We have been to stores such as Broadway and Fortress to see the main reason why Hong Kongers would buy an iPad instead of an iPad Mini, and we found out it was because the lack of the so-called Retina Display!
This week, FutureHandling went to do a small survey on consumer behavior.
We left out office in Tin Hau and decided to walk to several electronic stores to see what kind of gadgets people were buying.
Our first stop was at Fortress. We were surprised by the number of people who were reserving an iPad Mini but at the same time, we were also surprised by the number of people who were buying an iPad (not Mini).
It turns out that among the newly released Apple products (the iPad Mini, the iPad 4th generation, the iPhone 5 and the iPod Touch 5th generaton), the iPad Mini is the only one that doesn’t come with a Retina Display.
Apple created the term “Retina display” not just as a marketing phrase, but to educate end users about high resolution. Apple has been leading the trend in displays with high pixels per inch (ppi, the measurement of resolution), especially with the launch of iPhone 4, the first smart phone with a resolution of more than 300 ppi, and the new iPad, the first tablet PC with over 200 ppi.
However, other smart device makers, including Samsung, HTC, Google, Amazon, Sony, Lenovo, and Asus are closely following Apple, and in some cases have introduced products with higher resolutions, such as Google’s Nexus 10 tablet PC, with a 10.1″ 2560×1600 display at 298 ppi, and coming smart phones using 5.0″ 1920×1080 displays at 490 ppi.
Apparently, Hong Kongers do care about screen resolution. The main reason for buying an iPad instead of an iPad Mini was the lack of Retina Display. Other reasons were the screen size being too small and the processor being too slow when compared to the iPad 4th generation.
