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New iPad mini hands-on: Refreshed design, OLED display, more
Apple’s smallest iPad has gotten its biggest update in years. The new iPad mini features a much thinner and lighter design, a larger OLED display, water resistance, and the powerful A20 Pro chip.
I’ve been testing the new iPad mini, and there’s a lot to like — but also a couple of frustrations. Here’s everything you need to know.
The new iPad mini lives up to the “mini” name even more than its predecessor. It’s significantly thinner, down from 6.3mm on the previous iPad mini to 5.4mm on the new model. In fact, that puts it very close to the ultra-thin iPad Pro and the unfolded iPhone Duo. Here’s how it compares:
The new iPad mini is also significantly lighter, dropping from 293 grams to 255 grams. That puts it in the realm of the iPhone Duo, for comparison’s sake:
The reduction in weight and thickness was immediately noticeable when I picked up the new iPad mini. It feels significantly nicer to hold, more premium, and less “dense” in my hands.
The new iPad mini features an 8.5-inch screen, a slight increase from the previous generation’s 8.3-inch display. The overall footprint is mostly the same (the new model is actually about 2.2mm narrower). The larger screen is possible because the new iPad mini’s bezels are 24 percent thinner than before.
In addition to allowing a bigger screen in the same form factor, the narrower bezels also modernize the iPad mini’s overall look and feel. The bezels are noticeably slimmer than the iPad Air and base model iPad, and slightly thinner than the iPad Pro.
With smaller bezels, a thinner chassis, and a lighter weight, the new iPad mini feels significantly more premium than before. It reminds me less of the base model iPad or iPad Air and more of the iPad Pro, just shrunken down.
The big news about the display, though, is the switch to OLED. This marks Apple’s first non-Pro iPad to offer an OLED screen. It’s not the fancy tandem OLED display of the iPad Pro, but it’s a huge improvement over the previous model’s LCD panel.
The new iPad mini offers SDR brightness up to 600 nits, up from the previous model’s 500 nits max. The iPad mini also supports HDR content, with up to 1200 nits peak brightness.