More than ever before, the 7th-gen iPad mini splits the difference between Apple’s smartphones and tablets. You won’t slip it into your pocket, but it’s the perfect size for a small bag. You won’t be drawing elaborate sketches on its 8.3-inch display, but you will be scribbling notes or using the latest Apple Pencils for minor photo editing. You could spend hundreds of dollars more on a more capable iPad or opt for a tiny screen that seems to facilitate iPadOS better than its bigger brethren.
We are still finishing up benchmarks and battery tests for our full review, but the iPad mini is still worth analyzing, especially in the light of Apple Intelligence—the first bits of which are set to debut Oct. 28. So picture me, sitting at my desk, one hand holding the 13-inch iPad Pro M4, the other with the 6-inch iPad mini, expected to ship starting Wednesday. Which one would I choose? I think the iPad mini fits into my life far better than a larger tablet with extra horsepower, and though it’s not an overhaul, this is the best version of the mini we’ve had in years. The only question is how much Apple Intelligence will truly change how we might use a tiny iPad.
How can you even compare the two? One starts at $1,300 for its size. It’s Apple’s thinnest, most powerful, and not to mention most expensive iPad to date. Compared to that, the humble mini starts at $500. It’s essentially the same Air-like chassis as the 6th-gen iPad mini from 2021. Now, it comes with two times the RAM—up to 8 GB—plus 128 GB of starting storage compared to the 64 GB of the last generation for the same starting price tag. Judging by the retail price, it’s a better deal with the updated specs (though it’s still an expensive tablet compared to the competition). More than ever, the iPad makes the case for small tablets over massive Rosetta Stone-sized slates.
iPad Mini 2024 Review: Build Quality
The iPad mini is essentially the same chassis as the one from 2021. It’s very Air-like, which is to say it’s 6.3mm thin—good enough for most purposes, though, with its typical wide bezels. Unlike the Air, it comes in fun colors like light blue and purple. My dark gray iPad review unit looks fine, though typical, but the purple makes me envious. Besides the new chip, the extra benefit of going with this year’s iPad is its WiFI 6E connectivity and a USB-C port supporting data transfers up to 10 GB/s, double that of the 6th gen.
Though the iPad Pro was the standard bearer for the latest Apple silicon, the M4 chip, the iPad mini for 2024 houses an A17 Pro chip, the same processor found in the iPhone 15 Pro. You already know this new iPad will be faster than the 2021 version with its A15 Bionic CPU, but it’s still the same experience. The iPad mini is Apple’s tablet at its baseline but with the added compatibility with the Apple Pencil Pro—my favorite stylus.
Unfortunately, like all other iPads from 2024, it’s only compatible with the Pro and the Apple Pencil USB. If you have a 2nd-gen or older Apple Pencil, it won’t stick to or work with the new iPad. Apple said this is because the M4 iPad Pro needed to redesign its connection point to fit its new slim form factor.
Unfortunately for the mini, the front camera is still on the portrait side, likely because the Apple Pencil needs that space for its magnetic attachment point. The lack of Pencil compatibility is still a pain for anybody planning to switch from the previous mini to the 7th-gen.
As for the cameras, it’s exactly what you expect. There’s a 12MP rear sensor and a 12MP ultra-wide front-facing camera. It’s handy for family photos in a pinch, but let’s be honest: you don’t buy an iPad for its camera at any price point. The front camera uses Center Stage, which adjusts the zoom level to keep you in the frame. I used it during a lengthy video call, and it works well enough. However, I did notice a nearly 20% battery drain in 40 minutes when using video calling with the added center-frame feature on the Microsoft Teams app.
You’re only still looking at Apple’s flavor of LCD, “Liquid Retinae,” with its standard brightness that’s merely good enough. We have already had the chance to play around with Apple’s AI capabilities on iOS 18.1 Beta, and with that same feature set installed on iPad, it’s not going to change how you use your tablet.
iPad Mini 2024 Review: Apple Intelligence and iPadOS 18
Although it’s been enough time to wait for an iPad mini refresh, the real reason Apple’s bringing this late entry is Apple Intelligence. The company’s latest iPadOS 18.1 release candidate offers the best idea of how users will actually get familiar with the tech giant’s AI features. These include Writing Tools, notification summaries, and a few added photo editing features like Clean Up.
Starting with Clean Up, I found it improved significantly from the early beta days, but just like Google’s Magic Eraser, it’s not a fix for all your photo faux pas. It may erase background details far better than objects in the foreground, and you may find it leaves behind traces of objects or shadows. At least it’s a relatively simple interface. All you need to do is circle the object with a finger or Pencil, and Apple will automatically remove it. The only other issue is how long it takes to load when you click the Clean Up button within Apple’s Photos app.
Writing Tools is far more of a mixed bag. I personally have no reason to use any of the feature’s rewriting tools that will make my emails sound more “professional.” The proofreading feature isn’t bad. It will rejigger the sentences in my emails to fix any accidental comma splices. Unfortunately, I can’t currently bring up Writing Tools in Google Docs. Perhaps that might change in the future, but Google’s promoting its own AI tools for Workspace apps.
Summarization can be useful, though the base “Summary” feature boils down a lengthy email to the point that it loses all nuance. I prefer the “Key Points” feature, which makes an email into bullet points. It does a pretty good job of taking a lengthy product brief full of PR mumbo jumbo and making it more concise and legible, though I still need to jump back to the original text to check the AI’s work.
The new Siri interface is a fine upgrade. Instead of a giant floating orb, Siri is now presented as a wavy, colorful border. The upgrade also allows you to set it up to text to Siri, which is especially handy when you don’t want others around you to ask why you’re asking the assistant, “How do I take a screen recording?”
Apple’s upgraded Siri should have all the product knowledge of Apple’s support pages plugged into a large language model. Still, when I asked standard product questions like “How can I use my iPad to scan documents?” or “How do I fix a photo if someone is blinking?” it used internet-based results rather than anything coming directly from Apple. This will probably change in the full release, but for now, using Siri is mostly the same as ever.
Apple has improved iPadOS since it last debuted a tiny iPad in 2021, but some of those features still aren’t available for the tiny-screen iPad. For example, the iPad mini 2024 can’t use Stage Manager on the 8.3-inch display for better multitasking. Instead, you’re limited to Split View.
Even on the 13-inch iPad, Stage Manager could barely paper over the lack of macOS-like versatility. Even with Split Screen, small-screen iPads are barely better at multitasking than your regular iPhone. You can drag around multiple windows on the 6.2-inch display of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. Yes, it likely wouldn’t be intuitive on such a small display, but I would prefer to have the option.
iPad Mini 2024 Review: The Tablet I Would Actually Use
Along with the Apple Pencil and the standard Apple folio, I didn’t feel like I was missing anything from the iPad mini despite its size. It’s nice to have a device small enough that I can type with my thumbs in landscape mode yet still bigger than my iPhone for watching videos or taking notes. I don’t need it to be anything more than it is, which may be bad news for Apple’s AI ambitions as they currently stand.
Instead, the iPad mini acts as a regular companion, hanging out to the side of my MacBook, where I can focus on the important stuff. I keep the little guy to the side for notifications, bringing up the calendar, or—more likely—bringing up YouTube when my brain is frying so hard it’s about to boil and slip out my ears.
We’re finishing our full benchmarking and battery tests, and we’ll be updating this review when those are finalized. As for now, the iPad Pro or larger iPad Air may be the Apple brand tablets I would drool over, but the mini feels like the iPad I would actually use day-to-day.
