The new iPad Mini was nowhere to be found in the Apple event last September, which led to the rumor that the Mini 5 will be released in March 2017. However, the American tech giant has sent out invitations to a press event on Thursday, October 27 at its Cupertino headquarters. Could this be the launch of the new iPad?

As the early hints suggested, we can expect a more conservative redesign and less noticeable improvements.

According to rumors, the iPad Air 3 and iPad Mini 5 will be even thinner than their predecessors at just 5mm (which are already an incredible 6.1mm).

Since it is speculated that the new iPad Mini will be thinner, we can expect that it will feature the 7000-series aluminium chassis like the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus to make it more durable. It will prevent the tablet from bending.

It is also rumored that the new iPad Mini will feature a Smart Connector, like the iPad Pro model, for a Smart Keyboard of its own.

Although Apple has deployed the 3D Touch pressure-sensitive screen tech in its iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, not many are expecting the company to do the same with the iPad series. It is also believed that the iPad Mini 5's thinner design would be made possible by a new, smaller battery.

In terms of camera, it isn't expected that Apple will up the camera quality in the Mini 5. However, expecting the same 8MP on the rear and 1.2MP on the front is unlikely as well. Despite the rumored minimal improvement, hopefully the selfie camera gets a larger boost.

On the recent drop of the 16GB model on the iPhone 7 line, we can predict that Apple will drop the 16GB model and will launch the iPad Mini 5 with 32GB, 64GB and 128GB models.

The list of new technology, which are expected includes 3D Touch, No headphone port, fast charging, micro SD card slot, full Apple Pay, waterproofing and finally pink colour option.

The iPad Mini 4 was released in UK at $399 USD / £319 GBP for the 16GB Wi-Fi only model. It can be expected that the iPad Mini 5 will be released at the same price point, coming in at £319 for the base model.