After keeping iPad Mini fans waiting for an update since 2021, Apple quietly announced a new version of its small tablet a few weeks ago. The new iPad Mini rounds off a busy few months for Apple and its tablet range, with refreshed iPad Pro and iPad Air models hitting the market earlier this year. We’ve been putting the new iPad Mini to the test over the past few weeks – read on for our review.
We’ll start with the obvious: the new iPad Mini looks exactly like the last iPad Mini. That’s not a bad thing, though. Apple completely revamped the design of its smallest tablet in 2021, removing the physical home button and squaring off the corners with the launch of the iPad Mini “6”. The result was a much sleeker-looking tablet that resembled the iPad Pro, and all these design updates have been retained in the 2024 iPad Mini “7”. It features the same 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display and matching bezels as the previous model, measures 7.69 inches by 5.3 inches in height and width and weighs the same 0.65 pounds (293 grams). The only noticeable difference between the 2021 and 2024 models is the new ‘iPad Mini’ branding on the back of the latter, while the former simply says ‘iPad’.
iPad Mini 2021 (top) compared to iPad Mini 2024 (bottom). [Photo: Felix Young]
Other than being a slightly lighter shade of Space Gray, the only visible difference between the 2021 and 2024 iPad Minis (right) is the branding on the back. [Photo: Felix Young]
So what has changed? Well, when it comes to the new iPad Mini, it’s really about what’s inside. The most notable upgrade is the new processor, with Apple choosing to use its A17 Pro chipset. If this sounds familiar, that’s because the A17 Pro is the same chipset found in last year’s iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, so while recent, it’s not really Apple’s newest chipset. Nevertheless, it has led to significant improvements in the overall processing power of the device. Apple says the new chip offers a speed improvement of about “30 percent” over the previous model and while we wouldn’t quantify our experience using it, we can say that the new iPad Mini felt noticeably smoother when running and switching between multiple apps. There was also no lag when using heavier apps like Adobe’s Premiere Pro and Lightroom, and we’ve been happily using the Mini for editing on the go in recent days. We also found that using famously CPU-hungry apps like Google Chrome was effortless, even with 23 tabs open at the time of writing this. All in all, Apple’s “30 percent” claim seems justified.
Aside from the above, the biggest improvements we could attribute to the A17 Pro chip were experienced while gaming. So much so that we can sum up our thoughts as follows: the new iPad Mini is the best small tablet for gaming you can buy right now. Gaming on this device is pure enjoyment. The screen is large enough to play a range of titles and genres, reproducing colors very nicely, while the built-in stereo speakers sound good with a warm but clear and balanced tone; headphones, of course, made for a much more immersive experience and really took things to the next level. Even outdoor gaming we found pleasantly surprising, despite the device reaching a maximum brightness of 500 nits and the iPad’s LCD display doing quite well in the afternoon light of an autumn day. Overall, the LCD screen performed at or above our expectations, even though we would have preferred an OLED screen (maybe next time, Apple?). That said, even without an OLED screen and the benefits you’d normally get from OLED (such as deep blacks and greater contrast) were missing, this wasn’t very noticeable – this is likely due to the size, with the screen being only small is enough to get away with for most use cases.
You can expect a consistent 60 frames per second on Call of Duty: Mobile, thanks to the iPad’s upgraded processor. [Photo: Felix Young]
Among the games we tested on this new iPad Mini were first-person shooters like Call of Duty: Mobile, which really maxed out the 60Hz refresh rate and consistently delivered a buttery smooth 60 frames per second, as well as Alien: Isolation, a much slower and more atmospheric experience that allowed us to see what the iPad Mini’s LCD screen could do in darker environments. Both games were incredibly fun to play on the 8.3-inch screen, especially when paired with this telescoping controller from GameSir, and it felt like we’d just invented a new portable console. Mobile gaming has come a long way in recent years, and until recently it felt like Apple was failing to do just that gaming on his devices too seriously; the Android platform has always offered a much larger library of mobile games, but with the performance potential of the new iPad Mini, we expect to see more developers working on Apple ports of their games; So while we’re happy to say that this 2024 iPad Mini is the best small tablet you can get for gaming, keep in mind that this is limited by the library available to you in the Apple App Store.
Apple has also doubled the RAM in the new iPad Mini, which now comes with 8GB instead of the 4GB in the previous model. This, along with the new and improved processor, has improved performance across the board, but one of the main reasons for this increased RAM is something we haven’t been able to fully put to the test: Apple Intelligence, the company’s the brand in the AI space. Although Apple Intelligence has been rolled out in the US, it won’t fully arrive in the UK until December and we reviewed the new iPad Mini from our London office.
The new iPads now come with 128GB of storage as standard, double the previous generation’s 64GB, with 256GB and 512GB being the other two options – this is a welcome change considering how quickly 64GB fills up. Another improvement is the addition of Wi-Fi 6E (vs. Wi-Fi 6) for a faster and more stable connection, putting the iPad Mini on par with the flagship iPad Pro M4. On the other hand, one connectivity-related change that we would revert if we could is the removal of the SIM card tray on the Cellular model, meaning the iPad Mini can now only use eSIMs. While this will probably only frustrate a small portion of readers (as most mobile companies have moved to eSIM), one of the things that made the 2021 iPad Mini a great travel tablet was its ability to accept physical SIM cards – you could take it on holiday, buy a temporary local plan and make sure you’re connected for your stay – which can be trickier now that most ‘pay as you go’ or ‘SIM only’ plans are generally available as traditional physical SIM cards.
The iPad Mini is now compatible with Pencil Pro. [Photo: Felix Young]
Apple’s smallest tablet is now compatible with the Pencil Pro, and its advanced features feel right at home on this smaller screen. For example, editing in Photoshop and Lightroom feels more intuitive thanks to the Pencil Pro’s hover functionality, which lets you preview on-screen where your stylus will land. We found this to be most effective when smaller and more detailed edits were needed, such as when retouching images, and while the new Mini is still compatible with the old Pencil, we probably couldn’t go back.
There’s not much to say about the iPad Mini’s cameras: they’re pretty basic, but they do the job. There’s one on the back, a 12-megapixel wide-angle camera, and one on the front, a 12-megapixel ultra-wide selfie camera. Both are perfectly capable of capturing everyday content and work well for video calls, but don’t expect the same results you’d get with the likes of Apple’s latest iPhone 16 Pro. A slight annoyance is the placement of the front camera, which remains centered on the short side of the tablet; this is fine for conversations in portrait mode, but if you’re hoping to use this iPad to take calls in a more laptop-like landscape orientation, you’ll have to make do with the slightly awkward angle this camera placement brings. However, the iPad Mini does have Center Stage, Apple’s software that uses AI to center you within the frame, and this goes some way to solving the problem.
The iPad Mini is both one of the more niche products in Apple’s current lineup, and one of the most underrated. For some it’s too small and for others it doesn’t provide enough processing power. But it fills a gap in the market and no other tablet of this size comes close in performance and build quality. While there aren’t many changes overall between the new iPad Mini and the previous one (2021), they are substantial enough to make a difference where it matters: double the RAM, double the base-level storage , a significant increase in processing power, faster Wi-Fi, Pencil Pro compatibility and the introduction of Apple Intelligence. It’s not an iPad for everyone, but it’s probably the funniest.
The new iPad Mini is now available in four colors, including two new ones in blue and purple, and three storage options starting at $499 USD.
