EFTM Hands on: Apple announces iPad mini

This morning in San Jose, California Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the long rumoured iPad mini.

While Apple have long been renowned for their secrecy, the iPad mini has been rumoured and leaked online for many months now.

The iPad mini is a smaller tablet with a 7.9-inch screen aimed squarely at the lower priced tablet market, which until now has been filled only by Android tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 or Google Nexus 7 as well as the Blackberry Playbook.

Apple’s Phil Schiller spent time during today’s announcement to compare the iPad mini to the Google Nexus 7 – in an attempt to demonstrate the benefits of the iPad mini over the Android tablet.

Priced from $369 the iPad mini comes in $60 under the previously entry level iPad 2.

In the hand the iPad mini is remarkably light and given the inner workings are the same or better in terms of specifications than the iPad 2 – this is a pretty amazing feat of engineering. As described by Apple, the iPad mini fits well in one hand which was the motivation behind the reduced bezel around the edge to keep the screen large (7.9-inch as opposed to 7 inch) while still making it comfortable to hold.

The iPad mini comes in two colours, white and black, and just like the iPhone 5, the black version actually has a dark slate coloured back, while the white has the more traditional looking silver aluminium back.

Pre-orders start Friday October 26, with the WiFi only models shipping the following week. 4G versions will follow shortly after.

Check out our video look at the new iPad mini.

Trevor Long travelled to San Jose as a guest of Apple