The much-awaited iPad mini with Retina display is now available in the US and other markets, part of the first wave of launch, on Apple's online store starting midnight (Pacific Time - US), November 12.
Apple will ship the new tablet in one to three business days with deliveries starting between November 20 to 22 in the US.
The iPad mini with Retina display is available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and US.
Apple had
announced the iPad mini with Retina display, last month, due for a November launch, without detailing any precise availability date, perhaps due to supply constraints.
It was speculated that the high-resolution display equipped
iteration of the iPad mini would be in short supply, even before the device was launched. Later, Apple CEO Tim Cook, acknowledged during the
company's earnings call for the fourth quarter that it was unclear if Apple would be able to produce enough to meet demand for the tablet. The tight supplies of the Retina display have been blamed for the limited production,
with some technical issues also popping up.
The new iPad mini features a 7.9-inch Retina display with a resolution of 2048x1536 pixels (on par with the iPad) and pixel density of 326ppi. It's powered by a 64-bit A7 chip which also powers the new iPhone 5s, offering up to four times faster CPU performance and up to eight times faster graphics performance than the previous generation iPad mini. It also sports the M7 motion coprocessor that takes care of measuring motion data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass sensors, sending them to apps without waking up the A7 processor, leading to improved battery life and the ability to recognise different types of motion.
The new iPad mini comes with two antennas to support MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) for up to twice as fast 802.11n Wi-Fi, according to Apple. The Wi-Fi + Cellular model comes with more LTE bands to support more 4G LTE networks.
The tablet is available in Space Gray and Silver colour options.
The iPad mini with Retina display starts at $399, compared with $329 for the previous mini model for the 16GB, Wi-Fi only variant.