Tonight, Apple unveiled a brand new iPad tablet: the iPad mini. We think it will be a big hit for parents and their children, even more so than the existing iPads. Here’s why…

Tech specs first: the main thing you need to know is that the iPad mini is, well, mini. It has a 7.9-inch screen compared to the 9.7-inch screen of its bigger brother(s). Apple says the new device is 23% thinner and 53% lighter than the last iPad. Perfect for child-sized hands.

The iPad mini will go for 10 hours at a time, runs the latest iOS 6 software, and has the same screen resolution as the iPad 2 – which basically means all the apps released for iPad so far (and there’s more than 275,000 of them) will run on it. And it has two cameras, meaning children’s apps designed to use those will still work too.

The new tablet goes on sale on 2 November in Wi-Fi only models costing £269 for the 16GB model, £349 for the 32GB model and £429 for the 64GB model here in the UK. A couple of weeks later, a Wi-Fi + Cellular (i.e. 3G/4G) version will go on sale too for £369, £449 and £529 respectively.

So, at the bottom end, the iPad mini is more affordable – £269 versus £399 for the cheapest big iPad. Now, 270 quid isn’t peanuts, but that price may tempt a number of parents into buying the iPad mini just as a tablet for their children.

Admittedly, it’s still £200 more than LeapFrog’s LeapPad2 Explorer, which is making its pitch as a kids-only tablet, and £110 more than Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD, which has also been interesting parents.

iPad mini certainly isn’t the cheapest option for your children, then, but it does have that large collection of apps in its favour. As a guide, at Apps Playground we only try to write about apps we think look good/interesting/innovative, yet we’ve covered well over 350 in 2012 alone.

Anyway, we’re hoping to get our hands on an iPad mini when it goes on sale to give it a proper test – including letting our two sons loose on it to see what they think. Stand by for a review.