Review: The All-New iPad Mini Is A Great Upgrade to The Small Tablet
Key Specs
• Apple A12 Bionic Chip with a Neural Engine
• 7.9-inch Retina Display with True Tone technology
• 64/256 GB of storage
• 8 MP main camera; 7 MP front-facing camera
• Built-in stereo speakers
• Apple Pencil compatibility
After a long wait (it’s been more than 3 years), Apple finally released a successor to the venerable, ultra-compact iPad mini 4.
The all-new, less elaborately named iPad mini has retained the iconic design and industry-leading craftsmanship of its predecessor. But what the newcomer does bring is vastly updated hardware, headlined by Apple’s latest A12 Bionic chip and an improved Retina display that’s compatible with the Apple Pencil.
I spent the past few days testing the new Apple iPad mini. My conclusion: It’s the best compact slate that money can buy-by an insurmountable margin.
At this point in time, if you're looking for an ultra portable and future-proof tablet, you need to have the latest iPad mini right at the top of your shopping list.
And here are all the reasons why:
It's the Most Powerful Tablet In Its Class
The new iPad mini is overwhelmingly more powerful than any of its similarly sized rivals. Compared to the previous generation alone, it has three times more processing power and nine times more graphics power.
That’s because the new iPad mini packs Apple’s own A12 Bionic chip with a built-in Neural Engine. Already ticking inside the iPhone XS, the iPhone XS Max, and the iPhone XR, the component offers industry-conquering processing and graphics power.
During my testing, every task I performed on the iPad mini happened instantly, regardless of the occasion - from simply opening apps to seamlessly switching between a multitude of open ones.
Just like in the case of the latest iPhones, the A12 Bionic chip’s Neural Engine plays a pivotal part in its mind-blowing performance capabilities. It all but guarantees that the tablet will always perform flawlessly.
It Has a Fantastic Retina Display
The new iPad mini’s screen tis easily the best in its class. During my testing, I found it to be marvelously sharp and vibrant - and even perfectly legible even outdoors. Its viewing angles are also excellent, in case you want to share content with someone sitting beside you.
The Retina display of the new iPad mini has the same size and resolution as that of the outgoing model, but it’s brighter and displays a wider range of colors. The LCD panel features Apple’s excellent True Tone tech, which seamlessly adjusts its white balance depending on the lighting conditions.
It's Compatible With the Apple Pencil
The new iPad mini is the first compact slate that’s compatible with the Apple Pencil. The stylus is handily the most accurate accessory of its kind, giving iPad mini users a whole new realm of functionality and possible interactions with the tablet.
Support for the Apple Pencil is native to iOS, so there’s plenty you can do with the accessory the moment you power the tablet on. This includes editing, annotating, and signing documents, as well as photos, among many other things.
Best of all, the App Store is brimming with superb apps designed to utilize the Apple Pencil to the fullest. They range from excellent note-taking offerings to feature-packed creativity apps that even discerning pros will approve of.
Apple iOS Has the Best Selection of Tablet-Friendly Apps and Games
Thanks to Apple iOS and the App Store, the iPad mini comes with the best selection of tablet-friendly apps and games in the business. There are countless amazing titles to choose from! They include superb augmented reality titles, powerful apps for productivity, creativity, and education, as well as blockbuster gaming titles such as Fortnite.
A couple of AR apps are optimized thanks to the new A12 Bionic chip with Neural Engine: We really like HomeCourt, the basketball training app, and the Home Depot app keeps getting better. And we're using the Moleskin app (Actions and Notes), which are optimized with the Apple Pencil, to quit paper notepads forever and 10x our productivity.
Every app and game I tested on the iPad mini ran superbly. Overall, the vast amount of content optimized for the iPad should be enough to convince you to opt for it. Rivals that run on other mobile platforms such as Android are desperately behind on this.
Wrap Up
According to Apple, the new iPad mini can deliver up to 10 hours of screen-on time. I found this claim to be accurate while testing the tablet, as well as rather impressive for a product this lightweight and thin.
The built-in stereo speakers of the device are solid for its form factor, though not quite as impressive as those of the pricier iPad Pro. I wish they were flanking the Retina display in landscape mode, as opposed to sitting underneath the Touch ID fingerprint sensor.
The pricing of the refreshed iPad mini starts at a rather reasonable $399 for a model with 64 GB of built-in storage. I highly recommend that you spend an extra $150 for a variant with 256 GB of storage instead. Having four times more memory at your disposal is worth the extra cost. The option to have cellular network connectivity will cost you an extra $130 as always.
You can grab an iPad mini in silver, gold, or space gray.
Like all things Apple, the new iPad mini comes with a superb ecosystem of original and third-party accessories, which help you make the most out of the tablet’s vast productivity and entertainment capabilities.
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