I hope they don't. The 4:3 mimics the size of paper "Letter" perfectly (which imo, is much superior to A4, eventhough I know Malaysia uses that size). I've tried some of the other 16:9 Android tablets, and this is just a personal preference, they were awkward to hold and use vertically (and one of the main advantage of the iPad for my daily usage is its vertical space.)

Not that I'm in the market for an iPad Mini, but I really hope the iPad line doesn't follow suit with the elongated iPhone 5-ish size.

Had that been the cellular version (with the added cost of that), I would've jumped on the deal for sure. Too bad it wasn't. Looking to get a Mini before my trip on Friday, but the markup on these devices in Garage Sales is ridiculous. So much more than the markup on iPhone 5 even.

I meant the added cost of cellular. For what it is, I think it's a steal at this price -- comparable to the price once the Mini is launched in Malaysia. Whoever that is looking for a WiFi version should totally snag that deal.

Isn't that what I actually said? That it would be comparable to the launch price of the exact unit (32gb WiFi) in Malaysia? I don't see any contradiction.

Plus, you would probably get it slightly sooner than launch unit. It's a steal cause you don't have to pay the "early adopter premium" compared to what you would pay for a unit in Garage Sales just to get it now.

This post has been edited by dawn152: Dec 4 2012, 05:58 PM

Lol, it is open at 6am?

As luck would have it, I'm leaving on Friday and would not be able to get in on the festivities. I wonder if all stock would be gone by the time I came back on Monday? That is if it did come out this Friday and not later.

This post has been edited by dawn152: Dec 5 2012, 12:22 PM

Thanks for the info, bro. Finally a date. Might drop by later to pre-order mine.

(Wonder if all Harvey Normans are taking pre-orders? There's one closer to my house. )

This post has been edited by dawn152: Dec 6 2012, 09:01 AM

It has a higher pixel density because of the smaller display, and hence should look better than iPad 2.

So, I just dropped by Harvey Norman IPC during my lunch hour. Talked to a guy about pre-ordering the Mini, and he handed me a piece of paper to put my contact info on there. There was already quite a list of people.
Man, you guys are fast!

Did you just go just now? Or did you just call?

I suggest you call them up first before going. It seems like the stock is either coming in later tonight or tomorrow or during the weekend, and the guy that I talked to made a passing remark that the first few batches would be wifi only version.

Damn, my flight is leaving tomorrow at 10.50am. Wonder if sempat to check around a few places to get the Mini so I can take it with me on my trip? Bad timing to take a holiday, lol.

This post has been edited by dawn152: Dec 6 2012, 04:33 PM

Yeah, some idea on which specific stores would be great. Most Machines and MacStudio stores are already closed before midnight, so I'm not sure which ones would still be open.

Also, @Wounded so sorry about your mom.

This post has been edited by dawn152: Dec 6 2012, 04:42 PM

Lmao. If only there's an Apple vending machine.

Anyways, I guess I could wait until I return from my trip, though it would be pretty sweet if I could bring it along. :Patience:

Different people, different needs, right? If you're confident with your decision, there's no need for any justification. Buy the things that would best suit you, and not what would suit others.

Anyways, allegedly all stock for launch tomorrow are for the 16gb wifi version. Cellular would be next week.

To be honest, I don't think any retail outlets are going to sell at midnight. Most of them that I've talked to gave no indication that they have stock, and all are just waiting around.

Unless Digi's midnight announcement includes the iPad Mini, we're better off going to sleep and waiting till morning.

(Also, I'm imagining a cargo full of iPad Mini docking at Port Klang tonight with all resellers at bay, ready to pounce and battle it out for stock -- "Hunger Games" style. Don't be alerted if you received a bloodied sealed iPad Mini tomorrow, lol. )

This post has been edited by dawn152: Dec 6 2012, 09:33 PM

Aww, everyone's enjoying their Mini.

Based on the info I got from Harvey Norman, it would be awhile before the cellular version will be available. I suggest anyone who's thinking of getting one, they should do it through the Apple store.

I called them and they only have 1 64gb WiFi. Not sure what color.

Yeah, super long queue at MidValley. For those who doesn't need cellular, All-It Hypermarket and the apple reseller at PJ Digital Mall have lots of stock for Wifi. All black.


This post has been edited by dawn152: Dec 15 2012, 02:13 PM

I've had my Mini since Saturday, after queueing for almost two hours at Machines MidValley.

For the past year or so, I’ve been using my iPad exclusively as a laptop replacement and it has become indispensible to my productive workflow — with one caveat, I still need to have a desktop machine to do anything and everything else I can't do/ do it comfortably on the iPad — namely video editing, photo editing and storage, AND I have to permanently carry a bluetooth keyboard with it. The Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover served this purpose extremely well — both functionally and aesthetically. However one day it occured to me that I would be better served with a Macbook Air considering the amount of typing/ work I do on a keyboard. So I traded in my beloved iPad 3 with a Macbook Air 11”, and have never looked back since.

There are however, gaps in functionality that is missing with that decision, and I had hope to rectify that by supplementing my workflow with the iPad Mini. So after using my iPad Mini (32gb cellular White) for almost two full days now, these are my impressions (I've presented these in the context of what I use the iPad most for, which might differ from yours) :

PDF Reader
I deal with PDFs a lot, both professionally and personally. The iPad is bar none the best PDF reading device in the market. I would buy the iPad solely for this reason alone, but the fact that it can do everything else is wonderful. I store all my PDFs in my Dropbox account on my Mac (which are backed up to the cloud) and set up my PDF reader of choice (PDFExpert) to sync to that particular folder. All notes and annotations are synced automatically as well.

