The compact iPad Mini is back as Apple updates the internals for 2024, bringing with it the same chip from the iPhone 15 Pro.
Big phones may well get a big chunk of the attention in our gadget-driven world, but tablets still play a part, particularly for people who love content.
Whether you’re someone who wants to draw on a screen, or just sit back and watch something on a slightly bigger display, tablets certainly let you get that done, while also supersizing the web, apps, and games alike.
Much of the tablet market is centred around screens sized for ten inches and above, but in between the big phones and the ten inch tabs is the small tablet market, an area that sees 7 and 8 inch screens. These smaller tablets have typically been for folks looking for something compact and capable, and won’t make a physical dent on their carry, at least in comparison to a bigger tablet.
It’s an area Apple has been playing in for some time, but also doesn’t see many updates to. In fact, the last time Apple updated its entry in this category was three years ago, a time when the iPad Mini saw major changes, including a new design, slightly bigger screen, new chip, and a change from the Lightning port to the USB-C port all our gadgets are rocking today.
Three years is a long time in tech, and so Apple is updating things this month.
The 2024 iPad Mini retains the look of the previous generation, but update what’s on the inside, making things faster and ready for Apple’s artificial intelligence era, as Apple Intelligence prepares to roll out initially to US English before gradually making its way to the rest of the world.
The latest Mini will use the chip from last year’s iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, the A17 Pro, an update on the A15 previously used on the iPhone 13 range, which can’t run Apple Intelligence.
Rather, the spec requirements for Apple’s on-device AI appears limited to the A17 Pro and M1 and higher, giving all recent iPad Air and iPad Pro models access, but only this iPad Mini outside of that group.
The chip change also sees WiFi 6E added to the package, which isn’t quite as fast as the WiFi 7 in the iPhone 16 Pro Max, but isn’t far off, either.
It also sees support for the Apple Pencil Pro, another of this year’s changes to the iPad line up, suggesting that like the M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro, the previous Apple Pencil models won’t be supported.
Everything else should be, however, with the same 8.3 inch screen and identical design and thickness more or less guaranteeing all other cases and accessories from a few years ago in the 6th-gen iPad Mini will likely work on this generation, the 7th-gen Mini.
Pricing is also close to being the same as it was, albeit you now have a starting size and price of 128GB for $799 compared to 64GB for $749. Powerful and compact tablets aren’t always easy to find, and are starting to read into the area of foldable phones, potentially giving Apple some legroom in this category, which now includes a 512GB option in Australia from $1329 without 5G and maxing out at $1579 with it.
Australians can expect to find the 2024 iPad mini in stores and online shortly, available in four colours from October 23.
