Apple IPad Mini MD528LL/A (16GB, Wi-Fi, Black & Slate)

The product itself is fantastic and my stars are based on the product being a great deal and a great device.

But for anyone thinking of buying from Amazon, be warned. I purchased one of these for someone on her birthday and it was listed as new. Amazon seems to only sell iPad minis from third party sellers, not from Amazon. com itself, meaning another company gets the iPads from any source they want, sends them to Amazon, and Amazon ships them. One of these sellers listed an iPad mini slightly above retail price, but cheaper than all of the other iPad minis on Amazon. In fact, when I searched for iPad mini, it was the seller and product page the site automatically directed me to. The page indicated it as new, and sold it to me via Amazon. When my friend got her iPad mini, it looked new, was packaged and sealed like new, but when she turned it on, it was tied to someone else's icloud account. I called apple and gave them the serial number. Sure enough, the item was used, only had about 60 days left in the warranty (instead of 90) and was registered through Apple to a different customer. If I wanted a used iPad Mini, I would have paid less. Much less.

I even emailed the user who had previously owned it (since her email address via iCloud was showing up when my friend tried to access the app store. I emailed the previous user just to make sure it wasn't a stolen product.

Review about Apple iPad Mini MD528LL/A (16GB, Wi-Fi, Black & Slate)

First off, I'm not going to rip this thing apart. I feel the Mini is an absolutely wonderful form-factor, and I recommend it -- just not yet.

The good:

The size of the mini is just short of an inch wider than your typical competitor. You might not think this is much, but seriously, it is. I absolutely love this aspect of it. In addition, the Mini is just wonderfully light and easy to hold (I have big hands, though).

As much as people rip on the screen, it is comfortably bright, and the battery life seems to last quite well, even if brightened up a bit. No complaints there.

The bad:

That same screen, as others have said, suffers from its low resolution. Had this tablet come out a year ago, it would have been earth-shattering. Now, when other offerings from Android are coming out with far better resolutions, it's just meh (the Apple Mini's contrast and color are still superior to the Nexus 7 by far, though). If you are someone coming from an I-pad 2, you won't care about the resolution so much. For everyone else who is used to I-phones with substantially smaller, yet sharper resolutions, you will notice the difference.

Also, and this is a big one for me, I have found that the I-pad Mini is slow to buffer YouTube videos. .

Features:

• 7.9-inch LED-backlit Multi-Touch Display; 1024-by-768 Resolution
• Apple iOS 6; Dual-Core A5 Chip
• 5 MP iSight Camera; 1080p HD Video Recording
• Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n); 16 GB Capacity
• Up to 10 Hours of Battery Life; 0.68 lbs

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