iPad mini or wait for the Retina?

The retina version will be great but a couple of points to ponder.

• The iPad mini is available now, the retina version isn't - who knows when it will be out.
• The iPad's price point is rather high, a retina screen will drive the price even higher presumably.
• The processor and GPU are not powerful enough to handle the retina screen so the A6 will be used.
• Because of the higher performing screen and GPU a larger battery will be needed if they wish to maintain the same battery life.
• The size may be altered because of the issues above.

I'm not saying apple can't or won't but if you like the current form factor then I suggest you buy it and enjoy it. If Apple releases the iPad mini sometime in 2013 you could always sell the this one and buy the retina version

I'm waiting. I have an ipad3. Going with the current mini is going backwards with regards to image clarity. If the current mini isn't going to be used for reading text then it's fine.

I think you should get a regular ver. 4 IPAD for reading text. Especially if they are text books with pictures. The text and image quality will be unsurpassed and I'd want the slightly larger screen too. The Ipad is great, don't get me wrong, I have one, but if I were using it for textbooks I'd want the larger retina IPAD.

I am getting this gen Mini, played with a friends and compared it along side a retina iPad and i just dont see the diffrence, retina is pointless for what i want to do, and the distance at which i hold the device from my eyes, i cant see a difference between the retina iPad and the non-retina iPad.

Interestingly a test was done on HD TVs a few years back, and most people who were shown a selection of TVs running a mix of 720p and 1080p screens from a normal viewing distance couldn't tell which was which, same holds true for the iPads, if your close enough to see the difference, your too close to the device screen.

Give me a sensible resolution and a better battery life, no need for high end GPU, more ram and a power hungry screen.

The iPad 3 and 4 are thicker and heavier than iPad 2 due to battery requirements to power the retina display. For the iPad mini, it would probably take IGZO display to keep power requirements of retina display low, so that they can keep it slim and light. But I heaven't heard about the yields of IGZO to be high enough for Apple to actually use them, because Apple needs millions of displays to satisfy demand. I would think IGZO maybe there at the end of the year, but who really knows.

My mini will arrive in a few days.

Well, the price doesn't have to rise when a retina mini comes along. Look at what happened to the regular iPad: 3rd gen replaced the iPad 2, but at the same price point.

You'll never know when the new mini will arrive or what technology Apple will use. Would Apple put to market a thicker and heavier iPad mini so soon after making such a big deal about the mini being thin and light? Maybe. The 3rd gen iPad was also a bit of an in-between, because the GPU couldn't really keep up with the display resolution. 4th gen solved that.

If its just for ebooks, how about one of the kindles? Amazon's book ecosystem is tons better than Apple's.