We have been eyeing the 2021 iPad 10.2 inch 9th generation 2021 edition for months waiting for the prices to get lowered. Last week it was $249 at Amazon for the wifi and 64GB storage model and I thought it had finally hit the bottom so I ordered and used the slowest shipping to get a 6% back on our Amazon visa card. Then checking today, it was $229 for the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2023!
There was also still the option for 6% cash back as well so there wasn’t a trade in that extra discount.
The great things for specific model versus the 10th generation are:
- The price is over $100 cheaper.
- The touch id is the home button
- Lightning connector
- Headphone jack
Why are these important and great to us versus the new 10th that don’t have these?
The extra features in the 10th generation are not worth the extra dollars for myself and our family the way we use our current iPad mini 3. It is purely for consumption of YouTube kids and some small kids games. This model is from 2014 that we got on a target black friday deal in 2015 or 2016 and it has been holding up great. I imagine this new iPad will do the same things but maybe I will be able to create some content on it as well in a very minor way.
Touch ID and having an home button has been something that I have missed a lot in the new iPhones and prefer the authentication versus face id.
The lightning connector still being in this model means that we can reuse all our connectors in our home and car without having to upgrade to usb-c ones like we would for the 10th generation one. At some point we will need to upgrade but all of our other devices still use the ligntning one.
A physical headphone jack is still in this model versus the 10th generation. This is another great thing for my kids’ headphones and we won’t need to buy an adapter.
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