I Tested the New iPad Mini. It Has 3 Great Features (and 3 Not Great Ones)

You're either a Mini person, or you aren't.

Apple's smallest iPad has been around for years and it has its fans. The advantages of a smaller tablet include a lower price and easier portability. It can slide into big jacket pockets or small bags, or be installed on dashboards, used by pilots or at a store as a point-of-sale screen. My kids like little iPads, and I like small tech in general too.

Yet the 2024 iPad Mini, for all its subtle upgrades, doesn't really move me much. It's barely changed from its 2021 update; its two big additions are the ability to work with Apple's newest Pencil Pro and its support for Apple Intelligence.

So far, I've tried the latest Mini with just one of these new features. I snapped a Pencil Pro on for a few days and tried using the Mini for all the gaming, video, messaging and reading I could think of. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to meaningfully try Apple Intelligence on the Mini yet because Apple didn't have a version of it running on the review model I tested until hours before this story. That capability, like Apple Intelligence on the company's iPhones, is coming very soon, though.

Watch this: Tiny Tablet Time: Let's Look at the New iPad Mini

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Should you get an iPad Mini? If you're a Mini person, you probably know the answer already. If not, here's what you need to know. It's kind of a big phone, kind of a small computer and kind of low-priced for an Apple product. It's not going to replace my Kindle for reading, it won't replace my Nintendo Switch for portable gaming and definitely can't replace my phone or my laptop. It's a lovely little sketchpad, and it's an amazing screen for playing Balatro, but it lacks a spark of innovation. Maybe that will change with Apple Intelligence, but for now, I'll have to wait and see.

This is exactly the set of updates I'd love to see on a new basic 10-inch iPad, which hasn't gotten an update in two years. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait for that as well.

Great: Pencil Pro support

Apple has made its lineup of Pencil styluses incredibly confusing, with different iPads compatible with different Pencils. At least the newest, most capable Pencil Pro works with the Mini, making the Mini the cheapest doorway to using the Pencil Pro. 

The Pencil Pro has squeeze features to bring up sub-menus in supported apps, a hover feature that can be used to "pre-select" a tool or preview a feature before applying it, haptics to indicate selected options, and rotation so you can spin digital brushes. It's packed with potential, and yet not a ton of iPadOS apps make the most of it yet… and neither does iPadOS. 

I'm glad the Mini has support for it, and its $129 price isn't any higher than what the older Pencil 2 used to be. This Mini can't work with the Pencil 2 anymore, so you need the new Pencil, or you can use a USB-C basic Pencil ($79) instead which lacks pressure sensitivity, magnetic side charging to the Mini, and all the hover/squeeze/rotating Pencil Pro features.

Also great: Somewhat futureproof with Apple Intelligence compatibility, A17 Pro chip, better connection speed

If you're buying a new Apple product at this point, you certainly want it to work with what Apple is touting as its biggest transformative set of tools for its future products. Apple Intelligence, launching in early beta form at the end of October, is little more than a set of generative AI-based summary and writing assistance tools for the most part right now, and in my opinion, hardly worth the upgrade. Also, I couldn't even try these tools out on the iPad Mini yet because the beta for Apple Intelligence on this device wasn't ready until hours before this story was finished.

I'd expect that Apple Intelligence will become a growing part of how iOS, iPadOS and MacOS function in the future. Older Apple devices will likely be left out of major extras.

It's nice that the new Mini can at least take advantage of Apple Intelligence features, but I'm concerned about how limited they'll be down the road. Apple says this Mini will handle all Apple Intelligence features well, but The Mini's A17 Pro chip is the one from last year's iPhone 15 Pro, and it's less powerful than the M1 chip (see below).

But at least, right now, AI is enhanced on this iPad, something the three-year-old 2021 Mini can't do. My early impressions of Apple Intelligence, though, are mixed. A lot of it is message summaries and transcriptions in certain apps, writing improvement suggestions, enhanced search in some apps like Photos, and a few added tools like the object-removing Clean Up. Siri is enhanced, and it glows now, and you can type requests into it, which is helpful, but Siri sometimes still gives odd answers in my early tests.

