Back in early November, gamers who were planning to dole out $499 to get the Wikipad found out that the Android gaming slate has been pushed back to make way for some last-minute improvements. Fast forward to today, the “minor refinement” that the team talked about has turned out quite to be a big one, as the 10.1-inch Wikipad has shrunk in size.

The decision to scrap the 10-inch model for a 7-inch one wasn’t an easy one to make. Talking to The Verge, Wikipad’s president of sales Fraser Townley said that it came down to a mechanical problem that was plaguing the tablet. The company “could have put the product out on the market and failed permanently”, but they decided to take the time to iron things out.

Unfortunately, polishing the device to perfection took longer than expected. By the time they’re ready to order a new batch, the 10-inch LCD panel required for the tablet was no longer in production.

Putting the past behind, what does the 7-inch Wikipad has to offer? Aside from the new form factor, the rest of the specs remain the same, including a quad-core Tegra 3 processor clocked at 1.4GHz, 1GB of RAM, 16GB internal storage, dual-band WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

As for the best part, it now has a more palatable price. For $249.99, you’ll get both the 7-inch tablet and detachable gaming controller.

The company said that its partners — such as Sony and NVIDIA — and major retailers are still on board the Wikipad ship, and that we can look forward to the gaming tab hitting stores in spring. Are you still game?