7.9-Inch iPad Mini Officially Unveiled by Apple

As expected, Apple has just revealed the small iPad mini tablet powered by its latest iOS 6 platform. Apple's announcement puts an end to a slew of rumors that have been making headlines in the past several weeks.

Apple had a very busy year with lots of new products launched and even more to come by the end of the year. The iPad with Retina display launched earlier this year is said to be the top selling tablet in the world. Today, the company announced a new competitor for the 7-inch tablet market, the iPad mini. With a 7.9-inch that supports 1024 x 768 pixels resolution (163 ppi), the iPad mini is about 50% larger display area in the browser in comparison with Google's Nexus 7 tablet. However, the nexus 7 sports a larger resolution (1280x800) and pixel density (216ppi) When in landscape mode, iPad mini is no less than 67% larger display area in the browser when put against the 7-inch Android slate.

On the inside, the iPad mini packs a dual core Apple A5 processor and optional LTE. There's also a 5-megapixel iSight camera with autofocus and full HD (1080p) video recording on the back. The tablet also sports 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera for FaceTime video calling over Wi-Fi or cellular. Design-wise, the iPad mini is only 7.2mm thick and weighs 308g, which makes it 53% lighter than the 4th generation iPad. The iPad mini has the thinnest single cell battery ever designed by Apple, which offers no less than 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video or listening to music. It comes with 802.11n Wi-Fi, the new Lightning connector, as well as a wide range of accessories.

Apple confirmed pre-orders for iPad mini will kick off on October 26 and the slate will hit shelves on November 2. Keep in mind that only the Wi-Fi version will be available initially with the 3G and LTE versions launching soon. There will be six iPad mini models available for purchase, which are detailed below:

• Wi-Fi iPad mini 16GB at $329 USD (255 EUR) 
• Wi-Fi iPad mini 32GB at $429 USD (330 EUR)
• Wi-Fi iPad mini 64GB at $529 USD (410 EUR)
• Wi-Fi+Cellular iPad mini 16GB at $459 USD (355 EUR)
• Wi-Fi+Cellular iPad mini 32GB at $559 USD (430 EUR)
• Wi-Fi+Cellular iPad mini 64GB at $659 USD (510 EUR)

iPad mini
Image credits to Apple

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