Apple’s “iPad mini,” a smaller version of the company’s popular iPad tablet, will soon launch at a price point that may send shockwaves through the industry. In line with multiple earlier reports, Chinese-language MyDrivers on Monday reported a number of details surrounding Apple’s rumored iPad mini. According to the site, Apple’s upcoming tablet will feature a 7.85-inch IGZO LCD display manufactured by Sharp and it will be as thin as Apple’s iPad 2, which is marginally thinner than the current iPad model. Then site also claims the iPad mini will cost between $249 and $299 when it launches, though it cites unnamed analysts in reporting that price range. A number of industry watchers already believe low-cost Android tablets are having trouble competing with Apple’s $400 iPad 2, so a brand new iPad priced at $300 or even lower could represent an insurmountable roadblock for Google’s great land-grab. Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White believes the iPad mini will launch this fall priced in line with MyDrivers’s report.
UPDATE: Bloomberg has chimed in with a new report citing its own anonymous sources, who say Apple is working on a smaller, cheaper iPad that may be announced by October. The Wall Street Journal later reported much of the same.
[Via Unwired View]
