Apple unveiled a new iPad mini today, and it’s a big upgrade over the previous model. Here’s everything new.
The new iPad mini look similar to the previous model, but also fresh and more modern thanks to two main design changes:
You may or may not notice, but the new mini is also slightly more narrow, measuring 132.6mm wide vs 134.8mm. And it weighs less: 255 grams vs 293 for Wi-Fi models.
The front-facing Center Stage camera is now positioned on the landscape side of the device rather than portrait.
Apple now offers the iPad mini in two colors: Midnight and Starlight. Previously more options were available, including Space Gray and Starlight, but the latest colors still have an updated look.
Thanks to the reduced bezels, the new iPad mini now has a larger, 8.5-inch display. The previous model’s was only 8.3 inches.
Perhaps a more significant change is that the display is OLED, a big upgrade from the LCD technology used before. Apple says this enables “pixel-level lighting control for much deeper blacks and support for the P3 wide color gamut for more vivid and accurate imagery.”
The display gets much brighter than before too, with peak brightness of 1200 nits, double the previous max of 600. Standard SDR and HDR brightness is 600 nits, up from 500. It also supports 1-nit minimum brightness for use in dim environments.
Apple now lets you optionally choose a nano-texture display on 256GB models and up. iPad mini has never previously offered nano-texture.
The new iPad mini has an A20 Pro chip, Apple’s most powerful mobile processor that first debuted in iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo. The previous generation had an A17 Pro. Per Apple:
A20 Pro delivers a giant leap in performance for iPad mini, significantly boosting graphics and AI-intensive tasks. It is built using Apple’s latest 2-nanometer process technology and a new package inspired by M-series chips. Powered by a 7-core GPU with Neural Accelerators in each GPU core, iPad mini delivers up to 4.5x faster AI performance than the previous generation — perfect for AI tasks ranging from running on-device models in creative apps to running local LLMs. And with the latest graphics architecture, including dynamic caching and hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing, graphics performance jumps by up to 2.7x — great for gaming and 3D rendering. A20 Pro also features up to a 6-core CPU for up to 60 percent faster multithreaded performance for everyday tasks like editing photos and working across apps.
A20 Pro also brings 2x increase in unified memory bandwidth.
One key detail worth noting is that the new iPad mini uses a binned A20 Pro chip in all but the high-end 512GB model. Not only does the binned chip have only 5 CPU cores rather than 6, it also lacks the Dual 16-core Neural Engine. Instead, you get the standard 16-core Neural Engine.
So if you’re comparing performance, Apple’s “up to” quotes refer to the 512GB model.
Instead of the previous traditional stereo speaker setup, the new iPad mini uses “an innovative Acoustic Display” for audio, which Apple says delivers:
an even better audio experience when gaming, watching videos, or editing content. Specially designed woofers are paired through the display to produce punchier bass and more volume. In addition, custom tweeters are now hidden between the glass and aluminum enclosure for clearer highs.
The Acoustic Display has a sealed enclosure which enables iPad mini to offer IP67 water and dust resistance. This makes it more versatile than before.
Apple’s N1 and C2 chips comes to the iPad mini, enabling the following connectivity improvements:
Additionally, though Apple didn’t give specific fast charging details for its last iPad mini, the new model supports: “Up to 50% charge in 30 minutes with a 35W adapter or higher.”
Finally, Apple also notes that the new iPad mini “supports extended display mode when connected to an external display, great for users multitasking with windowed apps.” Previously only mirroring was available, whereas this sounds like a full-fledged extended display feature.
As with nearly every other product these days, the iPad mini is getting more expensive with today’s updates. It now starts at $699, up from the previous $599 starting price.
Pre-orders for the new iPad mini will open this Wednesday, October 28 at 10:10 a.m. PT and orders deliver on Friday, November 6.
Are you planning to upgrade to the new iPad mini? Let us know in the comments.
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