Apple held its autumn new product launch in the early morning of October 17, Beijing time. At this launch, there were two new iPad products, namely, the iPad Air 2, which was constantly surprising, and the iPad mini 3, which lacked "sense of presence". And we also got the first batch of National Bank iPad mini 3. How is this product different from the iPad mini 2? Let's see what wine is in this new bottle:
Packaging and appearance
The external packaging of the iPad mini 3 continues Apple's white paper box style, while the front of the packaging is only the side view of the body, which is more concise than ever. We got the gold iPad mini 3, so the picture on the package is also the gold body.
The logo of the iPad mini is on the side, and the color of the text is consistent with the color of the body.
There are some instructions on the back. The WiFi iPad mini 3 model is A1599.
Open the upper cover of the package to see the front panel of the iPad mini 3. Like previous iPad products, each iPad is protected by a transparent film when it leaves the factory.
The front panel of the golden iPad mini 3 is white. From the front, except for the Home button, it is the same as the iPad mini 2. The screen is still a 7.9-inch 2048 * 1536 resolution IPS screen.
There is a 1.2 megapixel front camera on the top and an optical sensor on the left.
The biggest difference between the iPad mini 3 and the iPad mini 2 in appearance is the home key. The home key of the iPad mini 3 has finally integrated the touch ID fingerprint recognition function, so the home key is also a plane, and the gold body is decorated with a gold ring
Since the iPad mini 3 does not use a full fit screen, the LCD panel is relatively inferior to the iPad Air 2.
The addition of "Tuhaojin" color matching is also a new highlight of the iPad mini 3 compared with the iPad mini 2. In addition to the color, the design of the back cover is completely the same.
Large polished logo on the back.
The rear camera still retains 5 million pixels, and the side still retains the lock key (this key can be removed for the iPad Air 2 due to its thickness).
Sand blasting technology is adopted for large area of the back, and the feel is very delicate. The power key is placed on the top right side of the fuselage.
The side of the frame still has a mirror polished bevel.
There is a 3.5mm headphone connector, microphone and power button on the top.
At the bottom are dual speakers and lighting interfaces. All the designs are copied from the iPad mini 2. The appearance of the iPad mini 3 does not surprise us except for the new color matching.
The second layer of packaging is related accessories and instructions.
The accessories are very simple. There is only one Lightning data cable and power adapter. Since we got the Bank of China, we still have the San Bao certificate and relevant Chinese instructions.
For the power adapter with 10W power, the charging current is 2.1A.
Operation experience
Before the deadline, the iPad mini 3 can be OTA to the latest iOS 8.1 (iOS 8 when it leaves the factory). It is no different from other iPads in function. I believe that users who have used iPads can easily get started.
In the system lock interface, there is a camera shortcut in the lower right corner of the month. Slide right to unlock the tablet.
The main interface of iOS 8.1 is not very different from that of iOS 7, but there are many improvements in functions.
The pull-up bar still has a quick switch, a lever for quickly adjusting the volume and brightness, etc.
System information, we tested a 16G iPad mini 3 with a usable capacity of 11.7G, which has been upgraded to iOS 8.1.
The biggest improvement of the iPad mini 3 over the iPad mini 2 is the addition of Touch ID. Like other devices with Touch ID, we can also unlock the device through fingerprint identification and replace the password of iTunes Store and App Store.
An improvement of iOS 8.1 is the addition of the iCloud picture library, which can upload the contents of the entire library to iCloud, making it easy to view photos and videos on other devices.
Since the resolution of the iPad mini 3 is still 2048 * 1536, there is no problem in application compatibility. The rich application resources in the App Store are believed to meet the needs of various users.
IOS 8.1 adds support for third-party input methods, but for the iPad, the keyboard skin and key layout have not been optimized.
The photographing interface supports fast exposure adjustment, and colleagues support delayed photographing, panoramic and other photographing modes.
As for the photographing effect, we can't ask too much for a tablet, but the iPad mini 3 can definitely cope with daily photographing in good light. The above are some of its photo samples.
performance
After the press conference, the user once asked Apple's online customer service to verify the SoC problem of the iPad mini 3, and the customer service said that the iPad mini 3 uses the A8 processor on the iPhone 6 (the official website information is A7). Does Apple really have such a big "black dragon"?
In addition, the performance of the iPad mini 3 was tested by foreign media, and the result was surprising. It was 30% lower than the iPad mini 2. What is the difference between the same SoC and the iPad mini 3? For the above two questions, we also conducted some tests:
The fact is still cruel. We can clearly see the system information by using Geekbench 3 The iPad mini 3 and iPad mini 2 use the same SoC - Apple A7 1.3GHz, 1G Ram, both of which are completely consistent in hardware. In terms of performance, the one we tested The performance of the iPad mini 3 is almost the same as that of the iPad mini 2, with no 30% difference.
When we look at the system information in GFXBench 3, we can clearly see that it is Apple A7 1.3GHz processor.
In the evaluation of Anthare, the score is also similar to that of the iPad mini 2.
Sunspider 1.0.2， The score is also very consistent with the performance of A7.
In terms of games, as long as some requirements are not too crazy (such as NBA2K15), most games can be won. The introduction of metal technology for A7, A8, and A8X in iOS8 will improve the image quality of the game to some extent.
summary
The iPad mini 3 did not bring us too many surprises through simple hands-on trial. The appearance design, system experience and performance performance are all the same as those of the iPad mini 2. While the price difference of Bank of China is up to 690 yuan, the iPad mini 3 only adds a touch ID that is dispensable for many users, and at the same time, it adds the color matching of "Tuhaojin". In contrast, the iPad mini 2 highlights the high cost performance ratio. The market positioning of the iPad mini 3 is really awkward. On it is the iPad Air 2 with extremely powerful hardware, the iPad Air with larger screen and better color at the same price, and the iPad mini 2 with the same hardware performance at a lower price. Maybe the iPad mini 3 after price reduction this time next year will be more worthy of purchase.
