300 Days with the iPad Mini ⇥ splatf.com

Interesting observation from Dan Frommer:

The major difference between the iPad mini and my original iPad, purchased in 2010: I’m still actually using this one every day, almost a year after I bought it.

I shied away from buying an iPad Mini and stuck with my (heavier, bigger) third-generation iPad for two main reasons:

1. The Mini doesn’t have a retina display. While this doesn’t seem to be an issue for most people (judging by the number of iPad Minis sold since its launch), it is for me.
2. The iPad Mini is significantly lacking in RAM. I mention this because Frommer cites web browsing as something he does a lot on his Mini:

On an average, everyday basis, almost everything I do on the iPad mini is in two apps: Safari and Twitter. […] What does this all mean? Is iPad web browsing just really good? Sometimes. Other times, frustrating.

For me, it’s simply frustrating on the iPad 2 (and, by extension, iPad Mini). The amount of RAM in those iPad models is so piddly that just a few Javascript-heavy pages — of which there are many these days — result in an inability to switch between open tabs in Safari without causing a page reload.

Happily, the fix for this is coming in two different ways this autumn.