New iPad Mini Announced With Prices, Specs & More

Apple held their live-streaming event today to announce their new lineup of Macbook products. But they also finally announced the iPad Mini, the latest addition to the iPad lineup. Take a look at some images and specs from the announcement.

The iPad Mini is its name, and portability is its game. The 7.9" tablet is looking to compete with the likes of the Kindle Fire HD, Google Nexus 7 and other tablets currently on the market.

Coming in black or white, the tablet sports a new design that's 23 percent thinner and 53 percent lighter than the new iPad. It runs on Apple's dual-core A5 processor and has a Facetime HD front-facing camera and a five-megapixel rear camera. Yes, it will shoot 1080p video.

The iPad Mini has a 1,024 X 768 pixel resolution display, the same as the iPad 2. So developers won't have to do anything to their apps like they did for the iPhone 5, they'll just already work for the iPad Mini in its scaled down resolution.

The Mini also sports the Lightning connector, LTE capability, 2X the Wi-Fi speed (dual-band 802.11n), and 10-hour battery life.

Prices start at $329 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model. Here's a breakdown of the prices:

 Wi-Fi only:

16GB: $329

32GB: $429

64GB: $529

Wi-Fi + Cellular:

16GB: $459

32GB: $559

64GB: $659

Pre-orders start this Friday, October 26th and the Wi-Fi units will begin shipping next week. The Wi-Fi + Cellular model begin shipping in two weeks.

Games should run great, though those of you used to the display on the new iPad might be a bit disappointed by the resolution. But Apple is looking to take a bite out of the existing 7" tablet market, not compete with its own lineup. The A5 processor, while not as fast as the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor found in the Google Nexus 7, will be able to run every current and upcoming game without breaking a sweat.

Here are some pictures from the Apple event.