It's been three years since the last iPad Mini, and not all that much has changed. I mean, there's Pencil Pro support, and there's a new processor, and that's about it. Wait, there's more. Wait. [Music] Wait. The iPad Mini is a portable device in a family of portable devices that I carry around with me. I mean, I like playing games on the Switch. I read books on the Kindle. Sometimes I carry an actual physical book with me, and I've got a large screen phone. The iPad Mini wants to be all of those things and a little bit more. More. I mean, the Pencil support has always promised this could be a little more like a sketch pad, and it can run apps side by side, but the more I power use it, the more I kind of wish that it were a larger screen device, a little more like a large iPad or a laptop. That being said, if you've been looking for an iPad Mini, the upgrades in this are going to push it into being a little more future-proof for you to buy.

Unfortunately, the everyday entry of iPad has not gotten those upgrades yet, and back in 2021, the design was pretty much the same. I mean, Apple didn't need to change a lot about the design of the iPad Mini. It's got a nice display, the bezels are smaller than last time, although they're still kind of big, and I find it's reasonably light. It's got USBC; however, the display is not as fast refreshing, it's not OLED, so compared to an iPhone Pro, I find it a little bit disappointing. And you know, not much else has really changed here. I kind of thought maybe they would make a smaller pencil that would attach in some cool way, or maybe some really cool small keyboard case that Apple would make. None of those have shown up 3 years later. So let's talk about specs. The iPad Mini 2024 doesn't have that many different features. It has an 8.3in liquid Retina Display, which is the same resolution that it had 3 years ago, and the same

refresh rate and the same screen technology, so it's not OLED and it's not going at 120 HZ. It also has an A17 Pro processor. That's the one that was on the iPhone 15 Pro, not the new iPhone 16, and it's not an M series processor. And Stage Manager, which connects to an external monitor to throw additional apps, that doesn't work on here. There is a faster USB-C data throughput on this, and it also has support for the Apple Pencil Pro. The Apple Pencil Pro has a hover feature, it has squeeze haptics, and it also has the ability to rotate, which is a really useful drawing tool. And the price of the Pencil Pro isn't any more than what the Pencil 2 was, but you cannot use the Pencil 2 on the iPad Mini. Now it's just the Pencil Pro or the USB-C cheaper pencil, which is frustrating because if you had a Pencil 2, you're going to have to buy a new one for this. And let's talk a bit about Apple.

intelligence. Apple's made a big deal this year about generative AI tools in iOS and iPad OS. Mac OS, this is Apple intelligence compatible. However, I've not been able to test it yet on this model as I speak right now. Now, it's going to be launching at the end of the month, although still in a beta form for people, and some of those features are really going to be embryonic and incremental, not all the things that Apple's eventually going to unleash. But I do wonder how well they're going to work on this iPad Mini because it's just being in the door with an A17 Pro. That's what the iPhone 15 Pro had last year, which was the first iPhone to get Apple intelligence compatibility. Not having an M-series chip, is that going to harm this iPad down the line? I don't know. I mean, you know, you want to talk about future-proofing on this. I like that it can do the Apple intelligence because down the road, that's going to become a bigger part of iPad OS, I'm sure.

but will it be left out of some updates that other iPads will get? So let's talk pros and cons. I mean the pros, it's a small iPad, and you're either going to like that or not like that. That's been around for a while, but there are a lot of kids like my kid that likes the idea of an iPad Mini. If you're using this like you're a pilot or you're using this at point of sale, a lot of commercial uses want something like an iPad mini, and it also has a 5G option. The fact that it supports the pencil Pro and is a full sketching tool, the fact that it can run Apple intelligence, but I don't know how well yet, and because I have not been able to test it at this point on the iPad mini, and I don't know how long that's going to last for support with the A177 Pro chip inside. One more pro that I like is that the base model of this at $500 finally has 128 GB of storage before it. Amazingly.

only had 64. 128 is still not a ton, but it's a bare minimum at a $500 price. Thankfully, they've gotten to that, and you can upgrade now to 512 GB of storage, which does cost you extra, but that wasn't available before. What I don't like about it is that, you know, again, nothing has really changed design-wise, so the camera is still on the narrow side, not on the long side. So if you're standing it up like this on a table, video chats still look a little bit weird as opposed to the rest of the iPad lineup, which has them on the landscape edge. It doesn't have a new concept for what the pencil is, and this is a big honking pencil to use on a small iPad. And it does park very nicely with magnets, but it would be nice to have something a little smaller and cuter that you could just pull right out on a whim, write a bit, and then put it away. This feels like you're taking out like a

big Style and there was no keyboard case that would be a separate purchase anyhow. But I like the idea of writing on iPads, and you can buy separate third-party accessories that do this. But Apple didn't think about any sort of magic keyboard accessory for this, which you know, if I want to use this as a computer on the go, I'm going to be thumb typing or using a pencil, and my handwriting is terrible. The display and the refresh rate, they're fine, but you know, I use an iPhone 16 Pro Max right now, and that has a beautiful OLED display, fast refresh rate. Going back and forth between that and this, I feel like this doesn't look quite as nice. It's fine for watching videos, um, it's a really nice Kindle alternative for e-reading, and uh, it's very kid-friendly in a lot of ways if you want to pay up for this. But it's also really the model for what I'd like to see on the iPad Next Generation for the base model, the iPad 10th Generation.

is now several years old. Has not gotten an update. Who knows why, but I would bet that you know getting some sort of Apple intelligence compatibility for future proofing and being able to have some sort of modern pencil Pro support would be in the cards for the base iPad. I would hope so because of $500. It's now already in the iPad Mini, so just take this, make it a bit bigger, and you've got the template for what I'd like to see in the iPad 11th gen base model. So should you get this as opposed to waiting for the base model iPad to eventually get upgraded, maybe next year? Well, if you've been waiting to get an iPad Mini, it's a great time to get one because it finally got upgrades that are useful. If you already had an iPad Mini in 2021, these upgrades may not be that meaningful to you, so you might be fine sticking for now with what you've got. And I would be curious to see what the basic iPad model upgrade is if it does come out next year.

If it gets these types of features, and also what price drops might be coming for things like the iPad Air, which is a very capable product right now, and has an M2 chip inside. All those are big questions I'd have, but the iPad Mini is doing just fine. It's just not really taking amazing strides into new territory. If you have questions or anything else, let me know below, and as always, thanks for watching.

iPad Mini Review: It’s Tiny Tablet Time!

CNET is the premier destination for explaining and navigating the changing world around us. Through news, product reviews, price comparisons, and more, we’ll tell you what’s new in the parts of modern life that increasingly matter more — from health, home, and money to tech, culture, and climate — and how to get the most out of them.