Five Things you should Know about the iPad Mini

 For those of you who don’t know already, Apple’s announced the next product in their iPad line…but it’s a little smaller than you might expect. Apple showcased, for the first time, the iPad Mini; a tablet PC designed to fill in the gap between the iPhone and the standard model of their iPad, and to compete with the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7. Essentially, Apple’s using the iPad Mini to address a corner of the mobile market that they’ve not yet conquered.

Here’s what we know about the product so far.


The Price

The iPad Mini’s 16 GB Wi-Fi model debuts at $329 USD (a rather steep price, considering how much other, similar products are being sold for). The cost is what has everybody most concerned about the product, particularly given that the 64 GB model is priced at almost $700.00 in the U.S: a huge price hike over its competitors, and considerably higher than the $249-$299 prices that everyone was predicting for it. Pre-orders will be available on Friday, October 26, and the Mini will begin shipping a week later.

The Dimensions 

The iPad Mini is, well…mini. It’s got a 7.9 inch screen and weighs in at .68 lbs, with a thickness of 7.2 mm (23% thinner and 53% lighter than the standard iPad.)

The Specs

The iPad Mini is available with either straight Wi-Fi, or with Wi-Fi and cellular service. As with virtually every other tablet on the market, it’s available with a hard drive size of 16, 32, or 64 GB. It’s packed with a dual-core A5 procsesor, a Facetime 1.2 MP HD camera capable of 720p video, a 5MP iSight camera, and 1080p video recording and the battery offers about 10 hours of battery life. You can read the full list of technical specifications here.

Software
The iPad Mini comes prepackaged with iOS 6, and a suite of all the standard apps which you’d expect to ship with a tablet.

Related Products

In addition to the iPad Mini, Apple also announced a super-thin iMac along with a redesigned Macbook Pro.