Apple didn’t wait for us to be ready, and just like that, announced the new iPad mini 8. It’s as good as we thought it would be and more, with a bigger 8.5-inch OLED display, thinner design, A20 Pro chip and much more.
But the specs aren’t the real story here. The iPad mini 8 is the first water-resistant iPad and the first to hide its speakers behind the display. For years, the mini was the iPad Apple updated last. This time, it’s getting some of Apple’s newest ideas first.
The iPad mini is now closer to the ‘Pro’ models than ever before, and its usability gap is closing in as well with the new A20 Pro chip onboard.
An OLED display that’s bigger and brighter
As for the OLED display, Apple stated that the new iPad mini 8 delivers higher contrast ratios and more than twice the peak brightness compared to the previous models. We can expect the device to feature better saturation and vivid colors. The display can reach up to 1,200 nits of peak brightness and 600 nits full-screen for both SDR and HDR content.
The new model features a slightly bigger 8.5-inch display compared to 8.3 inches on the previous model. Apple trimmed the bezels by 24 percent, so the bigger screen comes without a bigger device. At this point, Apple’s tech specs page does not mention a higher 120Hz refresh rate, which means the display could be set to just 60Hz. The mini 8 can now be configured with a nano-texture display, which means reduced glare, but you’ll have to spend another $100, and it’s only available for the 256GB and 512GB variants.
Thinner, lighter and more modern
Best of all, the iPad mini now jumps on the modern design language with a 15 percent slimmer chassis that measures in at just 5.4mm for the Wi-Fi model and weighs only 0.56 pounds.
Cameras, charging and what stays the same
The iPad mini 8 features the same Touch ID on top of the device, a USB-C port, a 12MP rear Wide camera, two mics, and the same advertised battery life. The flash is now adaptive, so we have an upgrade in this department too. Apple does say that the mini now supports fast charging, with claims of achieving 50 percent battery in just 30 minutes using a 35W or higher power adapter.
The A20 Pro chip, and why storage matters this time
The A20 chip has now been ported to the iPad mini, but it’s not the same chip as the one you would find on the iPhone 18 Pro models. The base 128GB and the 256GB variants will feature the A20 Pro chip with a 5-core CPU, 7-core GPU, and a single 16-core Neural Engine. However, the 512GB version gets the full experience with a 6-core CPU, 7-core GPU, and a dual 16-core Neural Engine.
This is the part most people will miss. On the iPad mini 8, storage isn’t just storage. If you plan to use Apple Intelligence and the new Siri heavily, the 512GB model is the only one with double the Neural Engine. So the cheaper models aren’t just smaller, they’re slower where Apple’s newest features need it most.
The A20 Pro chip is based on TSMC’s 2nm process and features Neural Accelerators in each GPU core. According to company claims, the chip is 60 percent faster than the A17 Pro chip on the previous model, with 2.7 times faster graphics performance and 4.5 times faster AI performance. Apple also says memory bandwidth is more than doubled.
Speakers behind the display and IP67 water resistance
There’s one major change that none of the other Apple products bring to the table, and that’s the new Acoustic Display system that produces audio from behind the display. This means that the OLED iPad mini 8 does not have any speaker grilles. Apple says:
“Specially designed woofers are paired through the display to produce punchier bass and more volume.”
“In addition, custom tweeters are now hidden between the glass and aluminum enclosure for clearer highs.”
As a result, the iPad mini is now also splash, water and dust resistant with an IP67 rating. No iPad before it has had any water resistance rating, so this is a first for the entire lineup. Other than this, the 12MP Center Stage camera has also been moved to the side, which makes landscape mode the primary holding position for the end user.
Wi-Fi 7 and the new C2 modem
The device also houses the N1 chip with Wi-Fi 7 support for better connectivity performance, and it also improves AirDrop and AirPlay features. The 5G/LTE models feature Apple’s new C2 chip for enhanced cellular data speeds and better power consumption.
iPad mini 8 price and availability
You can place your iPad mini 8 pre-orders starting Wednesday, October 28, at 10:10 AM PT. It will begin arriving to customers on Friday, November 6. As for the pricing, the iPad mini 8 starts at $699, with the cellular model at $849 and education pricing at $649, and Apple includes a 20W power adapter in the box in the U.S. There are only two color options this time around, Midnight and Starlight.
It also lands $100 below the $799 that was rumored. Coming just days after the $1,999 iPhone Duo, Apple chose to announce it with a press release two days before its Pro and tell event, which tells us one thing: Wednesday’s stage is reserved for the Mac.
Would you buy the iPad mini 8 over the iPad Air or Pro models?
