Apple announces the long-rumored iPad mini (updated)

Just two weeks after Apple sold its 100 millionth iPad, the company has announced the iPad mini. As Phil Schiller said, it is not a shrunken-down iPad but a unique design with an aluminium enclosure. It can be held in one hand and is thin and light. It has a 7.9-inch screen with a 1,024x768 resolution (same as the iPad 2) with no tweaking needed for apps, is 7.2 mm thin, about as thin as a pencil. It weighs 0.68 pounds, 53 percent lighter than the newly announced fourth-generation iPad. It will come in white and black.

The iPad mini has a dual-core A5 chip, FaceTime HD front-side camera and a 5MP iSight camera, twice-as-fast WiFi and a Lightning connector, along with a 10-hour battery life.

The iPad mini starts at US$329 for 16GB WiFi only. The iPad 2 is still listed on the iPad lineup. The price will go up to $659 depending on capacity and cellular capability.

Pre-orders for the iPad mini will go up on October 26 with orders shipping for the WiFi only model going out on November 2. The cellular-capable ones will go out on November 9.