Apple Reveals iPad Mini

By Rob Boggan

We posted late last week about an Apple event that was scheduled to supposedly announce the arrival of a new an improved “iPad Mini”. Well, just moments ago Tim Cook and Phil Schiller took the wraps off of a perfectly crafted iPad mini designed to all but obliterate any consideration for the smaller Android crowd. Make no bones about it, this wasn’t Apple’s attempt to make something brand new to compete, because for the most part this is merely an update to the iPad 2. The real winner here is the price point, with the iPad mini starting at $329 for the WiFi model. This is a direct shot at things like the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire as most tablet customers would be willing to drop the extra $130 for an iPad.

The hardware on the iPad Mini will surely be hailed as another bright spot in yet another “magical” Apple product. For starters, the iPad mini is just 7.1mm thick, and only .68lbs, with a 7.9 inch display. It sports the same screen resolution as the iPad 2 (1024×768), along with the A5 processor that is found in the iPad 2 but with one major upgrade; this one comes with LTE compatibility.The camera also received a slight bump, improving to a 5MP iSight main cam, and a Facetime HD front camera for video calls.

The price points for the iPad Mini are as follows:

WiFi Models:

• 16GB – $329
• 32GB – $429
• 64GB – $529

WiFi + Cellular Models:

• 16GB – $459
• 32GB – $559
• 64GB – $659