iPad Mini review: 5 things you need to know about the 2024 model
Apple's smallest iPad tablet gets an Apple Intelligence boost, more storage and an improved screen.
Sometimes, bigger isn’t always better, and Apple’s iPad Mini tablet line has long been proof of that.
While Apple’s 11-and-13-inch iPad Pro, 11-and-13-inch iPad Air, and 10.9-inch iPads are excellent devices with enough screen space to act as a viable alternative to lugging your laptop around, they’re not the most portable devices.
But the iPad Mini, with its 8.3-inch screen, lives up to its name. Almost pocketable, it can be easily held in one hand, making it a perfect reading and video watching device for when laid up in bed, or crammed into the armpit of a fellow traveller when commuting.
But it’s also Apple’s most often-overlooked tablet model, receiving only infrequent updates since its introduction back in 2012. Indeed, we’ve waited since 2021 for a new model.
And here it is! The 2024 iPad Mini is, in terms of external design, almost identical to the previous generation — there’s still an 8.3-inch screen (in a 195mm x 135mm x 6.4mm slim-bezelled frame), there’s still a single rear 12MP/4K video rear camera (rather than the multiple lenses found on higher-end iPads or iPhones) and, for better or worse, there’s still a Touch ID finger print scanner for secure long ins.
But dig a little deeper and new features reveal this to be the best iPad Mini Apple’s ever made, from chip advancements to screen improvements, to accessory updates and support for the buzzword-bingo AI feature, Apple Intelligence.
Available now, the 2024 iPad Mini starts at £499 for the 128GB model, rising to £599 for 256GB and £799 for 512GB. If you want a mobile data connection for wireless connectivity away from your home or office networks, those models start at £649.
Whatever configuration you go for, you’ve got four color options to choose from: Space Grey, Blue, Purple and Starlight. We’re looking at the Space Grey version here.
Want to know more? Here are five reasons to make the iPad Mini your next go-to tablet...
1. The perfect size from morning commute to bedtime wind down
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first — if you want a small tablet, there’s no better option on the planet. It kind of goes without saying that, if the iPad line-up is the best tablet range in the world, its smallest option will be the best small tablet out there — and even with continued small-screen Android upstarts vying for the crown, iPad Mini holds its own.
At just 293g (297g if you get the cellular version), it’s easy enough to comfortably balance in one hand, and with dimensions of 195.4mm x 134.8mm x 6.3mm, you can throw it in a messenger bag and forget about it until you need it.
Whether you’re watching a film in bed or reading a book on the tube, you won’t feel fatigued holding it. A Kindle ereader is the best point of comparison in terms of size, except an iPad is a dramatically more versatile device.
The larger iPhones, the Pluses and Pro Maxes of the world, are now edging towards iPad Mini size, but side by side the difference is more stark — there’s still something to be said for a leisurely session with an iPad Mini, its size better suited to entertainment than even the largest iPhones. And it’s a more natural accompaniment to a laptop than a full-scale iPad, which seems intent to replace rather than compliment a laptop.
Rocking the same old design as the last iteration is not without its annoyances though — you’ve still got a 12MP front-facing camera top and centre when in portrait orientation, for instance, when the rest of the iPad line has put it in the more natural landscape position.
And that camera is yet to get a Face ID facial recognition security upgrade, meaning you’re going to have to reach up to the top edge’s power button, which doubles as a fingerprint scanner, to get into the device. That feels very much like a remnant of a bygone era of Apple design now, but here it remains.
But there’s an unexpected added bonus to keeping the old design in tact — the new iPad Mini fits last generation’s cases, so shop around and you can make a nice protective saving.
2. A faster chip — with Apple Intelligence support
The iPad Mini gets upgraded to the A17 Pro chip — that’s the same you’ll find in last year’s iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max phones. Well, almost the same — the iPad Mini’s A17 Pro has a six core CPU and five core GPU, but those phones had ever-so-slightly-faster six core GPUs.
You’re unlikely to see much difference in practice — maybe the top-tier phones of last year will edge it out in high-end gaming performance. Regardless, the iPad Mini is no slouch, comfortably supporting AAA game sessions with ray tracing features, and burning through multi-tasked work without any bother.
