As part of what it expected to be three days of announcements, Apple today unveiled a new version of its iPad mini tablet, with the 8th-gen model boasting a slight redesign and major upgrades to its screen and processor.
Described by the company as “the most capable and versatile iPad mini ever,” the product runs an A20 Pro chip, a three-generation upgrade on the 2024 mini’s A17 Pro chip. Apple is pushing this as an important boost to the tablet’s power, claiming the new chip “supercharges AI.” The chip comes in two options. The 128GB and 256GB models get a 5-core CPU and a 16-core Neural Engine while the 512GB model, which costs $300 more than the 128GB model, gets the full 6-core chip with a dual 16-core Neural Engine.
Unlike the first six models in the series, which were labelled by generation, the last two have been explicitly defined on Apple’s website by their chip–so this is officially the “iPad mini (A20 Pro).”
With the exception of the very expensive Pro models at the top of the range, iPads in general tend to be bought by customers more interested in consuming media than churning through difficult processing tasks. The chip upgrade is therefore more a matter of future-proofing the new mini to be able to manage everyday tasks several years from now. iPad owners, to Apple’s chagrin, tend to hold on to them for a long time.
Those casual users may be prompted to make an early upgrade by similarly major upgrades to the mini’s screen. Movies and TV shows should look better on this hardware, which is slightly larger as well as promising substantially better picture quality.
The A17 Pro iPad mini had an 8.3-inch “Liquid Retina” LED screen with a resolution of 2266 x 1488 and a maximum brightness of 500 nits. The A20 Pro mode improves on those specs in every way, coming in at 8.5 inches, a “Super Retina XDR” branding, OLED technology, and a resolution of 2316 x 1512 (that’s the same sharpness, just covering a larger area). As for brightness, the new mini is capable of a maximum standard brightness of 600 nits, and can go all the way up to 1,200 nits peak brightness on HDR content.
OLED is the headline upgrade there. The technology delivers deeper blacks than LED, richer and crisper colors, and better handling of HDR content. On top of that, the new mini brings the option to add nano-texture glass to the display, something which was previously restricted (at least in Apple’s tablet range) to the iPad Pro. It isn’t offered on the current iPad Air or standard iPad. it’s only available on the 256GB and 512GB models, and costs an additional $100.
Aside from the chip and screen, the mini’s third major upgrade is its design. Despite the inclusion of a larger screen its length and width are virtually identical to the previous model (they’ve actually shrunk a tiny bit, from 195.4 x 134.8 mm to 195.3 x 132.6 mm), but the device is a lot thinner (from 6.3 mm down to 5.4 mm) and significantly lighter (from 0.65 pounds/293g down to 0.56 pounds/255g). In a nutshell, the mini is now more portable than ever.
Those are the big three changes. But there are other upgrades: actual dust and water resistance (it gets a very high IP67 rating); the FaceTime camera moves from the short to the more convenient landscape edge (and also gets a larger f/2.0 aperture, up from f/2.4); Wi-Fi moves from version 6e to 7; Bluetooth from 5.3 to 6; and the speakers are upgraded to what Apple descries as an “Acoustic Display.” (“Specially designed woofers are paired through the display to produce punchier bass and more volume,” the company explains, while “custom tweeters are now hidden between the glass and aluminum enclosure for clearer highs.”) The device is also rated for fast charging: Apple claims you can charge up to 50 percent in 30 minutes with compatible charging equipment.
The new iPad mini starts at $699/£699 for the Wi-Fi model, or $849/£849 for the cellular one. Preorders start on Wednesday, October 28, and the device will hit stores on Friday, November 6.
