little device but I didn't get any sudden urges to trade in the ipad2 and buy a mini... but I might feel differently if I had to be out and about with it.

Kite2010

It's probably harder to "jailbreak" a Kindle Fire HD then it is to jailbreak an iPad to remove it from it's walled garden (going by an article in Micro Mart before Christmas)