iPad mini officially releases in the Philippines but with limited availability

iPad mini finally available here in the Philippines

I was celebrating with a couple of friends last night at Bonifacio High Street when one of them noticed iStudio, just one of the many Apple resellers here. He just mentioned that an iPad mini is on display already. I actually did not believe it at first and even thought its just one of those bought from another country where the device is available already. I also did not read anywhere about the availability of the device here. But when I walked back and checked, there is the device displayed on the table for demo on the closed Apple reseller's store. Wow, its really there! When we settled to have some discussion and snack, I checked PhilMUG and there I read that the device is indeed officially available here. Some of the forum members even commented that ads are available on newspaper and Apple reseller's here are indeed selling them already.

My first impressions of the iPad mini

Trying out Wired magazine on the iPad mini.
Photo was taken using my iPhone 4S.

Since iStudio was closed already when we walked there last night, I had to wait until today to get my hands on the iPad mini. I went to another Apple reseller - Beyond the Box - in Robinson's Galleria to finally check it out. The first thing that I notice of the device after holding it is that its really light weight and when you look at it on the side, its really thin. I looked at it front and back examining its profile. I originally loved the black iPad mini on picture but when I saw the fingerprint smudges at the back I checked on the white iPad mini. The back of the white iPad mini is similar to the profile of the Macbook Pro and there are no noticeable fingerprint smudges even though a number of curious customers held on it already. The white iPad mini is a good choice for users who have sweaty hands.

After checking on the device's physical profile, I finally played on the iPad mini. I checked out the default applications and good thing there are demo magazines in the Newsstand and books available in iBooks. These are the first things I tried out on the iPad mini. I thought of buying an iPad because I want to have an ebook reader larger than my iPhone 4S. But the weight of the iPad is a turnoff after the release of the iPad mini. Its light weight allowed me to hold the device just on one hand. I'm flipping magazine and book pages with just one hand. You can also read just fine on the iPad mini, its a great ebook reader and really suits the bookworm in me. The other thing that I examined closely on the iPad mini is its display. While I notice some pixels because its a non-retina display, I personally do not think its a turn off. The display is still gorgeous for my taste. I also compared it side by side with the 4th generation iPad and at a distance, I did not notice a difference in the displays except for the color saturation between the two. A lot of us would have want a retina display iPad mini but it will compromise weight, battery life and price. Talking about price, the 16gb iPad mini (Wifi only) costs 15,990 pesos while the 32gb iPad mini (Wifi only) costs 20,990. Unfortunately though, the store I went to sold out all available iPad mini's yesterday and there's no date yet on when they will be available. They sold out like hot potatoes, amazing! I guess the customers just have to settle with the demo units for now. I used the iPad mini for about an hour without noticing fatigue on my hand or my arm because of the light weight. I used iPad units prior to that with two hands but I get tired because of the obvious heavy weight.

If you have an opportunity to try out the device on any store, go grab and play with it, its an absolute thing of beauty. Apple had done a really great engineering job and focus in building this device. This is highly recommended!

P.S. Together with the iPad mini, the latest generation of the iPad is also available here already. This just makes all latest Apple devices available here from the latest iPods to the iPhone 5. Go check it out on your local resellers.