iPhone 5 has retina screen, A6 proc., and same battery life as the iPhone 4 but it's thinner and much lighter.
So I don't get where people are saying major sacrifices have to be made for the iPad mini to get a Retina screen. My guess is that Apple has a prototype in their lab, but they are milking the novelty of the mini concept for all they can before they start pushing a workhorse model. Plus they needed to keep costs down so they would be too far out of the 7in pricing ballpark.
Well the iPhone 5 isn't pushing 2048 x 1536. It's 1136 x 640 resolution is less pixels than the iPad mini's current 1024 x 768.
They need to use the more powerful GPU (A6X) to drive the 2048 x 1536 display and that's where the necessity for bigger battery etc comes into play.
iPad 4 (45 watt battery) and it has less battery life than the 16 watt battery In the iPad mini.
If they doubled te battery in the mini to 32 Watt it would undoubtably add weight because of the increased density and thickness to the device.
The reality is that the retina display wont be in production till Q3 2013 so the chance Apple has them working in prototypes at this stage is remote.
Add they would need to revamp or revise the A6X so it moves to 22nm manufacturing in order to reduce power it consumes, this isn't road mapped till Q2/3 2013 either.
We will see a Retina iPad mini, but it won't be until Q4 2013 at the earliest, as that's when the displays are going into production.
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