Test report on the Apple iPad Mini 2024: A new chip and Apple intelligence don't go well together.

I have to admit up front that I have always loved the iPad Mini. I have owned several; I bought them as gifts for several family members. I want a tablet that I can read in bed, throw in my overstuffed carry-on, or put on the toaster to help me cook dinner. The Mini is the right one.

Every other tablet from Apple, from the $349 base model to the performance monster M4 Pro, is about the same: versatility. They're large sheets of glass that can be transformed into anything, as long as you have the right app or attachment. The Mini, on the other hand, with its 8.3-inch screen, is closer in size to an iPhone than any other iPad. It is designed primarily as a device that you can take with you anywhere, not as a phone. The larger iPads are increasingly competing with your laptop; the Mini complements it very well.

The Mini always felt like an afterthought – only occasionally updated, forced to run apps, and an operating system clearly designed for larger screens – but the one-handed iPad was still the one for me.

This mini represents a new low for the product in my opinion. It feels like an iPad designed by a supply chain rather than someone who actually wants you to like the product. It's made up of a bunch of new and not-so-new parts thrown together, with no new specs or features to really set it apart – aside from a lot of big promises about how Apple Intelligence is going to change everything, and you definitely will You need a device running Apple Intelligence. As far as I can tell, that's the entire pitch. Want Apple Intelligence? Do you want the little iPad? Get this one. You have no choice.

Apple Intelligence doesn't exist yet. Something called Apple Intelligence ships next week, but that's just the first taste of Apple's big promise to reinvent the way you use your devices. The full product will be months or years away. Until Apple Intelligence becomes groundbreaking and incredible, there are few good reasons to buy the new iPad Mini instead of the old one.

It's of course a perfectly good tablet, just like all iPads have been for years. If you want an iPad Mini, buy this! It's a good iPad Mini and also your only official choice. But there's not much here that would make you want to upgrade from the 2021 model or even the previous model. When it comes to reading and watching movies, my 2018 Mini still performs well.

The only reason to buy this iPad Mini is because it's the iPad Mini. It has little else to offer. You could spend $100 more and get a much better tablet with the M2 Air, or you could save some money and get an older or refurbished 2021 Mini. At $499, this mini may be the worst value in the iPad lineup.

There are three really new things about this Mini. The first is that it supports the Apple Pencil Pro, which attaches magnetically to the side of the Mini for charging and connection. The Mini can do all of the Pencil Pro features that other iPads can do – all the hovering, squeezing and barrel rolling works flawlessly, and if you're a Mini-wearing artist, the upgrade could be worth it on its own. If you have an older Pencil that plugs into the USB port, that works too, but the Mini doesn't support the Pencil 2 for some confusing reason.

The second change concerns the colors: The Mini comes in the typical space gray and the pale gold “Starlight” as well as a new blue and purple. Mine is blue and the color is so faint that I had to check to make sure I didn't just have a silver model. (There is no silver model.) It looks pathetically pale next to my blue iPhone 16.

The best part is that you get more storage for the price! This is definitely a victory. The base model of the Mini now has 128GB of storage, which is good and long overdue; $499 for a tablet with 64GB of storage is just silly.

This new Mini is essentially an internal upgrade from the last model that you can easily swap out, which is a bit of a shame. On all other iPad models, the front camera has been moved to the center of the landscape side of the device; On the Mini, it still remains stubborn in portrait mode, although the official Smart Folio case's kickstand supports it in landscape mode. The “jelly scrolling” effect of the last model is still very present. The Mini also still uses Touch ID in the power button. Face ID is so much better and faster, especially on a device whose power button constantly rotates in your hands, that tapping my index finger again felt like a huge step backwards.

The main new spec is the Apple A17 Pro chip, the same one you'd find in last year's iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. Well, not quite the same: the 15 Pro's chip has six CPU cores and six GPU cores, but the Mini has six CPU and six GPU cores five GPU. This has led some smart minds to conclude that these are so-called “binned” chips, meaning that after the manufacturing process they were for some reason unable to achieve maximum performance. (Here's a good explanation of how it all works.) While it's a perfectly normal practice, it suggests that you're not getting the best of the best—or even the best of the best from last year.

In my tests, the Mini is around 30 percent faster than the old Mini in both CPU and GPU performance (which is in line with Apple's marketing) and performs slightly worse overall than the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. The M4 -powered iPad Pro is superior in every way, and the M2-powered Air also significantly outperforms the Mini in every way except single-core CPU performance. (Which is perfectly fine for boring chip design reasons, but doesn't matter much in everyday use.) Even the M1 iPad Air, released in 2022, outperforms the Mini in most benchmark tests.

When I push the Mini, I notice its limits. It was able to handle it Call of Duty: Warzone even at high settings, with only occasional frame drops, but once I cranked up the speed Assassin's Creed Mirage, It stuttered so badly that the game was difficult to play. At medium settings the game even drops frames. In Madden NFL Mobile, Real Racing 3, And of course, the A17 Pro held up well in every casual game I tried. I doubt most people are looking for one Mirage Machines are thinking about a Mini anyway, so rest assured it will Wordle simply good. The battery also lasts quite well: I let it run out after about 8.5 hours of reading and streaming Community on Peacock and play various games. This is pretty much my normal iPad experience.

In more everyday use, the new Mini feels a touch faster than the previous model. Apps open a quarter of a second faster, iMovie renders a little faster, and image edits feel a little more immediate. The M2 Air feels another beat faster and the M4 Pro feels maybe half a beat faster. The M4 is well into the realm of diminishing returns for most things, and you'd really only notice the difference side by side. They are all very fast.

Still, it's important to note that the Mini is relatively underpowered. My advice for iPads (and most gadgets) has long been to buy the most powerful device you can afford and use it forever. And if you want Apple Intelligence to be really good and important, you're going to need all the horsepower you can get. This new Mini is probably the least powerful device capable of running Apple Intelligence. (The base iPad, which is definitely less powerful than the Mini, is the only iPad Apple sells that doesn't support this feature.)

That's a particularly big problem for the Mini, because if you buy it now, you're betting that Apple Intelligence will immediately be worth the upgrade. Would you bet that Apple's AI, which hasn't shipped yet and won't ship until next spring and probably long after that, will be unmistakably great before then? next Mini coming out? I definitely wouldn't do that. Apple has some good ideas about what Siri can do for you and how AI could make it easier for you to solve math problems or write email, but many of these features are still new and imperfect, and many others are simply not available. It doesn't exist.

And wait a minute: If you do a lot of handwriting or write a lot of emails, you'd probably prefer a larger screen or a keyboard attachment, right? The new Mini is reportedly designed for users who want the absolute best pen experience, a million new AI-powered productivity tools, and And The absolute smallest screen that offers both, no matter the compromises. That's a pretty accurate Venn diagram if you ask me.

There are so many other interesting things Apple could do with the Mini. It could give it iPhone Pro Max-level imaging and a camera control button The the device that Hollywood will hopefully use to make films. (I'm vehemently against people taking photos with iPads in public, but the Mini is small enough to get away with it – and a viewfinder that big would be awesome.) Apple could develop a charging station that turns it into a music or smart device Home transforms controllers à la Pixel Tablet. It could build a Backbone-style controller and turn it into a handheld console. Instead you just get the same thin case that is too expensive and keeps coming off the back of my device.

Aside from being the iPad Mini, the main selling point for the new Mini is that it's the smallest iPad designed for Apple Intelligence. Apple Intelligence better be a damn good upgrade, because without it the new Mini isn't much of an upgrade at all.

Photography by David Pierce / The Verge