I have not been missing the Retina display at all. Perhaps because I’ve had time to acclimate my viewing to a non-Retina display due to my Macbook Air, but words on PDFs are more than readable. Perhaps they don’t pop quite as much, but the fact that I haven’t been missing it means that Retina is not a necessity for the Mini to be useful.

**Quick tip : switching to night mode/ or a black background with white texts help the texts pop more.

Books
I do a lot of reading on the iPad as I’ve switched exclusively to digital books a year before the first Kindle, and have found that as with PDF files, or any text files in general, that 4:3 ratio of the iPad and also the iPad Mini, is a killer feature. It mimics the size of paper almost indistinguishably. I’ve found previously that I prefer to read non-fictions, or normally textbook-sized books on the iPad, and leave novels or fiction books reading on my Kindle because I could hold it like a book, while all my previous reading on the iPad I usually use a stand or prop it up on a table, like one would do to read a textbook or hardcovers, due to it being bigger and heavier.

However, with this smaller size and lighter weight, I could do both things rather comfortably. The innovation in the iPad Mini is the size and weight. If you’re a big reader like me, I think the Mini is the way to go, even with the seductive appeal of Retina.

**Quick tip — if you read a lot more on the iPad than you watch movies, white is the way to go. It organically extends the margins of a page, so you wouldn’t feel like it’s super cramped and helps with the immersion when you read. This also applies to webpages, so if you surf a lot, I feel you are best served with the white Mini.

Comics
I think it’s quite apparent right now that I am a geeky person, hence it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m an avid comic/ graphic novel reader. I was skeptical at first in regards to how the Mini would handle comics. I did feel like it would be too small, and that I wouldn’t be able to read thought/dialogue bubbles clearly. All doubts diminished once I tried it. Everything is clear and readable. It’s really the genius of that 4:3 ratio and 7.9” size (instead of a true 7”) is that you get a lot more screen (looking at you Nexus 7), and a lot less bezel (looking at you Kindle Fire).

I think it’s a fair conclusion at this point that whatever you want to read, the iPad Mini can more than comfortably serve your needs. (Instapaper and the Mini, especially, is quite the magical duo.)

Everything else
For ubiquitous capture and adding to-dos and drafting ideas, I use a combination of Omnifocus and Notesy (all respectively synced across my Mac devices and backed up to the web). All actions are quick and snappy on the Mini. The Omnifocus app on the iPad is particularly pretty, and I’ve found I prefer to do weekly reviews on it despite having the app on both my iPhone and Mac machines. (Any GTD geeks here?)

For writing (which I’ve been doing less of on the iPad since I have the MBA) and handling of plaintext files, I use a combination of Elements and Nebulous Notes. Both support Markdown, Dropbox syncing and TextExpander, which are tools I can’t live without. The iPad Mini handles this flawlessly. All my plaintext files are later exported to PDFs, or .doc files, or htmls, or whatever is required of them (which is the genius of creating your files in plaintext.)

**A quick note about annotating PDFs — since I prefer to read PDF files on the iPad, but prefer to type on my Macbook Air (and I don’t want to carry another bluetooth keyboard), I’ve installed this software called Type2Phone, which lets you use your Mac’s keyboard to enter text on your iPad or iPhone. I’ve used it to type annotations and long notes on the iPad, and reply to text messages on my iPhone while I’m working, all without leaving my MBA’s keyboard. It’s magical, seriously.

For drawing and nonsensical doodling, I use Paper and Penultimate. Even with the smaller screen, everything works well. The space is adequate, for both finger and stylus use.

For videos (which I use rather sparingly), I use Plex for streaming off content from my media server at home, McTube Pro for Youtube videos, Puffin Web Browser to handle flash video content and Azul Media Player for local video storage and player. Playback of a 720p video file on Azul was smooth, so I think it can handle high-def content rather comfortably, either locally or on the web. Outputting to an external monitor, however, is a different case, since even my iPad 3 struggled with that. My way around this was to airplay the video within the Plex app through Apple TV to my monitor in my bedroom. All the encoding etc. is done on my media server instead of on the iPad Mini. I haven’t had time to experiment much on this front, so perhaps others that have can chip in.

I don’t do any gaming on the iPad, so I couldn’t add to that. For maps and GPS, I mainly use Waze.

Why did I get the cellular version? One, because a lot of my workflow depends heavily on all my data being synced across all devices, at all times. Two, I deal with sensitive data a lot, so I prefer not to use open WiFi for that. Thirdly, the battery lasts longer than my iPhone, so I prefer to use it as a hotspot for my MBA. Fourth, full GPS functionality, which I don’t use a lot, but it’s handy to have. If any of that sounds like something you’d want, the cellular version is worth the few hundred ringgits.

I only use it with an Apple Smart Cover, and a screen protector. Nothing else.

In summary, not only does the iPad Mini able to replace all functionalities of the bigger iPad, it has the added benefit of being smaller and lighter without compromising its purpose in my tech toolbelt. Yes, it would be nice to have a retina display, and it would be nice to have a faster processor. All in due time, I think.

This post has been edited by dawn152: Dec 18 2012, 02:28 PM

Glad you guys enjoyed the write-up and found it useful.

Assuming you're like me and that most of your PDF files come in the standard font size 12, I would say it's readable for me. However, there's a neat feature in PDFExpert, which is my recommended PDF app, called "Crop Mode" where you can actually zoom in on a document until a fixed point, and then you can just flip through the file without having to zoom out again. Seeing as most documents have white, blank spaces by the border, it's a good way to get rid of all that, zoom all the way in until the screen displays nothing but text and let your iPad Mini act as the border for your document. This is where having the white version comes in handy again. Seeing as texts are vector-based, it wouldn't really affect the sharpness of your PDF, unless it's a scanned copy of a document or a low-res snapshot of the original digital file.