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There’s almost no question that the iPad Mini is a terrific device; it’s got too much pedigree and money behind it to be anything else. But barring some sort of miracle from Ive, it’s also certifiably overpriced. And that’s a bad sign for Apple.
At first blush, the iPad Mini has a lot to recommend it relative to the competition. Apple’s managed to put a bigger display on a thinner and lighter device, which—these days, especially—is mobile computing’s endgame. iOS is the most mature tablet ecosystem by a good stretch, which is worth no small something. And it comes in 4G, which much of the 7-inch competition currently lacks.
But look a little closer. With products this small that weight difference amounts to barely noticeable fractions of a pound. At 7.9 inches the iPad Mini is bigger than the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7, but the whole point of a smaller tablet is to be, well, smaller. More portable. Oh, and speaking of that display: the iPad Mini’s has 25% fewer pixels per inch compared to its Amazon and Google competitors. It doesn’t just fall short of retina; it’ll be noticeably worse.
That’s partly because the iPad Mini’s processor is a relatively underpowered dual-core A5, compared to the Fire HD’s 1.2GHz dual-core OMAP and Nexus 7′s quad-core Tegra 3. It just can’t push that many pixels. Along those lines, it’s safe to assume that the Mini has half the RAM of its competitors (although that doesn’t matter much). Remember, too, that Amazon’s got about as strong a garden as Apple’s (and with weaker walls), and Google’s catching up quickly.
All of which means that when you look at the iPad Mini next to the Kindle Fire HD and the Nexus 7, you get the impression that it’s a pretty level playing field. And then you look at the prices.
The 16GB Wi-Fi iPad Mini costs £269, which is a whopping £100 more than the equivalent Kindle Fire HD. That’s a 65 percent premium for a device that’s not decidedly better in any way other than size and apps. It’s only £59 more than the 16GB Nexus 7, but that may be for a limited time; Google’s expected to cut prices drastically next week.
Put it another way: for £229—still £40 less than the 16GB iPad Mini—you can get a bigger, even more pixel-dense 32GB Nook HD Plus. The full US dollar price comparison chart is here, and almost defies belief.
There’s a temptation to say that it’s just Apple charging Apple prices, but that instinct is dated. The real genius of the original iPad wasn’t just that it was first—it was also cheapest. It took competitors a full year to come up with a tablet that could even remotely compete at £400. Ditto the MacBook Air of the last several years; it set a price so low for ultrabook-style computers that Intel had to start a £300 slush fund to help PC manufactures hit that price point. The Apple of the last two years, thanks in large part to its Apple Store retail dominance, has been simply unbeatable. Until now.
Charging so much more for a product that’s not clearly so much better is a major step backwards for Apple, especially given its unfamiliar position in the small tablet space as a follower. You don’t enter an established market—Amazon’s in its second generation of Kindle Fires already, and has millions of loyal customers at its disposal—by asking people to assume your offering is nearly two times better than what they already know to be great.
At best Apple’s iPad Mini pricing is misguided; at worst, it’s arrogant. Most of all, though, it’s surprising, especially given how important smaller tablets are going to be for schools and kids, the trenches in which Amazon and Google are fighting for an entire generation of loyal users.
Is the iPad Mini great? Sure, probably. Will people buy lots and lots of them? Most likely. But they’ll also decide to save themselves £100 more often than not. And, more importantly, they’ll be back on the lookout for the Apple premium of old, the cool tax. There are plenty of things in this world worse than an overpriced gadget. But that doesn’t mean we can’t scratch our heads over Apple’s missed opportunity—and worrisome future.
Again, another article which completely ignores build quality.
It’s funny how build quality and materials used take such prominence in decision making when it comes to choosing, for example, a car, but with handheld devices such as this your articles couldn’t be less interested in how something is actually made. It is after all a very obvious feature and for many consumers it’s a deal breaker/maker when it comes to emotion-led impulse purchasing.
But how do you compare build quality though? And stating what material something is made from doesn’t mean one is better than an other, it’s all down to what you want from a device. With regard to an iPad Mini or other 7-inch tablets, that will be put in a jacket pocket or thrown in a bag, I would prefer a device that looks good but I don’t mind the odd case scratch rather than something that looks great but feels precious.
You don’t replace a car once every year/two year. There fails your comparison.
Some people do replace their cars every year or two. The point is build quality, a VW is more expensive than a comparable Vauxhall, it’s a sensible analogy.
Thanks PIN, the analogy is sound as it’s based primarily on build. It’s also perfectly acceptable for a business user to replace their car every two or three years.
The point is build quality only goes a certain way. To an average user it doesn’t (or rather, it shouldn’t) matter if your device is made of diamonds and can withstand a nuclear blast if you’re going to replace it with an upgrade as soon as your contract runs out, if the price difference is that severe.
Besides, the competition is not as shoddy or plasticky as Apple likes to show, either. The differences are becoming negligible, and it’s pretty much all in the eye of the beholder.
Apple is going back to its old days of ‘make it expensive so it feels better’. That’s a change from a company that had conquered the world with reasonably-priced-but-still-good-quality smarpthones and mp3 players.
In my world I don’t call £264 an impulse purchase!
Many people inhabit many different worlds. My sister would think twice about spending that amount on any device she didn’t need. But, she usually buys four or five bags a year in the £500 price range.
I don’t mind either purchase as I see value in each.
Thank you for pointing out how rich you are.
I should also say that your iPad mini will be worth more than the competition in 12 months time. The extra outlay is often offset this way. For people who live in the real world, this is factored in when deciding which product to purchase.
