iPad Mini 4 Release Date, Price: Thinner and Lighter With an iPad Air 2-Style Redesign

By Komfie Manalo
iPad mini 4
The new ipad mini 4 is packing with significant upgrade.

Cupertino-based tech giant Apple is expected to introduce a slew of new products in the coming fall, specifically between October and November this year, including new smartphones and larger iPads.

Amongst the products Apple is scheduled to release is the successor to its iPad Mini 3 called the iPad Mini 4, the smaller tablet expected to showcase plenty of upgrades and improvements and features that is at par with the much larger-screened iPad Air 2.

Indeed some rumors suggest that the iPad Mini 4 is the smaller version of the iPad Air 2.

According to MacRumors the iPad Mini 4 is speculated to thinner with an ultra-thin 6.1mm body and lighter with an iPad Air 2-style redesign, powered by Apple's new A9 chip set, and an improved display. The new iPad Mini 4 will be packing with significant improvement than the iPad Mini which introduced only the Touch ID when it rolled down in 2014.

The new tablet will also be equipped with a 7.9-inch laminated Retina display and "more vivid colors and greater contrast," anti-reflective display coating, run on Apple's latest iOS 9 operating system and an 8-megapixel rear camera.

"We expect the iPad mini 4 to use the next-generation 14 to 16-nanometer A9 processors that are slated for inclusion in all of Apple's 2015 iOS devices. Like the iPad Air 2, the iPad mini 4 may also feature 2GB of RAM to allow it to support the Split-Screen Multitasking features built into iOS 9," the report said.

As stated, the iPad Mini 4 will be as thin as the iPad Air 2 and almost the same design features. Early leaked photos of iPad Mini 4 showed a rear shell with a single row of larger speaker hole alongside the Lightning port of the design, deviating from the previous design of two smaller rows. The mute switch was also removed from the latest iPad and replaced with a microphone hole.

The iPad Mini 4 will also have an LTE support, and 16/32/64/128GB storage capacities. While Apple's iPhone line is expected to gain Force Touch this year, it looks like the iPad lineup will not gain the feature in 2015.

Earlier, we reported that Japanese blogger blog Mac Otakara hinted that Apple might release the new iPad mini series, including the iPad Pro and iPad mini 4 as individual new products together with the A-9-based iPad Air 3, following reports from Apple it would not be changing the shapes of the iPad series. The iPad mini 4 is expected to be Apple's last 7.9-inch tablet as the company wants to focus on tablets with bigger screens, like the iPad Air and the iPad Pro.

Some are even hinting Apple might increase the iPad mini 4's hard drive to 32GB as base model and abandon the old 16GB model which is insufficient to fill those tablets with music and video files.

Speculations also abound that Apple will price the iPad mini 4 at $496.33 that is consistent with its earlier pricing when it launched the previous iPad minis. Although the high-end tablet iPad Air 2 is expected to hit the shelves at $670.20.

iPad Mini 4 leaked housing leaked by @OnLeaks.

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