I face a puzzle and I am sure some here will give good advice.
I was gifted an Ipad mini 4, 64Go, wifi only (model A2133) some years ago. I never opened it, it is still in the apple box with the plastic film over it.
Flying wise, I am back into flying after a break but will remain a in frequent traveler for the months if not years to come (mainly limited €€, other child on the way). I may fly locally during that time but multiday trips seem extremely unlikely. I fly now in an area where an EFB is not critical but still nice to have (some CAS in the area but I can use a smartphone).
What should I do with this ipad ?
Should I sell it, fly with just my phone ? It is worth about 200€ on leboncoin (french ebay).
Should I keep it, buy an external GPS and keep it for the future flying I may do, even if it is in 5 years ? I used to use a Dual XGPS150 with an older ipad and it was a pain in the butt to use both together.
Will this ipad be usable in more than 2-3 years ?
Thanks for your advice.
My advice, and actual practice, is to immediately dump any piece of IT gear (phone, camera, etc) as soon as it is not needed.
If you hang onto stuff, your house fills up with junk which a year later is almost worthless.
As you rightly say, this Ipad needs an external GPS so is useless for flying. I used to play with an XGPS150 and it was a PITA to keep both running (and charged) together.
A Mini 4 is slowly becoming obsolete for flying related apps and 64 GB is not enough to store much EFB data, so I’d sell this one or give it to somebody who would use it. It will certainly not be useful for flying in 5 years.
External GPS is OK, connected by Wi-Fi and often with ADS-B IN or other features but its nice to have the internal GPS for backup. I buy 256 GB Ipad Minis with internal GPS for flying, even though they run 100% of the time on an external GPS. I don’t buy phone service for them, just network to my phone if needed. All of the above runs on ships power in flight, typically meaning 100% battery charge available for backup.
Not sure if my 2ct are valuable since I’m a constant iPad mini user… and I don’t know much about your way of life.
My iPad is used daily for probably > 2 hours for all stuff related to my flying as in SD, etc, and many other different things and hobbies, such as reading books and comics, maintaining databases for my movies collection as well as for my RC stuff, playing backing tracks when playing music, checking on the weather, spying on Swiss RVs thru Flightradar, etc, etc, and sometimes writing stuff on EuroGA 
With this kind of usage I replace my iPad about every second year, as basically they keep improving in performance.
Now to answer your question: sell it as fast as you can.
As we speak it is loosing value (first question an eventual buyer will ask is about the state of the battery), and you only use it sporadically, if at all.
PS
Useable in more than 2-3 years? It will still work, but there will probably be no more iOS nor apps updates possible.
Trade it in for a new iPad at the nearest Apple store. If you don’t want that, you get a gift card that never expires. Once back to flying, use that to buy whatever model you then fancy.
If it’s used only for SD for instance, I don’t see why it shouldn’t work just fine. External GPS is a serious drawback though. I am wondering about renewing my pad. I have this Samsung Galaxy Active (8 inch) in mind. It’s specially made to work in heat/cold and rugged environments. It has GPS and 4G which is my requirements, and is rugged.
Thanks a lot. I knew we have many geeks here 
I would only need an Ipad for flying, that’s why I as never even tempted to unpack the one i have.
I didn’t know Apple buys back its devices. Will check for how much when I have the SN at hand.
We’ve had multiple threads like this which show that a separate GPS is just a PITA.
If there was a GPS which can be installed sort of permanently (velcro) and aircraft-powered, it would do the job, but there aren’t (or never were) any Apple compatible ones. There was an NMEA unit from Emtac which did all this but Apple in their crazy wisdom decided to not support NMEA. Only android devices can use NMEA.
So a tablet without an internal GPS is of little use for GA flying.
So a tablet without an internal GPS is of little use for GA flying.
My reliable mini iPad2 has one but I either use the traffic gps or an elf – it gives the iPad much more battery life, and I’ve never had my iPad overheat
My Ipad works very well with a Skyecho 2 as GPS, and runs skydemon with traffic shown, including Flarm equipped gliders. I wouldn’t say it’s a PITA, it seems to work reliably.
