Apple Debuts Seventh-Gen iPad mini with A17 Pro Chip
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Following a three-year silence, Apple has finally unveiled its seventh-generation iPad mini. While the new tablet doesn’t hold many surprises, it’s a welcome update for those folks who have been waiting for a more modern version of Apple’s smallest iPad.
While rumors of an impending update to the iPad mini have been circulating for a few weeks, most believed it would come during another October event alongside Apple’s expected M4 Mac lineup. However, Apple has more quietly pushed it out via a press release instead, effectively clearing the deck for the rumored event to focus solely on its Macs, as we saw with last year’s Scary Fast event.
The seventh-generation iPad mini doesn’t sport any significant design changes, but as with most of Apple’s recent product refreshes, it’s what’s on the inside that counts. The new 8.3-inch tablet is getting the A17 Pro chip from last year’s iPhone 15 Pro lineup and presumably 8 GB of RAM, making it capable of handling the same AAA games and Apple Intelligence features as those iPhone models and other contemporary iPads.
This change makes the iPad mini the first non-M-series-powered iPad to support Apple Intelligence. It also leaves last year’s 10th-generation iPad as the sole outlier in the AI game among Apple’s current iPad models. Some reports suggest we’ll also see a new 11th-generation iPad appear this month. There’s no news on that front today, but Apple could still announce it in a separate press release in the coming days.
As it did with the M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro earlier this year, Apple seems to be moving away from its generational designations and focusing on the silicon inside instead. The new iPad mini is officially dubbed “iPad mini (A17 Pro)” compared to the previous “iPad mini (6th generation).”
Beyond the A17 Pro chip inside, not much has changed in the 2024 iPad mini. In fact, it has the exact same size, dimensions, and weight as its predecessor, down to the millimeter and gram.
The display remains an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina LCD, which isn’t surprising. The M4 iPad Pro just got OLED earlier this year, and while there are rumors of Apple moving to OLED panels for the iPad Air and iPad mini, that won’t happen for at least a couple more years.
Ditto for the cameras, which are still a single 12-megapixel (MP) camera with an f/1.8 aperture. The A17 Pro chip with its upgraded image signal processor (ISP) brings support for Smart HDR 4 for photos, but that will likely be a subtle difference. There have also been no changes to the speakers or mics, and the biometric sensor is still the top-button Touch ID.
The only significant hardware change beyond the A17 Pro chip and (assumed) additional RAM is support for the new Apple Pencil Pro and its new gestures and features like Find My support and Apple Pencil Hover. This puts the new iPad mini on the same footing as the M2 iPad Air and M4 iPad Pro and effectively relegates the second-generation Apple Pencil to being a legacy stylus for pre-2024 iPad models.
Interestingly, the A17 Pro chip has the same number of CPU and GPU cores as the A15 Bionic used in the 2021 iPad mini, although it’s obviously doing far more with those individual cores. The GPU is far more potent and supports features like hardware-accelerated ray tracing, so you’ll be able to enjoy Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Resident Evil Village on the new iPad mini.
The A17 Pro Neural Engine supports 35 trillion operations per second (TOPS) versus 15.8 TOPS on the A15 Bionic. This makes it more capable of using Apple Intelligence, although it’s the 8 GB of RAM that likely makes the real difference here since the Neural Engine used in the M2 iPad Air is the same as that found on the A15 chip.
The new iPad mini also gets a few small upgrades in the wireless department, adding Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, which basically just bring the new tablet up to the same modern standards as other Apple devices. However, the cellular version continues to be limited to sub-6 GHz 5G.
Apple has also finally doubled the storage of the iPad mini, with the entry-level version starting at 128 GB (although that should be table stakes for any tablet in 2024). The iPad mini (A17 Pro) is available for pre-order from Apple today, with availability next Wednesday, October 23. The Wi-Fi model starts at $499, and the Wi-Fi + Cellular at $649. Both are available in Space Gray, Starlight, purple, and blue, with the latter replacing the last generation’s pink.
