After months of rumours and leaks, Apple has finally pulled the curtains off its iPad mini. As the name suggests, the tablet is smaller than all previous iPads. The mini sports a 7.9" screen with pixel dimensions of 1024x768. No prizes for guessing that the newly announced tablet will compete with a horde of 7" Android slates from multiple manufacturers! The iOS slate is powered by the previous-generation A5 chipset, and has 5 mp camera. Here's the list of specs:

• 7.9" LED backlit IPS panel with 1024x768 pixels, Pixel density of 163 ppi.
• Apple A5 chipset, 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU, 512 MB of RAM.
• 5 mp rear auto-focus camera.
• 1.2 mp front facing camera for FaceTime.
• 16 GB \ 32 GB \ 64 GB internal storage, No expansion slot.
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, LTE connectivity (optional).
• Proprietary Lightning connector, 3.5 mm jack, microphone.
• Three-axis gyro, Accelerometer, Ambient light sensor.
• 7.9" (l) x 5.3" (w) x 0.3" (7.2 mm) (d).
• Available Colours: Black & slate, White & silver.
• Package Contents: Lightning to USB Cable, USB Power Adapter.

Thanks largely to its metal body and elegant design, the iPad mini will find many takers. That said, Google's Nexus 7 will still be on tablet buyers' wish list because of the price factor. The iPad mini (Wi-Fi) will be made available in the US from 2nd November; the LTE models will hit the market a couple of weeks later. Here are the pricing details:

• Wi-Fi Version - $330 (16 GB); $430 (32 GB); $530 (64 GB).
• Wi-Fi + 4G Version - $460 (16 GB); $560 (32 GB); $660 (64 GB).

TAGS: Tablets, Apple, iPad, ck