So that’s two important features that are largely ignored or made to look unimportant; build quality/engineering and resale value.
User experience is of course subjective.
both your arguments are rather flawed. it presumes that the competition’s build quality is significantly worse, which it simply isn’t. if the price difference was only £10 people might be persuaded to spend a little more for some extra bling, but at £100 that simply isn’t a deciding factor for anyone unless you are extremely vain. as for resale value – that is largely determined by demand, and at a significantly higher sales price the secondhand prices will have to fall significantly to compete in a much more competitive market which in this low price range is even less interested in wasting money on the apple tax.
From my experience with owning and selling Apple products, after 2yrs I normally get at least 50% back from the RRP that I initially paid. I would guess (and it is a guess!) that the Kindle and Nexus will get less (but only slightly), so… not enough to warrant the extra expense of buying the iPad mini.
However…Both the Nexus and Kindle have flaws (this is based on reviews, I don’t own them so I don’t have first hand knowledge) and are not built from premium materials, but for the price you can overlook that. Now…let’s assume that the iPad mini works perfectly (as you would expect at this price point) and the build quality/design is fantastic, then next to the Nexus and Kindle there is an argument for the RRP.
As tomlowe80 alludes to below, there is a relative amount of value assigned to an apple product, value that’s made up of premium feel and emotion. Whether it’s significant enough to warrant a purchase is down to the buyer, but most people fine the extra cost perfectly acceptable.
I wouldn’t judge someone negatively for buying one. In the same way I wouldn’t think poorly of someone paying a premium for a very well made pair of shoes.
For me at least, aesthetics matter as much as functionality. I would prefer the things around me to be aesthetically pleasing. I wouldn’t call that vanity.
Well then just say the review was incomplete / poor and perhaps Giz would listen to your feedback, (or should give you a job); but then get over it. Or save your critique for websites that actually state that they pride themselves on the reviews of tech. But Giz is not that site. And the above isn’t even a review for crying out loud. It’s just what it is -pop culture and throw-away blah.
Giz UK is an aggregate blog and encourages open discussion and debate.
Apple hardly have a choice considering what the iPod Touch costs.
Exactly. Give it a year though, and I imagine you’ll see prices fall. I doubt it’ll reach £199 by next year though.
It might well be vastly over priced, but we all know that people will be queuing around teh block for these things come launch day.
Apple just don’t have to try any more, and by the look of thinsg, they aren’t trying too hard either.
Once again though, I’m left frustrated by the premium we have to pay in the UK!
This device costs £206 in the US and surely it can’t cost that much more to ship here from China than it costs to ship to the states!
It should have been £229 – or even imagine the sales it would have had at £199!
I’m in the market for 2 for my kids, but as it stands – I’ll probably end up going for an Android device when their prices fall even further in a week or two!
Don’t forget that the prices that Apple quote are not including Sales Tax in the US, so it’s a bit more than $329 depending on what state you’re buying from (though some online retailers don’t charge the tax for various reasons)
Also don’t forget that we have 20% VAT to contend with as well. If you do the maths it’s not that different in price (approx £246).
Price seems OK to me. It reflects the design and materials as much as the specs. Apple products depreciate less than others, so while you outlay more, you get more back when it’s time to upgrade.
Also, if you’re already in the Apple eco system then you probably already have tons of apps ready to go without additional cost.
It’s a bit tiresome how anti-Apple Giz has become ever since the whole iPhone 4 episode, but anyways… I would have been surprised if Apple would have priced anything competitive with the Nexus 7, which barely breaks even. Apple’s the market leader, offering a great, tablet-customised user experience with thousands of great apps; the Nexus 7 relies on people willing to compromise on their day-to-day experience for the cheaper price. Which is fine. But really these are two very different ideas of how a tablet should work, and I think Apple will again be the winner here.
I too find the prices for electronics here in the UK appalling. For big-ticket items like computers or my camera gear, I have to either fly to the states, or have family pick it up and ship it over here. Especially for Macs and Sony, the prices can be double here!
I did the same with my MPB, and saved a few £100s (that is more than 300). Next purchase will be a nikon DSLR from Japan to save even more. In the days of international travels, why bother with uk rip-off. At the end of the day most warranties are international any way
Em.. aren’t ALL Apple products overpriced? Nothing new here to see..
Yes, because being “overpriced” has hurt Apple so much in the past decade…
Poor article…. The extra 100 pounds is nothing if you think about the support network your buying into. You can’t get a genius with a kindle fire. If apple went any lower with their price, it could have almost made the mini feel a bit worthless, and a bit too inferior to the fourth gen.
Don’t talk about a “worrisome future” either. Apple has just has one of the best quarters of its existence, both in innovation and results. The iPhone 5 is gorgeous, the rMBPs are the best laptops you can buy yet the real gems are the new touch and the new iMac. The past few weeks has taught us Cook can do a fucking good job of running apple and shite articles like this completely miss the bigger picture!
How is this a surprise?
The Nexus and Kindle Fire make little or no money in hardware sales. For them, it’s all about pushing their respective ecosystems into maturity.
Apple’s ecosystem is already mature enough. Aside from that, Apple never sell anything without making a chunky profit. That’s just how they roll. Their business model precludes them from ever competing with the Nexus on price, unless something were to drastically change.
as usual you lost me on the 1st line
“There’s almost no question that the iPad Mini is a terrific device”
really……really!! ok well this obviously isnt going to be a balanced article, i dont hate apple i just really hate Giz’s often gushing coverage of it!