iPad Mini vs Nexus 7: Who will be the king of 7 inch tablets?

iPad mini VS Nexus 7

Apple's iPad series rule the big screen tablet market for a long time. However, they had no products for small (7'') tablet market until the appearance of iPad mini. The iPad mini was introduce to the geeks two days ago. This device has a 7.9'' display, much lighter and thinner than the full-sized tablet.

Nexus 7 and iPad mini

We all know the mission of iPad mini: To grad the market share from Google's Nexus 7. Among these two tablets, which one is better? Now let's have a comparison.

Name	Apple’s iPad mini	Google Nexus 7
Display size	7.9 inches	7.0 inches
Display resolution	1024 x 768 pixels 163 ppi	1280 x 800 pixels 216 ppi
Dimensions	200 x 134.7 x 7.2 mm	198.5 x 120 x 10.45 mm
Weight	308g (Wi-Fi version) 312g (Wi-Fi + Cellular version)	340 g
OS	apple iOS	Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
Processor	1 GHz Dual-core A5	1.3 GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 Quad-Core
Memory	16GB/32GB/64GB	16GB/32GB
WiFi	802.11a/b/g/n	802.11b/g/n
Bluetooth	Support	Support
NFC	None	Android Beam
Camera	5.0MP rear camera 1.2MP front FaceTime Camera	1.2MP front camera
Battery	Up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video, or listening to music Up to 9 hours of surfing the web using cellular data network (Wi-Fi + Cellular version)	Up to 10 hours for reading/10hours of e-reading
Price	$329 for 16GB (Wi-Fi version) $429 for 32GB (Wi-Fi version) $529 for 64GB (Wi-Fi version) Add $130 for versions with cellular capability.	$199 for 16GB $249 for 32GB Since October 29
Status	Accept pre-order now. Available in November 2012	Available since July 2012

Dimensions
As a mini version of full-sized iPad, the iPad mini is 23% thinner and 53% lighter and its elder brothers.Now it's even 3mm thinner and about 30 grams lighter than Nexus 7. All hail the magical apple!

Display & resolution
The iPad mini comes with a 7.9'' display with 1024×768 pixels resolution and 163 ppi. Unlike iPhone 5 and new iPad 4, iPad mini is not equipped with Retina display. 
As to the Nexus 7, it has a 7.0'' HD display with 1280×800 pixels resolution and 216 ppi. It seems Nexus 7 has better visual quality than iPad mini.

OS & Processor
Both tablets use their home-made OS: iOS from apple and Android from Google. For the chips, iPad mini has a dual-core A5 processor clocked at 1 GHz. 
The Nexus 7 has a 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 Quad-Core CPU, which includes a 12-core Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). So the Nexus 7 is ahead of the iPad mini on processing speed issues.

Camera
As a tablet for entertainment, the iPad mini has 2 cameras: a 5.0 MP rear iSight camera with autofocus, a 1.2 MP FaceTime HD camera which supports 720p HD video recording. As to the Nexus 7, it only comes up with a 1.2 MP front camera.

Wireless
Both devices supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Some models of iPad mini support 4G LTE. The Nexus 7 has NEC function called "Android Beam", can be used for file sharing between 2 Android 4.0 devices.

Price
There are 6 models of iPad mini in different storage and network functions. The enter-level one with 8GB storage and Wi-Fi is priced at $329. The high-end version with 64GB storage, Wi-Fi and Cellular could reach $659. That is super expensive.

As to the Nexus 7, it's much more cheaper. Currently there are 2 versions of Nexus 7: $199 for 8GB and $249 for 16GB. According to the report from The Verge, Google is going to launch a 32GB version of Nexus 7 on Oct 29. The price list of the Nexus tablets would be adjusted as: $199 for 16GB and $249 for 32GB, the 8GB version may no longer be available. Nexus 7 is more reasonable and budget tablet.


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