iPad mini (A20 Pro) review: Growing in leaps and bounds
Macworld ·
Macworld At a glance Expert's Rating Pros More compact with a larger display Faster performance overall OLED improves display quality IP67 dust and water resistance Cons Display lacks ProMotion Our Verdict With this release, Apple finally does more with the iPad mini, giving it an overhaul that makes the device feel modern and worth its price. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Apple iPad mini (A20 Pro) Retailer Price Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide It’s been two years since the last iPad mini was released, which sported a design that was introduced in 2021. Over a short amount of time, the iPad mini (A17 Pro) became a package with a dated chip, display, and design. Enter the iPad mini (A20 Pro). With this update, Apple gave its smallest tablet a complete overhaul: its latest A-series chip, a sparkling new OLED display, and a more compact design. While it might look the same at a glance, spend a little time with it, and you’ll see just how different it is. It’s an update that comes at the right time. With prices on the rise (and no ceiling in sight), the $699 iPad mini finds itself in an appealing spot, offering an impressive combination of features and performance for the price. A20 Pro iPad mini: Design A large part of Apple’s design philosophy is to make its products as compact as possible, especially with its portable devices. Even the new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display is thinner than the previous model. That treatment is especially true if the product has “mini” in its name. Take, for example, the history of the Mac mini, particularly the recent 2024 Mac mini redesign . This time, it’s the iPad mini’s turn, and it’s now the most compact iPad mini Apple has made. Here’s how the new iPad mini compares in size to the old one. Dimension iPad mini (A20 Pro) iPad mini (A17 Pro) Height 7.69 in (195.3 mm) 7.69 in (195.4 mm) Width 5.22 in (132.6 mm) 5.30 in (134.8 mm) Depth 0.21 in (5.4 mm) 0.25 in (6.3 mm) Weight (Wi-Fi) 0.56 lb (255 g) 0.65 lb (293 grams) Weight (Wi-Fi + Cellular) 0.58 lb (263 g) 0.66 lb (297 grams) The iPad mini (A20 Pro) is the same height as before, but it’s a bit narrower, thinner, and lighter. It’s smaller all around, which makes it more comfortable to hold in one hand, and you might even forget it’s in your bag. The previous iPad mini was small enough for me to always have in my backpack, but it pushed the border of pocketability. The new iPad mini’s slight reduction in size is a better fit for cargo pants pockets and smaller carryalls. The new iPad mini is the first iPad to have an Ingress Protection (IP) rating. In this case, its IP67 rating means it has a dust protection rating of 6, the highest rating, while the water resistance rating is 7 (out of 9), which means the iPad mini should survive being submerged in about 3 feet of water for up to 30 minutes. Besides individual consumer use outside, I’ve often seen the iPad mini used at outdoor events by staff, so the IP67 construction is an excellent idea to protect their investment. With an upgrade to OLED, the iPad mini offers a brighter display. Roman Loyola/Foundry A20 Pro iPad mini: OLED Display The major upgraded component of the iPad mini (A20 Pro) is the display, which now has OLED (Super Retina XDR) that replaces the LED-backlit IPS (Liquid Retina) panel. It’s not the tandem OLED that’s in the iPad Pro, so its overall image quality doesn’t compare to that particular device. But compared to the iPad mini (A17 Pro), the difference is noticeable and improved. The new iPad mini is rated at 600 nits for SDR and XDR brightness, 100 nits brighter than before. And the new iPad mini can hit a peak of 1,200 nits when viewing HDR content, something the old iPad mini couldn’t do. It’s a difference you can especially appreciate when, say, you’re using the iPad mini in direct sunlight–it made lounging in my backyard on a sunny Sunday afternoon much more pleasurable. OLED is a better technology than LED-backlit, so everything looks better: the Home screen, apps, text, graphics, even the surrounding white spaces in Photos. As for the photos themselves, the colors are more vivid, and the contrast is more discernible. The one disappointment about the display is its 60Hz refresh rate. Apple’s standard 60Hz dfisplays are better than most, but it would’ve been nice if the mini had ProMotion, Apple’s variable refresh rate feature that goes up to 120Hz. Faster refresh rates make videos and animations look smoother, and video games benefit greatly. ProMotion used to be a feature just for Pro devices until Apple added it to the iPhone 17 . With the new iPad mini (top), Apple took a new approach to the bezels, making them thinner and curvier than the previous iPad mini (bottom). Roman Loyola/Macworld ProMotion seems like a perfect fit for the iPad mini, often used as an entertainment device, where a faster rate makes videos and high-end games look smoother. Apple will probably add it to the next iPad mini, but it’s going to be a while before that model arrives, since the iPad mini is on a longer product cycle (2 to 3 years). Finally, the bezels on the new mini are also quite a bit thinner, and it’s striking how dated the A17 Pro iPad mini looks now. The thinner bezels help the new iPad mini eke out a larger 8.5-inch viewable area, compared to the previous 8.3 inches. Also, the bezels around the corners are more rounded and more in harmony with the outer corners of the iPad mini itself compared to the squarer A17 Pro iPad mini’s bezels. A20 Pro iPad mini: Speakers For the first time ever, Apple has made