Apple's iPad mini is back on sale for $400 at Amazon

Pick up the best small tablet out there while it's $100 off.

Valentina Palladino / Engadget

It doesn't get much better than Apple's iPad mini if you're keen on a more compact tablet. We consider it to be the best small slab out there, and the company made a lot of much-needed upgrades to the latest model that came out nearly one year ago. Now, you can pick up the 2021 iPad mini for $400, or $100 less than usual and the best price we've seen it. That's how much you'll spend on the 64GB WiFi models, but you can get the same $100 discount on the 256GB versions too, so you can get one for $550.

Buy iPad mini (64GB) at Amazon - $400 Buy iPad mini (256GB) at Amazon - $550

The 6th-gen iPad mini is an upgrade in nearly every way from the previous iteration. Apple revamped its design so it looks more like a small iPad Air, complete with slimmer bezels, a Touch ID-toting power button and a USB-C port for charging. It has an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display that supports input from the second-generation Apple Pencil, so it could be your main device for capturing digital notes, sketches and more. Its A15 Bionic chip performed well and handled everything we threw at it, and we were pleased with the tablet's nearly 12-hour battery life.

Apple also added 5G support to the iPad mini, which will be handy if you spring for an LTE-capable model, along with Center Stage cameras that keep you in the center of the frame when you're on FaceTime calls. Ultimately, our biggest gripes with the mini are the fact that it has no headphone jack and that many people may quickly fill up the base model's 64GB of storage. Plus, it's more expensive than the previous-gen mini, but Amazon's latest sale makes up for that. It's also worth noting that we don't expect Apple to announce a new iPad mini at this week's iPhone event, so the model that's on sale will likely remain the latest and greatest mini for some time.

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