While we will soon have the hands on review of the latest Apple iPad Mini soon on the blog, we thought it will be of great help to showcase the exact (yet subtle) differences in specifications of Apple iPad Mini, Amazon Kindle Fire HD and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 P3100; that help you decide on which tablet to settle down next. So lets the specs war begin.
When you first hold the three contenders in hand you immediately realize that iPad mini is true to its name and is the lightest of the lot. At 308 gm iPad is as slick as it can be. While Samsung tab is 345 gm and Kindle HD is a pint more at 395 gm. This is impressive given the fact that iPad mini has 7.9 inch display when compared to the other two who have a 7 inch screen size. The resolution war however gets snatched by Amazon Kindle HD with 800 x 1280 pixels, Samsung loses the war with just 600 pixels width. When watching that favorite HD video every pixel counts, right?
While all the three contenders have 16 million color display the Apple iPad and Amazon pack IPS technology for a clear view of images and those lovely movies to catch on the go. Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 has a PLS LCD display. For sound each has a 3.5 mm jack (now come on you knew that even before asking!) The Oleophobic coating continues to shine for the iPad Mini too. Finally talk about display and you can’t miss the GPU. While Kindle Fire HD and Galaxy Tab 2 has PowerVR SGX540 GPU power, iPad Mini pushes the envelop here by offering by PowerVR SGX543. We doubt whether this minor difference will make a good impact but would rather wait for the gadget to arrive as the base OS too is different compared to the other two.
While everyone considers tablet for different needs, Samsung knows that there is a market which clearly wants to use the tablet even for calling (seriously?). Yup that’s weird but when it comes to fighting the same market the consumer wants to pack every damn thing possible. These kind of feature additions, with clear SD card slots to keep switching memory with ease helps hack Samsung tabs the way you want. Keep rooting and keep rocking, you are a rebel in the android tab market. Apple and Amazon would prefer to give a tighter experience.
The clear distinction is the camera where (surprisingly) Apple adds 5 megapixels to reply Amazon Kindle’s 1.3 and Samsung’s 3 mega pixel camera. While mega pixels might not count a lot for the tablet users; a slew of camera apps and Nokia trying to return with ‘see I have the biggest camera’ trick its quite obvious to assume that camera power is still a deciding factor.
In terms of sheer processing power both iPad mini and Samsung galaxy tab 2 P3100 stand firm at offering Dual Core 1 GHz processor where as Amazon Kindle pushes the envelop further by offering 1.2 Dual Core. This is something worth considering given the fact the gaming experience is going upwards day by day. There is no Flash (huh), no Java, no Radio and no GPS (ouch) packed in the iPad mini. Same is the case with Kindle Fire HD. However Samsung and again won this round by packing a Java MIDP emulator and A-GPS GLONASS support.
All in all we feel the players are playing on the best of their capabilities. While Apple ships great experience and rock solid package; Amazon is busy creating the best experience out of the content it has aggregated right from the stone age. And Samsung is ready to fight out and create a brand in the developing markets and Geek corners where all you want is more flexibility – more hackability!
Specifications Fight
| APPLE IPAD MINI WI-FI + CELLULAR | SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB 2 7.0 P3100 | AMAZON KINDLE FIRE HD 8.9 LTE | |
|---|---|---|---|
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| SIM | Nano-SIM | Mini-SIM | Mini-SIM |
| Body Dimensions | 200 X 134.7 X 7.2 mm (7.87 X 5.30 X 0.28 inches) | 193.7 X 122.4 X 10.5 mm (7.63 X 4.82 X 0.41 inches) | 240 X 164 X 8.8 mm (9.45 X 6.46 X 0.35 inches) |
| Display Type | LED-backlit IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen | PLS LCD capacitive touchscreen | IPS TFT capacitive touchscreen |
| Display Size | 768 X 1024 pixels | 600 X 1024 pixels | 1920 X 1200 pixels |
| Multitouch | Supported | Yes; TouchWiz UX UI | UpTo 10 Fingers |
| Card Slots | No | microSD supported, upto 32GB | No |
| Internal Memory | 16/32/64 GB storage | 8/16/32 GB storage | 32/64 GB storage |
| RAM | 512MB | 1GB | 1GB |
| WiFi | Yes; dual-band | Yes; DLNA, WiFi Direct, dual-band, WiFi hotspot | Yes; dual-band |
| Bluetooth | Yes; v4.0 with A2DP | Yes; v3.0 with A2DP, HS | Yes; with A2DP |
| USB On-the-go Support | No | Yes | No |
| Camera | 5 MP, 2592 X 1944 pixels with auto-focus | 3.15 MP, 2048 X 1536 pixels | 1.3 MP, 1280 x 1024 pixels |
| Camera Video | 1080p@30fps | 720p@30fps | No |
| Secondary Camera | Yes; 1.2 MP, 720p@30fps | Yes; VGA | No |
| Operating System | iOS 6 | Android OS, v4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich), upgradable to v4.1.1 | Android OS, v4.0 (customized) |
| CPU GPU |
Dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 PowerVR SGX543MP2 |
Dual-core 1 GHz PowerVR SGX540 |
Dual-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A9 PowerVR SGX544 |
| Colors Available | Black/Slate, White/Silver | Black, White | Black |
| Battery | Standard battery, Li-Po | Standard battery, Li-Ion | Standard battery, Li-Ion |
| Battery Power | 16.3 Wh | 4000 mAh | n/a |
| Stand-By Time | n/a | Up to 1190 h (2G) / Up to 1080 h (3G) | n/a |
| Talk Time | Up to 10 h | Up to 40 h (2G) / Up to 20 h (3G) | n/a |