an iPad without speakers. Or rather, without speaker holes. The iPad mini’s new Acoustic Display is a sound system comprised of tweeters between the glass-and-aluminum enclosure, and woofers paired through the display. Essentially, the sound from the iPad mini A20 Pro feels like it emanates through the glass–hold the iPad mini’s display to your ear, and you can hear the sound coming through. It makes a profound difference in the aural experience and gives the illusion that you’re in the song rather than just listening to it. By comparison, the iPad mini with speaker grills projects sound outward instead of toward you, creating something of a disconnect between you and the device. To achieve IP67 dust and water resistance, Apple removed the speaker grills on the new iPad mini and replaced it with a new speaker system behind the glass. Roman Loyola/Foundry As for the actual sound quality, I had a difficult time hearing the difference between the old and new iPad minis. It sounds better and clearer than the iPhone 18 Pro Max speaker, though the sound is still tinny and missing depth. Bass is improved, but not by much; one of my favorite songs to play for bass is Public Enemy’s “Shut ‘Em Down,” and its bassline is a shadow of what’s heard through high-quality speakers. A20 Pro iPad mini: Processor upgrades There’s a three-year gap between the A20 Pro in the new iPad and the A17 Pro it replaces. That means the performance improvements are quite noticeable, at least from a benchmark standpoint. The single-core CPU result shows a 51 percent performance increase with the A20 Pro. This means that you’ll notice a difference with a majority of apps you use on the new iPad mini: productivity tasks, social media apps, communication tools, browsers, casual games, consumer-level creative software, and a lot more. In everyday, general usage, the iPad A20 Pro feels snappy, quick, and up to the task. Multi-core CPU results show a similar improvement of 50 percent. That’s also impressive, but since the iPad mini isn’t usually used as a production tool like the iPad Pro (or even the iPad Air), most customers won’t feel these benefits nearly as much. If you do happen to use the iPad mini to do a lot of graphical work or play a lot of high-end games, you’ll like what the A20 Pro has to offer. Its GPU performance is excellent and is leaps and bounds better than the A17 Pro, a 180 percent jump in performance. That’s a lot for the iPad mini, but to put it in perspective, Apple released the A18 Pro and A19 Pro in the meantime, so the A20 Pro’s result includes a cumulative effect from those chips. A20 Pro iPad mini: Battery life Rated at 18.9 watt-hours, the battery in the A20 Pro iPad mini is actually smaller than that of the 19.3 watt-hours of the A17 Pro iPad mini. However, the battery life rating is the same as it’s been for every iPad ever released:10 hours (Wi-Fi)/9 hours (Wi-Fi + Cellular) of surfing the web on Wi-Fi or watching video. To test battery life, I played a video saved to the iPad mini continuously on a loop, with the display at 200 nits of brightness (about halfway on the Brightness slider). After 10 hours and 10 minutes, the battery ran out, so almost exactly what Apple claims. When using the iPad mini as I regularly do–checking out social media, watching an occasional video, browsing the web, reading email, and playing Apple Arcade+ games–battery life was never an issue. The major change with the battery is that if you use a 35-watt or higher charger, the A20 Pro iPad mini adds 50 percent of charge in 30 minutes. It’s a huge benefit over older iPad minis. The old A17 Pro iPad mini took 50 minutes to charge 50 percent with an Apple 70-watt charger. The new iPad mini (right) no longer has the ”iPad mini” branding on the back. Roman Loyola/Foundry A20 Pro iPad mini: Cameras The iPad mini still has a pair of 12MP Wide cameras, one on the front and one on the back. They’re the same ones you’ll find on the iPad mini A17 Pro, which shows how important the cameras are to this device. There aren’t many people using an iPad mini as their primary camera, but it’s fine for a quick shot in a pinch. The front camera is the most important on the iPad mini because the device is often used with FaceTime and other video conferencing apps. Thankfully, Apple finally moved the front camera from the top to the landscape side, so it’s in the proper position for landscape video calls. The front camera is also equipped with Center Stage to keep you in the center of the frame. Should you buy the A20 Pro iPad mini? If you have an older iPad mini, this is a refresh worth upgrading to. The A20 Pro iPad mini combines several compelling elements to make it an attractive small tablet. The speedy A20 Pro, gorgeous OLED with slimmer bezels, and thinner design make the iPad mini feel modern–it even makes the model it replaces feel older than its three years. If you have an iPad mini that’s a 6th generation model or older, you should upgrade to this one to take advantage of Apple Intelligence. If you’re shopping for an iPad and the size of the tablet doesn’t play into your decision, the $749 11-inch iPad Air has a stronger M4 chip, but the LED-backlit display, while bigger, isn’t as nice as the iPad mini’s OLED. So, if your iPad is for CPU-intensive work apps, go with the iPad Air. If it’s an entertainment device, pick the iPad mini. Roman Loyola/Foundry The iPad mini was feeling like a dated device. Even when Apple released the A17 Pro model in 2023, it felt like Apple could’ve done more. With this generation, Apple finally does more with the iPad mini, giving it an overhaul that makes the device feel modern and worth its price.