Everyone is getting ready for Christmas. So is Apple. The company has finally made the iPad mini with Retina display available for online purchase on its website as well as other retail stores such as Best Buy. Till last week, the availability of the iPad mini with Retina display was uncertain with no firm launch date.
Addition of Retina display to iPad mini line was a much needed refresh. The screen has now got the resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels, which obviously makes images and videos crisper and sharper in terms of appearance. The physical dimensions of the iPad mini, however, has been left unchanged, though the weight of the new tablet has increased slightly.
Apart from the Retina display, the new iPad mini has also got Apple's latest A7 processor, the one that powers iPad Air and iPhone 5s.
This is the first time Apple will be offering four iPads - iPad mini with Retina display, iPad mini, iPad Air and iPad 2 - this holiday season.
The basic Wi-Fi model of iPad mini with Retina display will cost $399. The 32GB version will cost $499 and you will have to pay $699 for the 128GB model.
iPad mini with Retina display Wi-Fi + Cellular version starts at $529 and goes up to $829.
However, this festive season is going to be tough for iPad and Apple, due to increased competition from rival tablets such as Google Nexus 7 2013, Kindle Fire HDX and Microsoft Surface 2, that certainly over better value for money.
"We continue to view the tablet market as 'huge.' We see it as a large opportunity for us. We are not solely focused on unit share, as we've said many times, but on usage and customer satisfaction and other things that are very important to us," Apple CEO Tim Cook said last month on the company's earnings call.
However, at the end, it will be customers who are going to decide if they really want to celebrate an "iPad Christmas" or is it just Apple.
