Ahead of its October 28 “Pro and Tell” event, Apple has refreshed the iPad mini with an OLED display (the first for the mini line), the company’s latest in-house, Pro-grade chipset, and something else that made me read twice: an Acoustic Display design.
The iPad mini (8th generation) starts at $699 for Wi-Fi and $849 for cellular variants. Pre-orders start October 28, 2026, and general sales begin November 6, 2026.
What makes this mini feel so different?
I’ll start with the clever bit: the speakers, or what Apple calls an Acoustic Display. Woofers (the bass speakers) now play through the display itself, while the tweeters (the treble speakers) are tucked into the seam where glass meets aluminum.
The new iPad mini doesn’t have speaker vents around the chassis, which is also why it earns an IP67 dust- and water-resistance rating. The device can survive a 1-meter dunk for 30 minutes. However, I’d still advise against bath-time binge-watching or using it around the swimming pool.
In my experience, grilles are where gadgets quietly die from spills and lint, so that’s good news. Another design improvement: the iPad mini 8 is noticeably thinner at 5.4mm, down from 6.3mm. The Wi-Fi model weighs 255 grams, while the cellular model weighs 263 grams; both of them are substantially lighter than the outgoing model.
Did Apple finally improve the screen?
Yes, it did. Apple upgraded the iPad mini 7’s 8.3-inch Liquid Retina IPS LCD screen to an 8.5-inch Super Retina XDR OLED screen (thanks to thinner bezels) rated at 1200 nits (HBM), more than double the old model’s display brightness.
Under the hood, the A20 Pro chip claims up to 4.5 times faster AI performance than the A17 Pro and adds built-in ray tracing (for more realistic in-game lighting). However, the 6-core CPU is only available on the $999 512GB variant. The 256GB and 512GB versions get a binned 5-core A20 Pro chip, something to keep in mind. The new N1 and C2 chips also add Wi-Fi 7 and faster cellular.
Out of the box, the device runs on iPadOS 27, Apple’s latest operating system, which brings Siri AI in beta, but only in six languages and not in the EU (for now). My favorite tweak is the camera. Its 12MP front lens moved to the long edge, so landscape video calls finally look straight at you.
The battery can last up to 10 hours of web surfing on Wi-Fi, and you can charge it to 50% in about 30 minutes with a 35W power adapter.
At the end, I’d like to leave you with an interesting bit. The last iPad mini launched in 2024 at $499 and rose to $599 in June 2026, when Apple blamed a memory-chip shortage. So, this model costs $100 more than the old one did after the hike.
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