Two months ago, I was waist-deep in one particular ecosystem. Invested, you could say. As much as I could be, anyway. I had the phone. I had the tablet. I had the computer. All three devices were synced within the glorious ethereal tendrils of the digital cloud, and everything was right with the world. At least that’s how I looked at it. But, I haven’t really been content with the full picture for quite some time, and I just knew that something was missing. That thing happened to be my TV, and the fact that it was being left out of the picture.

Now, for those of you who have guessed which particular ecosystem I was talking about, then you know that adding my TV into the fray would have been easy. Just another device to buy. The trouble with that was the fact that I already had a device there, right next to my TV, which did what that one “other” device could do, but had even more features that I used every day.

So, I weighed my options. I took a hard look at what I want from my mobile life, and from my ecosystem, and I made a decision to switch.

Which is why I’m sitting here, just a little while after Apple’s iPad Mini event has wrapped up, and realizing that while I really, really want the iPad Mini, I’m just not going to get it.

You’ve heard me say that the Nexus 7 is the best 7-inch tablet out there, and I’m going to stick with that. Why? Because the price is just right for what you’re getting, and Google Now. This is another reason why the 7.9-inch iPad Mini just doesn’t do it for me: the price. It’s great for its own sake, and if there weren’t other options out there. But at only 8GB, it’s just not convincing enough for me.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit here and say that I don’t want the iPad Mini. I do. Sure, I can think of plenty of reasons why I don’t need it, and I can even come up with some reasons why I shouldn’t even want it, but the results would be the same. I’d still want it. It’s a great looking device. The apps work, and there are plenty to choose from. Plus, the 10 hour battery life is pretty nice, too.

Two months ago, I was heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem. I guess technically I still am. I’ve spent a lot of time in there, and thanks to the iPhone and iPad (with additional help from the MacBook Pro and Air) I’ve spent quite a bit of money adding applications into my life. But now? Now I’m going headfirst into the Microsoft ecosystem, and I’m not looking back.

And, here’s the thing. Despite all the other reasons I can think of to not buy the iPad Mini, or continue to invest into the Apple sphere, it all comes down to the ecosystem and how I incorporate it into my life. I’ve switched to the Lumia 900 by Nokia. I’ve got my Xbox 360 sitting next to my TV. I’ll eventually own the Surface tablet. And, starting Friday, I’ll be running Windows 8 on my laptop.

Apple’s iCloud is a great service, and it works well. Cloud saves for games, documents, images, all of that. It works, and I can’t say that it doesn’t. But having Microsoft’s growing ecosystem means I get first-party access to things like Xbox Music, Xbox Games, and SmartGlass. All of these things, I believe, will work better from Microsoft, rather than running an app on another platform.

So that’s why I’m not going to get the iPad Mini, despite the fact that I really want to buy it. There was almost a point where I said, “Shut up and take my money” at my laptop monitor, but I restrained myself. I’m happy with the road I’m taking in my digital ecosystem, and I can’t wait to get lost within its depths as soon as all of its regions have been explored.

Tell me, Dear Reader. Are you going to buy the iPad Mini? Or, like me, have you decided to skip it in favor of something else? Or, are you just not going to buy it because you don’t want a smaller iPad? Or maybe you’re going for the fourth-generation iPad? Let me know!