New OLED iPad mini: Faster Chip, but $200 More Expensive
Apple's new iPad mini tablet gets an OLED display, a more powerful A20 Pro chip and water resistance, but starts at $699. It does not have a 120Hz ProMotion display.
US technology company Apple has released a new generation of its compact iPad mini tablet. It is the first iPad mini with an OLED display and a new processor, and it costs $200 more than its predecessor: the 128GB version starts at $699. A review by tech outlet Engadget sets out what has changed on the new device and which trade-offs come with it.
A more powerful chip
The tablet is powered by the 5-core A20 Pro chip, built on a 2-nanometer process. Apple says graphics performance is up to 2.7 times higher, and AI workloads up to 4.5 times faster, than on the A17 Pro in the previous model. The 512GB variant adds another CPU core and a dual 16-core Neural Engine. The device likely has 12GB of RAM, though Apple does not officially list it; the previous model had 8GB. Charging is faster: with a compatible adapter, it can reach 50 percent in 30 minutes. Battery life claims are unchanged.
OLED display and new body
The OLED panel reaches up to 1,200 nits of peak HDR brightness, while the previous model's screen maxed out at 500 nits of SDR brightness. The new tablet is 5.4mm thick and weighs 255 grams, versus 6.3mm and 293 grams for its predecessor. The screen is slightly larger at 8.5 inches, as the bezels are 24 percent thinner. The refresh rate remains 60Hz with no ProMotion, which drew disappointment from users on X. Dave Pakula, Apple's vice president of Hardware Engineering, said in an interview that display quality is not about a single spec and that OLED's fast pixel response makes everything look smooth.
Other changes
The iPad mini is Apple's first water-resistant iPad, with an IP67 rating. The speaker grilles have been replaced by the new Acoustic Display system, with tweeters between the glass and aluminum body and woofers firing through the display. It adds Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and the new C2 cellular modem, which Apple says delivers up to 50 percent faster cellular data. The front camera now sits on the longer edge, which suits landscape video calls. Apple Pencil Pro is supported, colors are cut to two, Midnight and Starlight, and the device runs iPadOS 27. A 512GB model with cellular connectivity and nano-texture glass costs $1,249.
