Yeah, I looked it up after you mentioned it and it does look attractive. But since I’ll be carrying mine around outdoors where I might fumble it, I think I’ll keep the one with the hard corners for protection.
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Following the advice of the YouTube in my previous post, I ordered the iCarez iPad mini 6 matte paper-feel screen protector, non-glass.
https://www.amazon.com/iCarez-Anti-Glare-Protector-Fingerprint-Installation/dp/B09G95VJZN
No diagonal jitter problem, just as the video claimed. Moreover, the feel of Pencil 2 + @Bishop tips + this minimally paper-feel protector is really good, much better than the tips alone on glass screen protector or naked. I was always getting uneven friction on those. The iCarez has 100% consistent friction/drag. So far, anyway. Who knows if it’ll remain this way as it wears in.
Negative: more matte “sparkle” than a matte glass screen protector.
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Oddly, the Pencil 2 double-tap works quite well in Procreate. I couldn’t for the life of me get it to work in the Apple tutorial that pops up during setup. I was thinking I might have to return it as defective… I guess it’s the tutorial that’s defective, not the Pencil. 
Frankly I HATE the double tap approach (I know Apple hates buttons) - it is so natural to just turn over the Surface Pen and use the top as an eraser - surely Apple is smart enough to design that into the Pencil 3 - right?
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ALWAYS double tap…
Besides, how many concessions do you want in this life. The company that said “stylus never” now sells 2 of 'em. And you want an eraser too. Some people…
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Some people (more than you think) want a MacPad…M2 iPad Pro 11/12.9 that you can flip a toggle and run MacOs or iPadOs when you want. That would deliver the unicorn for many of us, even if we had to leave Windows.
UPDATE - for “this people” I should be more specific - M2 MacPad 11 - I wouldn’t want the 12.9 (too close to SP8). I want max portability with the OWC TB4 dock handling the heavy lifting for desktop use.
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PS - a glimmer of hope - look at this article from 2017 which is devilishly close to a 100% prediction of the MacPad roadmap, right down to predicting the following:
" Apple makes their own processors for iPad, but relies on Intel for their laptops. Should Apple launch MacPad Pro anytime soon , it would have to be an Intel processor.
If I were Apple, I would want to use my own chip. This is the last hurdle: the processor is a compromise . They are waiting for their A chip to catch up or completely surpass the Intel Core i5/i7 in terms of processing power. Also, Apple pays a licensing fee to use Intel’s chips. Severing this relationship at some point will reduce this extra cost.
The endgame is Apple wants their own A-label processor."
The rest of the article is almost a point by point analysis of the progression since 2017 to the M1 MacBooks and the M1 iPads. Benjamin Bannister may be an Apple Nostradamus…
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Back to iPad Mini 6 observations: the size and weight are a gem, but I am still wondering what to do with it now that I have the SP8. I sis watch a movie last night on Prime Video (Rio Bravo of course) but switched time doing so with my SP8, and except for the additional weight, I really enjoyed it more on the SP8 (especially because the kickstand works great in bed compared to finding a way to lean up the iPM6.
It’s still a lot more useful as a small Moleskin replacements, but with the exception of Kindle and my usual Apple-only favorites (FaceTime, News+, iMessage) it feels like duplication.
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My phone is now really telephony, SMS, Siri and weather almost exclusively. The iPM6 is the couch, social media and “leave the house without a backpack” champion. SP8 is heavy iron for large doc/sheet/large canvas inking (e.g. mindmaps) creation; I almost never use it for media.
So it occupies a HUGE niche of my device time. Query: is a huge niche, by definition a canyon?
PS - iPM6 will be my long term A5 notebook replacement. But for 90 days I’m carrying the notebook again to study and map processes so I can evaluate how to get the same benefits more efficiently using the device.
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I’m similar to @Bishop with some variation due to being cellular-only (e.g. I tend to stream to my iPhone because the cellular hotspot is limited while bandwidth on the the phone is not). SLS instead of SP8, but it’s still “heavy iron”: a wonderful canvas and stylus for my nascent art hobby plus AAA gaming, modding and anything else needing a strong Windows machine. Also sit-down typing on a good keyboard.
The iPm6 fits in the middle quite well, but I knew it would since it’s not my first mini. It trades off with my Kindle Paperwhite for reading. Most plain text ebooks on the Kindle and anything with illustrations or color on the iPad. All websurfing and YouTube is on the mini. Texting/emailing too, if I’m not on the go. Some gaming and that will likely increase.
Nothing larger than the mini would work for me during the ~4 months of the year that I volunteer at a National Park. Note taking is outdoors, on foot, on the go. My Galaxy Note 8 and, more recently, Galaxy S21U w/S-Pen did the job but were cramped. I tended to be overly brief and sometimes had to clarify my reports in text exchanges. No such issues last summer with the iPad mini 5 + Pencil. Though not as sunshine-visible as a 7.8” e-ink tablet (e.g. Boox Nova3) it was visible enough for the job and far quicker and more versatile.
