Apple unveils OLED iPad mini with A20 Pro chip and $699 starting price

The new iPad mini is 5.4mm thick and weighs 255 grams, down from 6.3mm and 293 grams on the previous Wi-Fi model, 9to5Mac reported. Bezels are 24% smaller, allowing an 8.5-inch screen in a body that Apple says keeps the same small footprint; the previous display was 8.3 inches. The front 12-megapixel Center Stage camera has moved to the landscape edge. The tablet comes in Midnight and Starlight.

The Super Retina XDR OLED display has 2316 x 1512 resolution and 326 ppi, with peak brightness of 1,200 nits, 600 nits full-screen SDR and HDR brightness, 2,000,000:1 contrast and a minimum brightness of 1 nit, according to ifanr and 9to5Mac. Apple offers nano-texture glass on 256GB and larger models for the first time on iPad mini. The display remains 60Hz and does not support ProMotion, ifanr reported, even as Apple uses the XDR name.

The A20 Pro is built on a 2nm process and has a 7-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading. Apple claims up to 4.5x faster AI performance and up to 2.7x faster graphics than the previous generation, plus up to 60% faster multithreaded CPU performance. The full chip is only in the 512GB model: 128GB and 256GB versions have a 5-core CPU and a 16-core Neural Engine, while the 512GB model has a 6-core CPU and a Dual 16-core Neural Engine, 9to5Mac reported.

Apple replaced the traditional speaker grilles with an Acoustic Display system. Custom woofers are paired through the display for bass, and tweeters sit between the glass and aluminum enclosure for highs, ifanr reported. The sealed enclosure helps give the iPad mini an IP67 dust- and water-resistance rating, the first for an iPad, according to ifanr; it can stay in up to 1 meter of water for 30 minutes. The tablet also adds Apple's N1 wireless chip and C2 cellular modem, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, Thread support and, on cellular models, eSIM. It supports 35W charging and can reach 50% in about 30 minutes, though Apple includes a 20W adapter, ifanr reported.

Pricing and availability vary by market. In the U.S., the Wi-Fi model starts at $699 and the Wi-Fi and cellular model at $849. In China, the 128GB Wi-Fi model starts at 5,499 yuan, with education pricing from 5,099 yuan, and the 128GB cellular model at 6,799 yuan. Reports differed on the prior starting price: 9to5Mac said the new $699 price is up from $599, while Android Authority and The Verge cited $499 for the previous model, a $200 increase. ifanr reported a 1,500 yuan increase in China from 3,999 yuan.

Apple's global announcement highlights Apple Intelligence and Siri AI features that can use personal context and understand screen content. The mainland China newsroom omitted that section and kept a note that Apple Intelligence availability depends on regulatory approval, ifanr reported.