After quite a long time, Apple showered some love on its most portable iPad lineup. Apple quietly launched the new iPad mini 7, the successor of the iPad mini 6 which arrived back in September 2021. The seventh-generation iPad mini makes its debut with an A17 Pro chipset, Apple Pencil Pro support, faster Wi-Fi 6E, improved camera, and more. Thanks to the upgraded processor and 8GB RAM, the new iPad mini 7 is currently the most affordable way to experience Apple Intelligence features.
Unchanged Design
As anticipated, the new iPad mini did not arrive with any design changes. Last year, the iPad mini 6 arrived with a major redesign over the iPad mini 5, which aligned the portable tablet with the iPad Pro & iPad Air design.
This year, the new model looks similar to the iPad mini 6 with an all-screen design, squared-off edges, a Touch ID Power button, and a USB-C charging port. Like its three-year-old predecessor, the iPad mini 7 also features the ultraportable 8.3-inch Liquid Retina Display with True Tone and 500 nits of brightness. Unfortunately, Apple still offers a 60Hz refresh rate on its new mini. Overall, the design and display remain the same. That said, the iPad mini 7 features a new magnetic charging region to support the Apple Pencil Pro.
Display Improvements
The iPad mini 7 features an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina Display with a 2266×1488 resolution at 326 pixels per inch and 500 nits of brightness. Just like the iPad Air, the mini 7 supports a Wide color gamut for true-to-life colors. With True Tone support, the iPad mini 7 display automatically adjusts the white balance according to the ambient lighting for a more comfortable viewing experience. Like all iPad models, the mini 7 also comes with an anti-fingerprint oleophobic coating. Overall, just like the design, we didn’t see any enhancements in the iPad mini’s display even after 3 years of waiting.
That being said, Apple has used updated display hardware in the iPad mini 7 that fixes the infamous “jelly scrolling” issue present on the older iPad mini 6. For reference, Jelly Scrolling is a display phenomenon that gives the illusion that one side of the display is responding faster than the other. This throws a noticeable lag when scrolling a webpage in the Portrait orientation. It’s worth knowing that didn’t change the position of the display controller, rather it made some other changes that minimized the screen tearing effect.
A17 Pro Chipset with Apple Intelligence support
While the new iPad mini arrives with the same display and design, it isn’t the same as its predecessor. The latest iPad mini 7 is all new and powerful from the inside. The iPad mini 7 packs an A17 Pro chipset which we first saw with the iPhone 15 Pro models in 2023. The A17 Pro chipset is built on the 3-nanometer process, which makes it faster and more capable than the A15 chipset found in the previous model.
It’s worth knowing that the A17 Pro chip in the iPad mini 7 has a 5-core GPU, compared to the 6-core GPU in the iPhone 15 Pro models. That means the new mini won’t be as powerful as the iPhone 15 Pro models. That said, it delivers noteworthy performance upgrades over the previous iPad mini 6. Compared to the previous iPad mini 6, the iPad mini 7 delivers up to a 30 percent boost in CPU performance and up to 25 percent boost in graphics performance. Also, the 16-core Neural Engine in A17 Pro is up to 2x faster, performing nearly 35 trillion operations per second.
In the Geekbench Benchmarks Test, the new iPad mini 7 achieved a score between 2,710 and 2,840 in single-core performance and 6,274 to 6,982 in multi-core performance. For reference, the iPad mini 6 got single-core scores of 2,121 and multi-core scores of 5,367. Also, the new model has an upgraded 8GB of memory, which is a significant boost compared to the 4GB RAM on the 2021 iPad mini.
Thanks to the A17 Pro chipset, the mini 7 is capable enough to handle AI. Just like the new iPad Air, iPad Pro, iPhones, and Macs, the new iPad mini has also made it to the list of Apple Intelligence-compatible devices. This is one of the biggest differentiators between the iPad mini 6 and iPad mini 7.
With Apple Intelligence With AI support, you can access all Apple Intelligence features like Writing Tools, all-new powerful Siri, Notification Summaries, ChatGPT integration, and more on the new iPad.
