the only Apple I ever owned/used personally was a ipod touch. I work on pc's, have had a good career in the wintel patch, use android phones/handsets.
Bought the ipad Mini mainly because my wife was whining about things she thinks people do with ipads that's really cool, easy, smart... all that apple smoke.
but looking at it technically - the ipad Mini is very, very well implemented. I'm not a fan of 10's or bigger - i think they are laughably clumsy. my thinkpad 11.6 is far superior at doing real work in about the same size 'carrying' envelope.
but 7's appeal to me as the upper-end of "handset" or "phablet" thingies.
the Mini is just about perfect in size, the os is very well sorted, the battery life is spectacular. yes the screen is fairly ordinary, but very easy on the eyes. to me, the entry WIFI mini is priced appropriately to the value, as is the Nexus 7 in my view. both deliver a lot of the dollar but one has far less issues than the other. far less - especially since the immature 4.2n release. and really, both hold their value well - there is a huge demand for even slightly discounted used Minis on Ebay, bringing about 98% of the new purchase price, which is really nuts if you think about it.
That's pretty accurate. I can't imagine needing to replace my Xoom any time soon, though my GNex is noticeably faster. My next tablet will be an iPad for one simple reason. Apps. I study electrical engineering at Uni and am constantly disappointed to find the awesome and useful apps I use in class on the iPads don't have anything comparable in the android market... sad really. I'm tired of searching for apps and finding two that are semi useful designed for android 2.0 or 100,000 Chinese knockoffs. In my opinion, this is the only place where android falls behind. Well that, and the fragmented ecosystem.
Exhibit A:
http://products.wolframalpha.com/courseassistants/physicsI.html
Exhibit B:
http://www.pcalc.com/
