Apple fans are going to be all over the new iPad mini and fourth-gen big iPad, but what does news of Apple’s tiny tablet mean for consumers who have yet to commit to one platform over another? Let’s take a quick look at how the iPad mini’s hardware compares to some popular Android models.

Any comparison like this is going to be chock-full of caveats, and this is no exception. Obviously, there’s a lot more to the experience a tablet delivers than is dictated by its hardware, so just by nature of the differing operating systems, it’s hard to directly compare these models.

We’re also not 100% certain on all of the iPad mini’s hardware specs. In many ways, the iPad mini is a shrunken-down iPad 2; they share the same processor, for instance. Apple hasn’t publicly revealed how much RAM the iPad mini will arrive with, but if we’re extrapolating from the iPad 2, 512MB sounds right. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to give the tablet the benefit of 1GB, so it’s hard to say with any certainty.

What do you think? Is Apple going to succeed with the iPad mini thanks to its design and great software, or were you hoping to see something just a bit more powerful arrive?