If money is no bar, then you can go for Apple’s iPad mini with Retina Display since it is the best compact tablet available in the market today. It incorporates the best design, best battery life, finest display and best tablet app ecosystem as also the fastest mobile CPU as offered by the manufacturers now. But of course, it’s a bit pricey, too.

Best Design

Although it retains the same design as its earlier version, even then, no tablet can match its flashiness and appeal. Same is true about its one handed usage, especially when compared to the larger iPad Air. In short, all the design perceptiveness that makes Apple products go one step ahead of the others are present in the iPad mini with Retina Display. Perhaps it is the beveled edges, the brushed aluminum back or the slender margins on the side of the screen that makes this tablet scream class.

Even if you judge it by way of dimensions (with other similar size products of its class), the iPad mini with Retina Display will fare favorably. It just weighs 341 grams, as against its principal Android rival Nexus 7(299 grams) and is 7.5 mm thin, as compared to its rival which is thicker at 8.7 mm.But the best part of it entails its ergonomic design that makes it easy to hold in one hand and so easy to carry around. Moreover, it fits comfortably in your coat pocket and of course is more portable than most tablets.

Display

Even though the iPad mini shares the same Retina Display feature with iPad Air, Apple has managed the massive feat of cramming all that 2.048 x 1,536 pixels in the smaller 7.9- inch screen. This makes it the most pixel dense tablet screen in the world.  Apple has also managed to pack 323 pixels per inch.

However, the biggest advantage of the new display becomes apparent while editing photos or reading text. Previously, the iPad mini would reproduce text that had jagged edges and appeared to be pixilated. The same cannot be said about the iPad mini with Retina Display. Here everything just looks sharp. It’s simply fascinating.

Camera

The iPad mini with Retina Display features the same 5-megapixel iSight camera we have seen before on the iPad Air. Likewise, this is a fabulous shooter for a tablet. Also, it is perfect for taking videos so that one can edit them on iMovie or capture great shots. The color reproduction is natural and the detail the camera provides is very good for a tablet. To be precise, one would be hard pressed to find such a good camera on an Android Smartphone.

Even in dimly lit situations, the camera works wonderfully well. However, it’s capabilities are somewhat limited because there’s no flash facility, but that should not be a deal breaker, especially for a tablet.. If one compares it to the Nexus 7 (2013), then it must be said that the iPad mini with Retina Display has a better camera.The 1.2-megapixel front facing camera is also a decent piece of kit. Apple has widened the aperture so that it provides more clarity while one makes FaceTime calls or when one is attempting a selfy using Photo Booth. It’s a marked improvement over the previous model and better than the likes of the Nexus 7.

Software

Not unlike most iOS based devices, the iPad mini with Retina Display now runs iOS 7 that helps it solving many multi-tasking jobs in comparative ease and clarity.