judging from how Xiaomi recent handsets have been flying off the shelves, it is safe to say the Chinese handset maker has quite a following and this following might be expecting a tablet to follow suit. no surprises though. rumors of a possible tablet have been floating around for quite some time now and today, the soon-to-be Chinese giant has officially unveiled its first tablet, aptly dubbed MiPad, which looks unapologetically similar to the iPad mini, albeit in glossy plastic. boasting a big hand-friendly 7.9-inch display with a stunning 2,048 x 1,536 resolution that rivals Apple’s small slate… oh wait, it is in fact the same resolution. and with that, it also suffers from the same ‘shortfall’ as the iPad mini which on-the-go movie nuts may not quite appreciate. you know, 4:3 AR is not exactly brilliant for watching movies. anyway, the display is flanked by narrow bezels (a nice touch) and though the Chinese firm takes the cheaper approach of having a plastic back (one that reminiscent of iPhone 5c, no doubt), the innards are anything but cheap.
on the inside you will find a NVIDIA Tegra K1 SoC touting a 2.2GHz quad-core Cortex-A15 processor and a 192-core Kepler GPU. also onboard is 2GB of RAM, 16 or 64GB of internal storage, microSD expansion slot that supports up to 128GB, dual antenna setup, wireless ac, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi Direct, stereo speakers and a 6,700 mAh battery pack. imaging comes is offered by a 8MP main camera and a 5MP front-facing item. all these features are packed into a profile of 8.5mm thick and weighs in at 360g. unfortunately, it appears that the MiPad is WiFi-only, with no hint of possible 3G or 4G LTE in the works. as far as Android tablets are concerned, the MiPad is well considered as top spec-ed and what makes it even more amazing is the pricing. the Xiaomi MiPad cost just 1,499 RMB (or about US$240) for the 16GB model and 1,699 RMB (around US$272) for the 64GB version. the MiPad is set to hit the China market in mid-June, though there is no word on its global availability.
