iPod touch 5th gen or iPad mini?

If you are going to read books, magazines and watch movies go with the iPad mini.

With the iPad mini you also have the option for a cellular antena. Which, you cannot get with the iPod touch. Just kinda depends on how your are going to use it. The iPad mini is pretty sexy and feels good in the hand.

How portable do you want the device to be. The iPod Touch fits in a pocket. If you ALWAYS carry a purse, backpack or always where clothing with large pockets, then a iPad mini is able to go with you everywhere.

If you already have a Smart Phone, then a lot of the portability you get from an iPod Touch is available from the smart phone.

Reading ebooks can be done on an iPod Touch (I've ready hundreds of them on mine). However, if you need to use the device for reading text books or PDF documents with diagrams, then the larger screen of an iPad mini is better.

Think about what you want to do with the device. If you can get to an Apple Store or another store that carries both products, play with them while thinking about how you would really use them.

I own an iPod Touch because to me, having it in my pocket and with me all the time is more important then the larger screen. And since I own a Macbook Pro laptop, I have a larger screen for PDFs, movies if I want a larger screen while away from my home TV and Netflix, I do not need the iPad or iPad mini larger screen.

But an iPad is ideal for my Mother-in-Law. It all depends on how you want to use the device. And only you can answer that.

As the others said, it depends on your use. I have a Macbook and and iPad 3. I have an older iPod Touch 3G and just got an iPod Touch 5G. I carry the iPad most of the time and use the iPod for music and podcasts while driving. I wanted the camera and video on the new iPod for those times when you need one. The iPad is a bit unwieldy for that use. As also said, play with both of them. The iPad mini sounds like you should give it a good look.