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This isn't just an Apple tablet made to a budget. This isn't just a shrunken-down iPad. This is, in many ways, Apple's best tablet yet, an incredibly thin, remarkably light, obviously well-constructed device that offers phenomenal battery life.

So, all of this (beyond the screen caveat) sounds great. Home run, right? In my mind, yes. I can easily see the iPad mini becoming what the iPod mini was to the iPod — that is, the version that takes a popular, iconic device and vastly expands its user base.

If you love the iPad, or want one, but just found it too large or heavy, the iPad Mini is the perfect solution.

Over all, the Mini gives you all the iPad goodness in a more manageable size, and it’s awesome. You could argue that the iPad Mini is what the iPad always wanted to be.

If you want a tiny tablet to do everything but make calls, the iPad Mini is worth the $130 premium. For an e-reader plus apps, choose a cheaper, higher-resolution 7-inch tablet.

The iPad mini is functionally an iPad in practically every way, so if you like iOS but have been averse to Green Giant-sized (see, I'm thinking that way already) tablets, the mini may be a good fit.

Retina-display purists will (justifiably) balk at the 1024-by-768-pixel screen, but I suspect that most people will be wowed enough by the iPad mini’s other features, performance, design, and build quality to accept the screen for what it is—very good, but not Retina.

Despite having a lower resolution than other 7-inch tablets, the iPad mini justifies its premium price with a superior design, a back camera you would want to use and especially its higher-quality apps.

The iPad mini lets you run the best library of apps in the biz on a tablet you'll actually want to carry, but it's not the best small-screen tablet you can buy.

In my first week with the iPad mini, it quickly became the iPad I actually wanted to carry around. The mini's form factor is really where all of the innovation is. It's thin, light and an almost perfect balance of functional screen size and portability. I really love this form factor.

The iPad mini costs $130 more than the competition, but there's no way that it's $130 better. That doesn't mean you should go off and buy a Kindle Fire HD or a Nexus 7. But by next year, it's almost guaranteed that the iPad mini's performance—and display—will live up to its looks.

The only way Apple could improve on this product would be (as some people are already agitating) to give it a retina screen and somehow make it lighter. That might happen at some point. You can wait if you like; other people, in the meantime, will be buying this one.

If your budget’s got more wiggle room, the iPad Mini is the best compact-sized tablet on the market. Apple didn’t build yet another bargain-basement special; it squeezed all of the big iPad’s industrial-design panache ... and most of its technology, into a smaller ... lower-priced model.

In the end, it’s about an overall package, an experience which Apple is offering. Not the fastest tablet, nor the cheapest ... but the one with the lion’s share of tablet applications, the integration with the iOS/iTunes ecosystem, the familiarity of usability and, yes, the brand cachet.

It's a lovely size, it's a lovely experience, and one that we can easily see cannibalising iPad 4 and iPad 2 sales in the future. That's not to say there isn't a place for the iPad in your tablet world, but just that this is good enough to become the "lead" iPad, at least in our minds.

If Apple's iPad mini was equipped with a retina display, we wouldn't hesitate deeming it the best iPad ever. The iPad mini is an exceptionally constructed tablet with excellent battery life and an unsurpassed app ecosystem that the competition simply can't match. However, it's expensive.

We will say this, though: the iPad Mini is the best iPad Apple has ever created.

I can tell you the iPad mini is the best small tablet you can buy. The question you’ll have to answer for yourself is whether it’s that much better.

If the Mini had a retina display, I’d switch from the iPad 3 in a heartbeat. As it stands, I’m going to switch anyway. Going non-retina is a particularly bitter pill for me, but I like the iPad Mini’s size and weight so much that I’m going to swallow it.

The iPad mini is the best iPad yet and will likely become the default iPad choice for both consumers and businesses.

Sure, there are going to be people questioning its value for the buck, but when we think about its healthy selection of tablet-optimized apps combined with the rich functionality of its third party ones, some might be able to see pass the missed opportunities and view the value in it.

This year, the iPad mini does everything the full sized iPad does, differentiated only by its screen resolution and size and its pure computational power (something few users would probably notice). It's not hard to predict that this will sell really well.

The iPad mini is the best iPad Apple has ever created. It offers better value for money, sits more pleasantly in the hand and can handle all the tasks you want at least adequately and many times better than you'd expect.

More than a simple piece of eye candy, however, the iPad mini is a joy to use and one which, thanks to its slightly larger 7.9-inch display is immersive and perfectly sized for a combination of business and pleasure purposes.

Whether it's worth it depends on how much of a premium you put on great design and a vast ecosystem of apps. Apple will sell a lot of these little beauties, that's for sure.

... the iPad Mini is sure to fill a niche for many. Its smaller form factor makes it ideal for traveling and daily commutes, and its construction feels almost inarguably better than any of its competitors.

The iPad mini is a well thought out device and it’s exactly what you would expect from Apple.

This is the real iPad — the one meant to be taken everywhere with you, the one that’s simplest to read and use, the one that’s impossibly thin and light, and the one to buy.