I’ve seen a number of people in forums and round the web asking about whether cases for the original iPad mini will fit the new Retina iPad mini. The answer is Yes, at least with most mainstream cases I would say.

Over recent days I’ve been trying out a number of cases for the original iPad mini and every one of them fits just fine on the iPad mini with Retina display. Some of the cases I’ve tested with include the Apple iPad mini Smart Cover (new and old are shown above), a Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover, and several typical soft and wood-framed folio cases.

All of those fit the new Retina iPad mini and worked well. Of course if you’re shopping for a case for the Retina iPad mini you’ll still want to verify with the case vendor that a specific case is compatible – but you should find that the vast majority will.

The clever and talented team at iFixit have done their official teardown and brutal dissection of the Retina iPad mini – revealing all its guts and glory and detailed components breakdown.

Here are a few of the most notable items discovered in the innards of the Retina iPad mini:

— A7 processor chip just as expected but running at 1.3Ghz like the iPhone 5s, just a touch lower than the 1.4Ghz on the iPad Air.

— 1GB of RAM, just like the iPad Air. This is the one area of the specs for the new iPads that I’ve found a little disappointing.

— A much bigger new battery, presumably to help it handle the new Retina display:

3.75 V, 24.3 Whr, 6471 mAh—a huge bump over the 16.3 Whr battery seen in the previous Mini.

Also out today are some very impressive Geekbench benchamark results for the Retina iPad mini. As reported by MacRumors the new Retina iPad mini scored 5 times higher than the original iPad mini in some key performance areas.

The Retina iPad mini scored a 1390 on the single-core test and a 2512 on the multi-core test …Compared to the 261/493 score of the original mini, the Retina iPad mini marks an incredible boost in performance speeds.

You can check out the full iFixit teardown for lots more in-depth details on the Retina iPad mini internals and plenty of gory shots of its innards.

I just went and picked up a lovely new Retina iPad mini – hurray.

This has been easily the weirdest experience I’ve had with getting a new iPad – with the stealthy midnight launch the other night for the Retina iPad mini and more fun and games afterwards. By the time I found out about the overnight initial launch (the next morning) shop times for the model I wanted were already looking like delivery bang on the Thanksgiving break. I initially placed an order purely out of fear that shipping times would soon get much worse. Then after half a day or thereabouts I realized that A) I’d very likely be away when it was delivered and B) no way am I patient enough to wait that long if there is even a slight chance of acquiring one at a local store.

This morning I woke up to stories round the web that personal pickup was now live. Great, I thought until I quickly went to place an order in the Apple Store app on my old, soon-to-be-given-the-boot iPad mini – and saw that personal pickup was not available and ship times were still 1-3 business days.

Then I started looking round and seeing that every Apple store in a 50 mile radius showed as ‘Unavailable for pickup’ and the folks at Best Buy and AT&T had no stock at all and no real idea on when they might.

Long story slightly shortened – I kept the Apple online store order page open in my browser with my model choices all selected and checked back on it every hour or so to see if any stores in my area showed as available for pickup. At around 2:30 Central my closest store (just 5 miles away) popped up as available and I hammered away with mouse and keyboard to get my order in as fast as my hands could go.

And it went through and I picked up my new shiny just after 3:00.

Hope you all are having or already had smoother experiences if you’ve been trying to get hold of a new Retina iPad mini.

The iPad mini with Retina display went on sale at Apple’s online store last night, in an odd sort of stealth launch.

This morning Apple has announced that the Retina iPad mini will also be available via Personal Pickup at Apple retail stores and other approved retail outlets, though they don’t appear to be available in any of those outlets just yet. Here’s the actual wording from Apple’s press release on the Retina iPad mini release:

iPad mini with Retina display is available to order through the Apple Online Store(www.apple.com) to ship or through Personal Pickup at Apple’s retail stores, and through AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and select Apple Authorized Resellers.

Personal Pickup means you place an order online and select a store you want to pickup the iPad at, rather than having it shipped to a home address.

Just before starting on this post I checked the Apple online site and the Apple Store iOS app – and all of my local area Apple stores show as Unavailable for Personal Pickup. Best Buy’s online site just lists the Retina iPad mini models as ‘Coming Soon’ and available only for in-store pickup. I also called a few local Best Buy and AT&T outlets – and they say they have none available and no information about when they may get any in. Same goes for local Apple stores.

So I guess if, like me, you’re too impatient to wait on Apple’s 5-10 business day shipping (for WiFi + Cellular models) then it’s going to be a bit of a treasure hunt to try to grab one at a retail outlet whenever they come in and before they sell out.

The iPad mini with Retina display went on sale last night at midnight Pacific time – at Apple’s online store.

This is an odd release for a major new iPad model, with no announcement beforehand. The conjecture is that this sort of ‘stealth’ release for the Retina iPad mini is due to the long-rumored shortage of supply.

Judging by the ship times available this morning, that conjecture sounds pretty accurate. Ship times for WiFi only models are at 1-3 business days. WiFi + Cellular models are already at 5-10 business days.

I’ve not seen any word yet on whether you can buy a new Retina iPad mini at an Apple retail store.

So the obvious pro tip here is if you want a Retina iPad mini you probably want to get an order in quick if you want to see it this side of Christmas.

Here’s one more little spec bump that the new Retina iPad mini offers – a bump-up in storage options.

There’s now a 128GB model, for both the WiFi only and WiFi + Cellular versions of the Retina iPad mini.

The 128GB models are priced at $699 and $829 for the WiFi only and WiFi + Cellular versions, respectively.

This is a nice new option for those of use who may end up maxing out our Retina iPad minis with scores of apps and perhaps some larger, more powerful 64-bit apps to take advantage of the new A7 chip.

Along with the iPad Air, Apple unveiled the new iPad mini with Retina Display earlier today. I’m just going to refer to it here as the Retina iPad mini, for the sake of brevity.

In terms of new features, there’s The Big One and then a few other nice new ones. Of course the big, huge thing here is the addition of a Retina display to the iPad mini. This was by far and away the most wanted new feature for me and for every single iPad mini user or potential user I’ve had contact with over the last 11 months.

The Retina iPad mini now has the same resolution – 2048X1536 – as the iPad air and 326 pixels per inch on its lovely little 7.9 inch screen.

Another impressive new feature is Apple’s A7 chip. This is said to offer 4X improvements to CPU performance and 8X on graphics performance.

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