Camera Upgrades
Honestly speaking, the camera isn’t a major selling point with the iPad mini series. The 12MP rear camera remains the same this year. The iPad mini 7 features an adequate camera system with a 12MP wide-angle rear-facing camera with up to 5x digital zoom, a five-element lens, and an updated quad-LED True Tone flash. It also supports most of Apple’s modern camera features, including Live Photos, Auto Image Stabilization, Panoramas, Burst Mode, autofocus and more. This time, there’s Smart HDR 4 support that delivers more vivid and detailed images. Talking about video capabilities, The iPad mini 7 supports 4K video recording at 24, 25, 30, or 60 frames per second, as well as slo-mo videos at 120 or 240 frames per second.
On the front, there’s a 12MP ultra-wide front-facing camera in the portrait orientation. With the iPad Air 2024, Apple moved the front camera to the landscape orientation of the tablet for a more comfortable video conferencing experience, aligning it with the more expensive iPad Pro models. Well, the FaceTime camera in portrait orientation makes sense for a device of this size. The front camera also supports the Center Stage, a feature that keeps you in focus and rightly framed even as you move around on a FaceTime video call.
Improved Connectivity
Apple is embracing the Wi-Fi 6E standard as it adds new products across different lineups. Currently, several iPad Air, iPad Pro, iPhones, and Macs support the faster Wi-Fi 6E standard. Now, it’s the turn of the iPad mini lineup. The iPad mini 7 supports Bluetooth 5.3 technology and Wi-Fi 6E for faster network connectivity. Therefore, the iPad mini 7 will allow its users to connect to the 6GHz Wi-Fi band on supported routers and enjoy those blazingly fast speeds.
Talking about the charging port, the iPad mini 7 is equipped with a USB-C port, which supports up to 10 Gb/s data transfer speeds, double the 5Gb/s speeds in the previous model. With the USB-C port, you can connect the iPad mini to 4K and 5K displays, cameras, and other USB-C devices. Besides, you can also charge an iPhone or Apple Watch with your iPad mini 7 using a compatible cable.
Apple Pencil Pro support
The previous iPad mini 6 supports Apple Pencil 2, and the new iPad mini 7 works with the upgraded Apple Pencil Pro that Apple launched alongside the 2024 iPad Air and iPad Pro models in May. The new Apple stylus offers some additional features like a squeeze gesture, barrel roll gesture, and Find My integration. So, you’ll get to enjoy a more precise writing & drawing experience that mimics the real-world pen-on-paper feeling. The Apple Pencil Pro magnetically clicks to the side of the table for pairing, charging, and storage.
At the moment, only the new Mini, Air, and Pro models are the only iPads compatible with the Apple Pencil Pro.
New Color Options
The previous iPad mini 6 comes in Space Gray, Pink, Purple, and Starlight options. The new iPad mini 7 comes in new Blue and Purple color options, alongside Starlight and Space Gray finishes. While the colors look stunning, a Space Black iPad mini still remains an absolute dream for me.
Also, you’ll now see the “iPad mini” rather than the “iPad” label on the back of the tablet. This is another difference between the seventh-generation and the sixth-generation model.
iPad mini 7 Release Date
Sticking to its usual September or October timeline, Apple launched the new iPad mini 7 on October 15, 2024. As anticipated, Apple ditched the dedicated launch event and announced the new mini via press release.
iPad mini 7 Price
Coming to the iPad mini 7 price, the new model carries the same price tag despite the beefed-up storage options and upgraded 8GB RAM. The iPad mini 7 Wi-Fi model starts at $499 for 128GB storage, double the base storage of the older models at the same price.
Now, the Mini comes in 256GB and 512GB options too. The Wi-Fi and Cellular model of iPad mini 7 starts at $649. Of course, the new iPad will arrive with the latest iPadOS 18 right out of the box, which brings a native Calculator app, Maths Notes, and other upgrades.
