Introducing the New iPad and the iPad Mini

Introducing the iPad Mini

Apple made the official announcement of its latest set of iPads yesterday. Wait did you just say set? As in more than one? That's right, Apple announced two different iPads today. Though it was leaked to just about everyone quite a while ago, some of you may not of the news. So what are the new iPads? Well we've got the iPad 4th generation, and the iPad Mini. But before we talk about what's new with these tablets, let's just consider a few things first.

First off if you feel like it was just yesterday that the 3rd generation iPad- dubbed the "New iPad"- was released, well that's okay because it was. The 3rd generation model came out to most of the world in the latter half of March. And yes I'm talking about March 2012. That means that when the November 2nd release date of the 4th generation model comes around, it will have only just passed the half a year mark since the release date of the 3rd generation model. In the past Apple has usually waited exactly one year between releasing new generations of iPads, but this year they decided "naw we'll just pump another one out".

The problem here too is that millions of people are going to buy this new generation of iPad even though they own the previous generation which came out back in the spring. It never fails to amaze me just how deep people get sucked into massive "brand orientated" companies such as Apple.

Now you might be wondering, "hmm maybe this iPad is loaded with awesome new features that would totally make it worth dropping 500 bucks on ($329 for the iPad Mini)", well I'm sorry to say that you're wrong. Though the new 4th generation model iPad is "better" (and I use the term better lightly) it is definitely not worth the upgrade, cost and other things considered. The iPad Mini is a slightly different story though. Since the Mini is significantly cheaper (though definitely not as advanced) it could appeal to a different market of people looking for an iPad who couldn't afford, or simply didn't want to part with, the expensive price tag that comes with every iPad. This new market consists of people who probably don't have tablets, so for them I say that this isn't as horrible a buy as the 4th generation iPad- but if you are in the market for cheap tablets keep in mind others like the Nexus 7 (Google's tablet running Android) are only $200 and, in my opinion, considerably better.

I think I'll just let the stats talk for themselves. Below are all the important stats for the two new iPads and how the stack up against the previous iPad.