The iPad Mini is light and sharp, and its $699 price hurts

A $699 starting price

The new iPad Mini starts at $699, and the reviewer says that price hurts, especially for people who have to count every dollar ^[1]. The tablet launches on Friday with U.S. pricing starting at that figure ^[2].

The starting price is only $50 less than the iPad Air's ^[1]. The reviewer says a slightly cheaper iPad Mini priced around $499 or $599 would make more sense ^[1].

What the price covers

Apple announced a new iPad mini with a larger 8.5-inch OLED display ^[2]. It is described as the lightest Apple tablet ever made ^[1]. The screen is an OLED Super Retina XDR display, which is not the tandem OLED used on the iPad Pro ^[3].

Inside, the reviewer's Geekbench 7 scores for the iPad Mini with the A20 Pro are 4,001 single-core and 11,422 multi-core ^[1]. All configurations come with 12 GB of unified memory, four more than the previous iPad Mini ^[3].

The tablet reaches IP67 water and dust resistance because it is fully enclosed ^[1]. It drops speaker holes, and sound comes from the device through a new Acoustic Display technology ^[1].

Battery and cellular

The new iPad mini has a slightly smaller battery than the previous model ^[2]. In Tom's Guide's standard battery test, the iPad mini 8 lasted 14 hours and 24 minutes, up from 10 hours and 36 minutes for the iPad mini 7 ^[2].

Apple's tech specs list up to 10 hours of web surfing on Wi-Fi for both models ^[2]. For cellular connectivity, the tablet uses Apple's C2 modem ^[2].

What is missing

The iPad Mini lacks ProMotion, the high smooth refresh rate found on the iPad Pro ^[1]. It also still lacks Face ID ^[3]. It uses Touch ID instead, and the reviewer lists that as their only design complaint ^[1].