April looms as the likely launch schedule for the iPad Mini 2, that's the good news. The bad news is Apple is unable to include Retina display for its small tablet refresh, a new report said.

The move was deliberate, according to Rene Ritchie of iMore, because Apple is more concerned on delivering a Mini that remains within its target price, probably the same starting price of $US329 when the first iPad Mini debuted last year.

The goal, of course, is obvious - the tech giant would want the new Mini to continue flying off the shelves in the same way that its predecessor did, eventually amassing total buys of 23 million units as of December 2012 and counting.

"Retina for the iPad mini, however, still doesn't sound imminent," Mr Ritchie concludes on his piece.

Another reason for setting aside the Retina display flavour for now is to give the Mini 2 more operating hours. A crisp and incredibly clear screen is definitely power-hungry and it appears Apple has yet to perfect the battery that will match its deployment on the iPad Mini.

The downside, however, will be compensated by Apple on other spec improvements, Mr Ritchie said, adding that more processing might should be expected from the small tablet.

No details were provided by the report but the Mini bump up should at least match the power that Samsung had unleashed earlier via its new small tablet challenger - the Galaxy Note 8.0.

The Android slate will flex a quad-core CPU muscle of 1.6GHz that taps on a 2GB of RAM, which the Mini 2 should equal following the anaemic specs of dual-core A5 chip and 512MB of RAM that came with the first edition.

The report also indicated that the iPad 5 will likely be issued with the Mini 2 and Apple fans wanting to enjoy Retina on tablet can opt to get this slab instead, which is expected to display higher specs.

Yet the most notable makeover of bigger iPad is its size reduction, its body taking after the design of the iPad Mini - thinner and flatter casing while having smaller bezels wrapped around its Retina-enable display screen.