Aside from those three, I never use the Surface Go2 anymore but the Galaxy Book 12 is great for casual Windows gaming and non-streaming media on the couch, propped up by my knees. Sometimes couch potato art practice as well though that role is being taken over by the mini despite my preference for the GB12’s S-Pen (well, ZBook X2 pen) and larger AMOLED screen. The mini is far more convenient.
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I was just about to pull the trigger on the IPM6 around Christmas, but I really went over my use cases, and changed my mind. What I want it for is an ultra portable sketchbook, plus some media consumption and light writing. But honestly, I thought about it, and since I’ve been working from home and working on my MBP more, that’s all I use my IPP12.9 for. What I really want is something between the two, and I’d rather have the power of the M1 IPP than the IPM6, so do I really want an IPP 11? Probably. But that would certainly make my 2020 IPP 12.9 obsolete. So I decided to wait a couple more years and upgrade to whatever 11 inch tablet , be it IPP, or maybe a mythical perfect Windows device.
But, I ran into a demo IPM6 at Costco the other day, and I’m thinking, man, this thing is perfectly portable, and it wouldn’t make my IPP obsolete, would it? And since it’ll be a couple years before I upgrade that to an 11 inch, maaaybe I should look into getting an IPM6 now, and use the two like I plan on using the one later. IDK, I’m torn. And I don’t really like Apple as a company, so it doesn’t appeal to me to give them any more money.
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EDIT: See update below. I returned it.
So, on a lark (Whistle Pig 10yr Single Barrel Rye and web-surfing is dangerous), I picked up this little unit:
It makes my iPM6 the same size/weight as my A5 notebook. Backlit keyboard (you can change the lighting color) with trackpad is comfortable to type on, maybe not so much for the ham fisted/kielbasa fingered among us. The top cover still allows magnetic attachment of the Apple Pencil, but it does not cradle or hold the pencil. Top swivels back and closes over the keyboard to expose the screen for inking. Definitely improves “lapability.” It has a good tactile quality (kind of grippy like the Lenovo Thinkpad tablets as opposed to being slick plastic). I wouldn’t attempt to write a large document from scratch on it, but it does provide the ability to bang out paragraph chunks of text. It even charges using USB-C (at 5V).
I assume Apple isn’t making a Magic Keyboard for this form factor. This may expand my use case for the iPM6 to slightly longer trips and slightly more typing vs SP8. Will let you know how it goes.
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I still have the Brydge iPad mini 5 keyboard that I never ended up using so I know not to bother again. This doesn’t quite fit the mini 6, BTW. If fully attached the grippy parts will encroach on the touchscreen—on the mini 5 they were on the top & bottom bezel areas.
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I had that puppy running Windows 8.1 in the end. And it was my first tablet (well, by modern standards the Nokia N900 I had was).
It really was a big chungus though, and someone did lightly rib me for using one back in 2012. And the display was terribly inaccurate - reds were almost orange. Windows 8 gestures did not play well with the raised bezel either.
Can’t beat the physical hotkeys and of course the EMR (offset at the edges was bad though). I replaced the DVD drive with a secondary battery as well.
All that’s left of it now is the stylus, as somehow I managed to crack the plastic on the chassis very badly. It did manage to end up from where it came, back in Japan, albeit at a recycling centre (at least, I hope they recycled it…)
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Fujitsu did have some larger LifeBooks. The photo (which is the one I had) only had a 10 in. Screen.
I fire up my old Fujitsu Stylistic Q584 every once in a while and marvel at how much better penabled tablets have gotten since then. A decade ago I thought it was really good and now I would return it as very unsatisfactory.
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I never tried a Fujitsu, but I have held the opposite opinion on most pen tech. Wacom was superior to NTrig/MPP for years, but all we got was MPP from most companies recently. When I tried the SP7/SB a couple years ago and compared them to my Lenovo Miix 700, my Lenovo had a better pen experience. Apple Pencil on the other hand blew them all away. I haven’t tried it yet, but I am hopeful the new Slim Pen on SP8 is as good as everyone has said.
But even still, until this year, aside from Apple Pencil 2, there’s been very little improvement in pen tech from what I have seen. Maybe the Wacom devices got better? But that’s really only been Samsung.
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Apple Pencil (2) for years now, S-Pen (e.g. Galaxy Book 12) since at least 2016, and now Slim Pen 2 which, on the SLS, I like better than Pencil 2. All of them blow away old EMR tablets with their lag and offsets, especially the horrendous edges. No comparison IMHO.
Edit: not to mention the EMR e-ink tablets like Boox. Wonderful inking.
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