iPad Mini 3 or 4?

[WEOTN]

I'm in need of advice on wifi or cellular iPad mini 4

I bought the 16GB wifi only for flying. I keep it off the Internet for security issues. I liked it so much better than my old iPad, I bought a 64GB with cell for touring etc. My phone checks fly zones etc but it no longer has Go on it.

If you plan on updates and need to have maps of where you're flying, then the cellular will be needed if you don't have a device it can tether to for Internet. Maps you can set to cache and scroll around while net connected and it will show up later while flying and not connected.

Some purposely don't want to have any updates so keep their gear off the Internet so it cannot update. I'm in that camp.

I bought the Mini4 WiFi as Apple at some point stop selling and supporting the 2 and 3, and future updates will eventually require higher level hardware, so my gamble is the difference spent today will keep me from buying all new down the road by a longer stretch. All my Apple gear has been put out to pasture in great running condition. Tech progresses and the old just gets left in the dust of yesterdays past.

 

[ThreeGs]

Looking to ditch my Android tablet (it has been crashing and restarting while flying) and going with the iPad mini 4. Keeping in mind that this tablet will only be used for flying, is there any reason to go with storage above the entry level 16GB? Does the iOS DJI app (and Litchi which I guess I'll need to buy again) store downlink video for quick, out in the field review?
Possible re-sale value would be one consideration. Anything else?

Also, for the folks who bought refurbished at GameStop, how is your battery life/condition?

 

[Hitec_NL]

Looking to ditch my Android tablet (it has been crashing and restarting while flying) and going with the iPad mini 4. Keeping in mind that this tablet will only be used for flying, is there any reason to go with storage above the entry level 16GB? Does the iOS DJI app (and Litchi which I guess I'll need to buy again) store downlink video for quick, out in the field review?
Possible re-sale value would be one consideration. Anything else?

Also, for the folks who bought refurbished at GameStop, how is your battery life/condition?

I bought my Mavic from someone who had flown only a few times with it, he sold me an iPad mini 4 as well. It's the 16GB version with WiFi and cellular, so I can use the GPS. He bought it from someone else, so I am the third user. No idea how much it has been used, but battery life is still great. After 2 batteries it's down to about 60%. So far it has been working perfectly for me! In the DJI Go app you can select whether you want to have a recording or not and whether to overwrite when storage is full or not.
Yes 16GB isn't the most, but by the time it's filled up that footage is so old I don't need it on my iPad anymore anyway.

You'll enjoy the iPad very much, love the screen size when flying. Much easier to go through the settings as well.

Edit: Just flew 2 batteries and my iPad went down from 100 to 79%, so it’s even better than I thought!

 

[tictag]

Looking to ditch my Android tablet (it has been crashing and restarting while flying) and going with the iPad mini 4. Keeping in mind that this tablet will only be used for flying, is there any reason to go with storage above the entry level 16GB? Does the iOS DJI app (and Litchi which I guess I'll need to buy again) store downlink video for quick, out in the field review?

To answer your question, yes it does, if you ask it to. There's a few settings around local (ie. device) recording, record video, audio, max storage, delete old videos etc in the DJI Go4 app. It only records HD locally so 16GB would be a good few hours worth of locally stored footage but you can also set the limit and ask the app to recycle older video storage to maintain the limit. If you need more than a few hours locally stored footage, you'll need a bigger internal drive.

 

[TestPilot]

Actually, iPad Mini 4 is infamous for the poor battery life. I installed an app on it and that app depletes the battery within 2 hours, from 100% to ZERO. No joke at all.

I just use it for my drone, nothing more. It's quite worthless for anything else.

 

[Xtreme Drone Pilot]

I installed an app on it and that app depletes the battery within 2 hours, from 100% to ZERO. No joke at all.

Is this app called DJI Go 4, by any chance?

I have mini 2, and it's about 50% per 3 batteries flown, so yeah, about 2 hours of flying tops.

 

[locoman]

Actually, iPad Mini 4 is infamous for the poor battery life. I installed an app on it and that app depletes the battery within 2 hours, from 100% to ZERO. No joke at all.

I just use it for my drone, nothing more. It's quite worthless for anything else.

What is the app. Mine has good battery life and I have many different apps installed and the only thing running in the background is mail and calendar and they only use 1% of the battery. I turn off mosts apps running in the background.