I am crazy to get a 1st gen iPad Mini?

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My dad won a Microsoft Surface, he already owns a tablet. He decided to give the Surface to my mother. The windows interface intimidated her, however she is comfortable with her iPhone.

They asked me to sell the MS Surface and buy an iPad Mini with the cash. Now I know that iPad 2 and Mini are basically the same tablets, except for size, camera, and a few other features.

That being said, is the iPad mini in danger of being obsolete already (its only a year old or so right?)?

My mother is not a "power user" she reads emails, does instagram, facetime, stuff like that. Is the 1st gen iPad Mini worth getting now? Obviously its real easy to say "spend more money and buy an iPad Retina, but that is beyond our budget.
 
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Hello and welcome to the forum! :) As you can imagine, there will be no clear answer to your question; however, my wife has the iPad Mini (I'm still using the iPad 2 and may go to the Air) - she loves it for nearly all of the features you mentioned (reading magazines is an issue that a retina screen would likely improve but she has plenty of books on the device).

If possible, your mother should visit an Apple store or an authorized retailer (such as Best Buy) and simply take a look at the first iPad Mini - I'm sure that it will serve her needs if the budget is an issue - good luck in your selection. Dave
 
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Depends on what someone wants to do with the iPad. I have a 1st gen Mini as does my wife. We do everything you listed and consume quite a bit of video content on them with no trouble. They run iOS 7 just fine. Eventually, there will be an iOS update that doesn't run well on them (as there will be with any other current/past iPad). The older the iPad, the sooner you will hit that wall and the less you will pay for the iPad. We picked up our Mini's from the Apple Refurb section on their website, so we got them for a song. We'll probably do the same with the next "last year's model" iPads we buy. We don't need the latest and greatest, so it works for us. I'd hardly call a 1st Gen Mini obsolete from a practical use standpoint and for what you mention needing one for...
 
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chas_m

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The first-gen iPad mini is still sold as new by Apple, and runs the latest OS. So no, it is not obsolete nor is it in danger of becoming so anytime soon. That said, the original iPad mini is obviously going to go obsolete more quickly than, say, the second-gen iPad mini. But that's probably two years off, maybe longer if the users' needs are typical. I have a friend still using my old 16GB iPad 1, still does everything he needs it to do and a surprising number of apps still work with it on iOS 5. It's all a question of how important the latest apps are.
 

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