Apple's new iPad mini looks the same, but packs decent upgrades under the hood

Apple’s new iPad mini looks the same, but packs decent upgrades under the hood

By Tom NewmanOctober 17, 20249 mins read

The 7th generation iPad mini features the A17 Pro chip with support for Apple Intelligence, among other improvements.

Apple just quietly updated their smaller tablet from iPad mini (6th generation) to iPad mini (A17 Pro) via a press release. While design stays exactly the same, with an 8.3-inch display in a portable design, there are a number of improvements to the internals.

The biggest update comes to the chip. The new iPad mini features an A17 Pro chip, over the A15 of the previous model, released three years ago. A17 features a 30% boost in CPU performance, 25% boost in GPU performance and 2x faster Neural Engine, over the A15, enabling new capabilities in demanding and professional app, such as Logic Pro. This is the same chip that’s used in last year’s iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, therefore enabling Apple Intelligence. Apple Intelligence is the company’s artificial intelligence offering rolling out on iPhone, iPad and Mac over the next few months. Apple Intelligence brings writing tools, image creation, photo editing, improved Siri, text summarizing, ChatGPT integration and more to iPadOS 18.

The new iPad mini supports the Apple Pencil Pro, debuted earlier this year for iPad Pro and iPad Air. This Pencil unlocks news features such as squeeze, barrel roll, haptic feedback and Find My support. There’s also support for Apple Pencil hover, which lets you preview strokes before it touches the screen.

The 12MP back and front cameras are the same as the previous model, but now support Smart HDR 4, and it can also detect and scan documents, using AI to enhance.

Launching at the same $499 price point, there’s double the starting storage in the new iPad mini and a new 512GB option, giving buyers the choice of 128GB, 256GB or 512GB. At $499, this makes the iPad mini the cheapest Apple Intelligence capable machine that Apple sells.

Last generation’s iPad mini came in Space Gray, Starlight, Purple and Pink. This model comes in Space Gray, Starlight, Purple and Blue. Pink is gone, Blue is new and the Purple is a slightly lighter shade.

There’s faster Wi-Fi connectivity in the new iPad mini. Wi-Fi 6 on the last generation is upped to Wi-Fi 6E, which can support up to twice the performance. Bluetooth is also upgraded from 5.0 to Bluetooth 5.3. There’s still a cellular option for 5G connectivity, however the physical sim tray has gone in favor of eSIM. This change was also made to the iPad Pro and iPad Air launched earlier this year.

The USB-C port has been upgraded in the new iPad mini. It’s now up to 2x faster, with support for data transfer speeds up to 10Gbps.

There is no other device in the world like iPad mini, beloved for its combination of powerful performance and versatility in our most ultraportable design. iPad mini appeals to a wide range of users and has been built for Apple Intelligence, delivering intelligent new features that are powerful, personal, and private. With the powerful A17 Pro chip, faster connectivity, and support for Apple Pencil Pro, the new iPad mini delivers the full iPad experience in our most portable design at an incredible value.
Bob Borchers, vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, Apple

Here’s how Apple’s iPad lineup currently looks alongside starting prices: