After months of rumors and speculation, Apple has finally taken the wraps off its long-rumored gadget, the iPad mini. It’s two-thirds smaller than its very popular 10-inch iPad and is lighter and thinner than its competitor, Google Nexus 7.

The new iPad mini “isn’t just a shrunken-down iPad, it’s an entirely new design,” that’s how Phil Schiller unveiled this device at the special event in San Jose. Let’s see if the long-rumored device has managed to fulfill the expectations of the Apple fans or not.

Features & Specs

The new iPad mini comes with a small 7.9-inch screen like its name suggests with 4:3 aspect ratio unlike the other 7-inch tablets out there. It’s two third smaller than the current iPad but offers the same resolution as the iPad 2, 1,024×768. The best part of this resolution is, you can enjoy all the apps ready for the iPad and iPad 2 right away and the developers don’t have to modify their apps. However, there were rumors about no retina display in the rumored iPad mini and it turned out to be true. If you are a retina display fan, you may not be satisfied with just 163 pixels per inch (ppi).

The new device sports an A5 chip, the same one used in the iPad 2 and the latest iPod Touch. It has a front-facing FaceTime camera that supports HD FaceTime calls and a 5-megapixel rear camera that comes with the same iSight technology we saw in iPhone 5. The latest iPad mini also includes the recently unveiled Lightning connector that we saw on the iPhone 5. Apple claims it to be “Every inch and iPad”. Other attractive features include Wi-Fi and LTE connectivity, iOS 6, Siri and 10-hour battery life to enjoy all the other features.

Availability and Pricing

Customers can order for their new iPad mini from this Friday and it will be available on the market from November 2. The iPad mini starts at $329 for the Wi-Fi only 16GB version which is only $30 more than the current iPod Touch. I was expecting to see a price tag of $250-$300 to compete with the likes of Kindle Fire HD and Google Nexus 7 so I was really disappointed to see a $329 price tag. Apple used their old pricing strategy here. This is the only thing that disappointed the analysts. Erik Gordon, professor of University of Michigan told Bloomberg News, “At $329, it won’t draw people from Kindles and Nooks”.

Some analysts believe it was a chance for Apple to step on “the throat of Amazon and Google” but the company decided to follow its old pricing strategy. This is the same strategy they applied 10 years ago when they tried to compete with the cheap MP3 players with the original iPod.

The iPad mini is about $100 more expensive than the current leader of the 7-inch tablet arena, the Nexus 7. The iPad 2 also costs around $399 which means it could be the end for the iPad 2. Apple also unveiled the 4^th generation iPad in the special event in San Jose.