I spoke a few hours ago with an industry insider in Taipei, close to the Apple supply chain. He verified that Apple are adopting a new super slim bezel for the upcoming ‘mini iPad' tablet, said to be 7.85 inch.
Apple are known to dominate the high end, and their upcoming iPad 3 is going to cement their status as a premium tablet maker. They want to release a smaller, less expensive tablet to directly target the Amazon Kindle Fire, in order to increase their percentage dominance and to attract a wider audience who want a more portable tablet computer.
The latest news would suggest that the 7.85 inch Apple iPad mini will adopt the same 1,024 x 768 resolution used on the iPad and iPad 2, leaving the iPad 3 as the only model with 2,047 x 1,536 resolution. The iPad Mini will use a new super slim bezel to ensure that the screen almost runs to the edges of the tablet.
Kitguru says: Pricing for the iPad Mini is not yet confirmed, but Apple would need to aim for around the £300/$300 mark for the product to make sense.