OLED iPad mini: 8.5in screen, A20 Pro chip, from $700

Apple has finally updated the iPad mini, and the redesign runs from the outside in. The tablet is thinner and lighter than before, built around a new 8.5-inch OLED display — the screen many people had asked for on the smallest iPad for years. The unit shown has a nano-texture finish that stops before the bezels, so fingers glide across the screen but grip the glossy edges. It is bright enough for reading and video in most conditions. It is also light: it weighs almost exactly the same as an iPhone 18 Pro Max, just stretched out.

Inside sits the A20 Pro chip, the same one used in the iPhone 18 Pro models, with some caveats on the cheaper storage tiers. Performance is far beyond what this tablet needs day to day, and battery life is basically unchanged. Longer benchmark runs suggest the thin body still spreads heat better than an iPhone, so it throttles less than an iPhone 18 Pro after 20 loops. In practice that points to a device that should stay usable for years.

The eighth-generation iPad mini starts at $700, up from the roughly $500 people remember. That base model has 128GB of storage, which feels tight for the money in 2026. Stepping up to 256GB or 512GB costs $100 or $200 more. The chip is also binned by storage: the 128GB and 256GB versions get a 5-core CPU, 7-core GPU and a single Neural Engine. The full chip, with an extra CPU core and a dual 16-core Neural Engine, only comes with the 512GB model at $1,000.

The OLED panel runs at 60Hz, not the 120Hz ProMotion found on the Pro iPads. Marques Brownlee calls the 60Hz a deal-breaker for him personally, since every other screen he uses is smoother. He doesn't buy Apple's technical excuses, pointing out that the base iPhone 17 got 120Hz last year. His read is that Apple is protecting its price ladder: the iPad Air is also 60Hz, and a smoother mini would let buyers move the wrong way up the range.

This is the first and only iPad with any water and dust resistance rating: it is IP67 rated. To get there, Apple removed the speaker holes entirely and hid the speakers behind the display, using a technology it calls the acoustic display. Sound still comes through even when the narrow edge slots are blocked with thumbs, and it always faces you. The trade-off is a slight vibration or rattle at high volume, since the whole body acts like a speaker cabinet. Brownlee wonders whether this is a trial run for a future iPhone.

The front camera has moved to the landscape edge, slightly off centre, matching other iPads. The rear camera looks like the same single 12-megapixel unit, with a slightly different bump to fit the thinner body. It comes in two colours, Midnight and Starlight — slightly not black and slightly not white. For one-handed reading, travel and windowed apps, the size still works well, and with cellular it pairs neatly with a minimal phone. The catch is the price against that 60Hz screen.