The USB-C port on this Mini can handle faster data throughput (10Gb/sec), which you might need depending on how you use it. It also has Wi-Fi 6E.

Great: Size and price can be attractive, sometimes

I admit, the 8.3-inch iPad Mini is a fun size. It's the same design as last time, but it's tiny-feeling and easy to tuck away. I'm addicted to Balatro, an amazing indie game that arrived on Apple Arcade recently, and the iPad Mini might be the best screen size to play it on (better than Switch and iPhone, larger than Steam Deck). 

Watching a Mets playoff game on the Mini was fun. It's big enough to feel like a nice portable TV, and the aspect ratio is wide enough not to make shows feel too letterboxed. It's also a great size for reading.

Still, for multitasking on split-screen mode with two apps, the real estate isn't nearly as good as on a larger-screened iPad. This iPad also lacks Stage Manager mode for floating apps in different-sized windows.

The entry-level $499 price isn't too expensive for an Apple product. The base model at least comes with 128GB of storage now, which is more than enough for basic needs like streaming, reading and basic games. There's a new 512GB storage tier now ($799), and prices can ramp up fast if you want an Apple Pencil ($129), case (Apple's is $59) or optional 5G mobile wireless support ($150). This iPad is still more expensive than the basic 10th-gen iPad (which starts at $349 and is frequently on sale).

Not great: No M-series chip means no external monitor multitasking

The Mini's less-powerful, year-old phone processor holds it back. In Geekbench 6 tests, the Mini's single-core speed seemed to handle as well as other M1 and M2 iPads, but in multicore modes, it was worse than a last-gen M1-equipped iPad Air. 

The A17 Pro ekes into a ticket to Apple Intelligence, but it can't run some OS experiences that require an M-series processor, most notably Stage Manager. M-series iPads can run multiple extra apps on a connected monitor, but the Mini is limited to just screen mirroring, although video can also play back at 4K and 60fps on a monitor.

That's a bummer for anyone who might have hoped for this Mini to be like a Mac Mini, in a sense: a tiny device that could connect to other screens and do even more.

Not great: The front camera is still in a weird place

The rest of the iPad lineup moved its front camera to the longer landscape edge, making video chats look less off-center when paired with a keyboard or stand-equipped table mode. The Mini's camera remains on the short edge, like an iPhone. If you're holding a Mini, that makes sense. For families or even kids, it still makes chats feel off when the iPad is propped up.

I thought they'd fix this, but they didn't.

Not great: No new design ideas

The iPad Mini got a fresh design in 2021 that made it feel up-to-date and similar to the rest of the iPad lineup, including a side Touch ID power button. Still, three years later, I expected at least a couple of new ideas. This Mini is the same size and thickness, and the display has the same non-120Hz refresh rate and isn't OLED. It's fine, but compared to a top-of-the-line iPhone Pro or the newest iPad Pros, it's a step down.

Also, I'd like a smaller Pencil solution. It's nice that the Mini can dock a Pencil Pro to its side, but it looks weirdly large for the small tablet, and Apple hasn't come up with a better way to slide a small stylus into the Mini's design (or its cases). The same feeling goes for case options. There's still no Apple-made keyboard case for the Mini, although you can find other options. It just doesn't feel like Apple has tried to rethink the Mini's concept at all.

I want the basic entry iPad to get these upgrades, too

Meanwhile, the basic non-Mini iPad has no 2024 upgrade yet despite being two years old. I'd expect, and want, exactly the same features this Mini has on the 11th-gen iPad to come: Pencil Pro support and Apple Intelligence compatibility. In the meantime, entry-level iPad shoppers are going to get compromises.

The Mini is the basic set of upgrades I'd expect for a multiyear tune-up, and hopefully, Apple doesn't cut any more corners on the next basic iPad. 

In the meantime, anyone hoping for a non-too-expensive iPad for kids might consider the Mini for its relative updates and slightly lower cost than the Airs… but it's still not super-affordable enough to replace the basic iPad.