Apple today announced a new iPad mini with a larger 8.5-inch OLED display, a nano-texture display option, a thinner and lighter design, an A20 Pro chip, a new Acoustic Display audio system that eliminates speaker holes, IP67-rated water and dust resistance, a landscape front camera, Apple's N1 chip with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support, and more. Altogether, Apple says this amounts to the iPad mini's "biggest update ever."
With an OLED display, Apple said the new iPad mini delivers higher contrast and more than twice the peak brightness compared to the previous model, so expect content to have richer and more vivid colors compared to the previous LCD model.
The new model has a slightly larger 8.5-inch display, up from an 8.3-inch screen previously. Unfortunately for those hoping for a 120Hz refresh rate, Apple's tech specs do not mention ProMotion support, so the display appears to remain 60Hz.
Just like the iPad Pro, the iPad mini can now be configured with a nano-texture display, which reduces glare in bright environments. A nano-texture display is a $100 upgrade option available for models with 256GB or 512GB of storage only.
The new iPad mini is around 15% thinner and lighter than the previous model. Specifically, the new Wi-Fi model is 5.4mm thick and weighs 0.56 pounds, whereas the previous-generation Wi-Fi model is 6.3mm thick and weighs 0.65 pounds.
The device has a similar overall design as the previous model. It retains a Touch ID button on the top edge of the device, a USB-C port, a 12-megapixel rear Wide camera, two microphones, and the same advertised battery life figures.
The rear True Tone camera flash is now "adaptive," which apparently "improves photos and makes document scanning better than ever."
After debuting in the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo last month, the A20 Pro chip has now expanded to the iPad mini, but there are different versions of the chip depending on the storage capacity. Models with 128GB or 256GB of storage have a 5-core CPU, 7-core GPU, and a single 16-core Neural Engine, while configurations with 512GB of storage get a 6-core CPU, 7-core GPU, and a dual 16-core Neural Engine.
As already known, the A20 Pro chip is built with TSMC's advanced 2nm process and has Neural Accelerators in each GPU core. Apple says the A20 Pro chip offers up to 60% faster CPU performance, up to 2.7× faster graphics performance, and up to 4.5× faster AI performance compared to the A17 Pro chip in the previous iPad mini.
The new iPad mini features an innovative Acoustic Display system that delivers audio from behind the display. As a result, the device no longer has speaker holes.
"Specially designed woofers are paired through the display to produce punchier bass and more volume," said Apple. "In addition, custom tweeters are now hidden between the glass and aluminum enclosure for clearer highs."
The new Acoustic Display system helps the new iPad mini to achieve IP67-rated water and dust resistance, which is a first for the device.
On the new iPad mini, the 12-megapixel Center Stage front camera is positioned for landscape video calls, like on the latest iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad models. On the previous model, the camera is positioned for usage in portrait orientation.
Apple said its N1 chip with Wi-Fi 7 support enables "better performance when connected to 5GHz Wi-Fi networks" and "improves the overall performance and reliability of features like AirDrop and AirPlay." The previous model supports Wi-Fi 6E.
5G/LTE-enabled models received Apple's C2 chip for up to 50% faster cellular data speeds and improved power efficiency compared to the previous model.
The new iPad mini can be pre-ordered starting Wednesday, October 28 at the specific time of 10:10 a.m. Pacific Time, and it will begin arriving to customers and launch in Apple Stores on Friday, November 6. In the U.S., pricing starts at $699.
There are only two color options available: Midnight and Starlight.