It’s not going to be a match for the M-chip equipped iPads at the top of the range — they’ve got processing power to match a MacBook now. But neither does the average media-consuming iPad Mini owner need that much oomph.
The most important thing the A17 Pro enables that separates this generation of iPad Mini from its predecessors is Apple Intelligence support.
This is Apple’s home-grown take on artificial intelligence, embedded into the tablet to auto-magically improve your writing, summarise notifications, clean up photos and lots more to come. It aims to take some of the busy work out of the more mundane tasks our phones throw at us.
Apple Intelligence, at the time of writing, still feels like a bit of a work in progress — Siri isn’t yet capable of returning answers much more useful than a list of web links, and ChatGPT integration has yet to arrive.
But the promise of the iPad Mini’s AI-supporting chipset is that when these improvements do roll out, you’ll be ready to take advantage of them with this tablet.
Whether Apple’s yet-to-be-proven vision of the AI-powered future is worth splashing cash on for the new iPad Mini model alone will be your choice to make — but the general snappiness of the device, and the level of graphical fidelity it can deliver in demanding games, helps to show the chipset’s worth regardless.
3. An improved screen
This one’s more of a fix than an addition, but it’s a welcome point regardless. The iPad Mini, from our testing at least, no longer suffers from the dreaded “jelly-scrolling” that plagued earlier models. This would see one side of the screen sometimes move at a minutely different speed than the other half when swiping through things, giving a distractingly wobbly feel to the screen. That’s now gone.
There are still further improvements Apple could be making here. While the resolution (2266x1488 resolution for 326 pixels per inch) is fine for a device this size, the 60Hz refresh rate feels a little dated at this point.
It’s the main element detracting from the iPad Mini feeling truly premium when you first pick it up, and upgrading it to the 120Hz ProMotion display found in the higher end iPads and iPhones would make everything feel more luxurious here.
4. Apple Pencil Pro support
If you want to go totally digital with your note-taking or sketching, the iPad Mini is a perfect size for quick on-the-go doodles, thanks to its support for the (sold separately) Apple Pencil Pro.
Wirelessly charging and pairing via magnetic connection to the side of the iPad Mini, it’s a comfortable stylus for hours of writing.
What gives the Pro-level model its name is a host of new features: Barrel roll lets you turn the pen to angle asymmetrical brush types precisely; Find My network support lets you easily locate the stylus if lost; a pressure-sensitive area lets you squeeze to open up a quick tool selection menu, and haptic feedback gives you reassuring confirmation buzzes as you tap menu items or line boundaries.
Slightly frustratingly, there’s no Apple Pencil 2 support here though, so that cheaper model can’t be used to take notes with the iPad Mini. You can pair up the entry-level Apple Pencil USB-C model, but it doesn’t have useful features like wireless charging and pressure sensitivity, nor Pro-specific features like Barrel roll or haptic feedback.
Apple Pencil Pro costs £129, while Apple Pencil USB-C costs £79.
5. Double the storage (and other solid core connectivity specs)
This year’s iPad Mini gets 128GB storage as standard — double the paltry 64GB that the last generation started at, for the same price. That’s excellent — apps, photos, songs and videos are only getting more complex and detailed in resolution, and more demanding of storage space. So it’s an important step up for the iPad Mini to make.
Other internal specs are solid too — Wi-Fi 6E is speedy, Bluetooth 5.3 is stable, and 5G mobile connectivity on the cellular model is fast enough to move big files when away from a router.
Battery life is great too. Expect to get 8 or 9 hours of solid everyday use per charge of the iPad Mini — again, perfect for a flight or weekend’s travel away.
Apple iPad Mini A17 Pro 2024 review: Final verdict
If you want a small iPad, Apple has you over a barrel with the iPad Mini — it’s all its offers, so like it or lump it. Thankfully, there’s lots to love, let alone like. It remains our favourite tablet for travelling with, and a processing and storage bump make it a more useful device than ever before.
We’ll take a larger iPad when it comes to working, even with the Apple Intelligence features rolling out — but it’s the perfect form factor for catching up on a TV series or your reading list. Get a ProMotion display in here and a FaceID camera and it’d be basically perfect — but even then, Apple doesn’t need the iPad Mini to be perfect for it to still be the best small form factor tablet in the world.
