I reviewed the iPad mini 2024, and it was a delightful surprise

My initial experience with the iPad mini was a roller coaster of bewilderment and appreciation. On one hand, I couldn’t look past the lukewarm “upgrade” situation this year. A faster processor? Good. A massively hyped AI software that is “meh” and “misfiring” to this day? I certainly don’t want that upgrade.

Yet, over the past seven weeks of using it regularly, I have grown uncharacteristically attached to it. It is good at everything its predecessor did, even though you might not always notice the difference. Not in terms of the chores this pocketable tablet should accomplish, at least.

I believe this is the prophesied “third category” of device that Steve Jobs waxed poetic about when he introduced the very first iPad over a decade ago. It doesn’t cost a ton, feels lovely in your hands, looks cute, and can still do a lot.

iPad mini 2024 specs

The good and bad of the iPad mini’s display

Apple has kept things unchanged here. The latest iPad mini still features an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display with a resolution of 2266 x 1488 pixels, landing at the signature pixel density of 326 ppi.

The brightness figures also remain identical at 500 nits. The only notable difference is that this panel now supports the Apple Pencil hover system. It’s not the nicest display out there, but for its size and intended usage, it gets the job done.

The colors look nice, and the viewing angles are acceptable. The sharpness is high due to the small size, even compared to the uber-expensive OLED iPad Pro M4. What stands out for me, however, is the aspect ratio.

This is the only iPad that doesn’t chase a squarish format, a mainstay since Apple introduced the first iPad. The aspect ratio of the mini tablet is closer to 1.52:1 compared to the 4:3 format on every other iPad in Apple’s portfolio.

I love the iPad mini’s aspect ratio.

It’s more natural for many things, especially the chores it’s intended to perform. Take, for example, video watching. Here is a side-by-side comparison of watching a film on the M4 iPad Pro and the iPad mini:

With the cinema format on platforms like Prime Video or Netflix, Apple’s 4:3 format is a test of patience, and the sheer level of wasted space at the top and bottom is a recurring eyesore. I love the iPad mini’s aspect ratio.

The iPad mini is no shining beacon of hope, but it improves the letterboxing. It also fares better at games, which is crucial because, unlike Android, you can’t force the aspect ratio of apps on iPads.

If you are into emulation, say for platforms like PlayStation Portable (PSP), once again, the iPad mini looks more appealing for that recreational indulgence. The streak continues well into productivity tasks, too.

This is a near-perfect size for reading content. I did try reading books and comics on the iPad Pro, but even in its 11-inch format, it quickly tires your hand if you engage in a binge-reading session or are hoping to go past a few episodes.

As for the 13-inch iPad Pro, my partner has always hunted for physical support or a resting surface before launching Netflix. The iPad mini, however, is easy to prop up anywhere, even against a glass or small plushie.

One-handed usage is the key appeal, and the iPad mini nails it. It certainly helps that there is no real competition on the Android side, which means Apple is your only choice if you’ve ever desired a small, palm-friendly tablet.

I believe a healthy few people see the allure of the iPad mini’s low heft and size profile because it’s easy for kids to handle and doesn’t blast bright light in their eyes from a giant 11-inch or 13-inch flat panel. Plus, it’s dramatically lighter on the pocket, so clumsy hands or the aftermath of rough usage won’t sting as much.

I handed the tablet to a few school-age kids and sought their insights. “It’s so light,” was the first response, while the second one praised the “very cool” sight of playing Grand Theft Auto on it.

The overwhelming majority of kids — as young as nine years old — liked it, adding that it’s much easier to hold and very smooth at games. Some said they would love it for classroom duties, too.

Not everyone shares that opinion. I asked one of my friends, a doctor by profession who is currently training in radiology. After using the tablet for a couple of days, he told me it was comfortably charming, but not good for much else.

“It’s too small for studying. I need a larger canvas. When talking with patients for a virtual consultation, this screen real estate is insufficient,” he told me. But then, I see people editing videos on their phones, so your mileage might vary based on the task at hand.

Excellent performance from the A17 Pro

Instead of benchmark numerals, which don’t give a meaningful idea about the firepower of a device from a value perspective, I will focus on the generation-over-generation improvements.

On the Geekbench single-core test, the latest iPad mini is roughly 36% faster than its predecessor and about 32% speedier at the multi-core tests. Running a 3DMark graphics benchmark test, the GPU compute prowess was over 30% higher for the seventh-gen iPad mini.

On the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme platform, the iPad mini proved to be around 27% more capable of handling graphics-intensive workloads, delivering a similar bump in the peak frame rate figures and an overall higher stability.

That gain in stability and firepower is also reflected in games. I could easily play titles like Call of Duty: Mobile at 60 frames per second (fps) at high graphics settings. Of course, mobile titles are nowhere near as demanding as PC or console titles, but at the moment, the iPad mini won’t run into any performance hiccups no matter what you throw at it.

Moreover, if you believe 60 fps is the gaming sweet spot, the iPad mini can shoulder your mobile gaming expectations with aplomb. Once again, I’d like to highlight that Apple’s Arcade library has some really good games, such as titles like TMNT Splintered Fate.

If you pay for a subscription directly or via the Apple One bundle, you will love the experience. I also dug into the Netflix library for titles like Hades and Katana Zero and had a great time grinding.

I could easily play titles like Call of Duty: Mobile at 60 fps at high graphics settings.

It was not surprising that the iPad mini could easily run Capcom’s Resident Evil 7 with ease at high graphics settings. Notably, it fared better than the iPhone 15 Pro Max when I tested the same game on the phone following its release.

The benefits of a ProMotion OLED display on the iPhone are evident, as colors don’t look nearly as vibrant and blacks look more like a shade of gray on the iPad mini’s LCD screen. It’s not a deal breaker, as most tablets out there will offer an LCD panel in this price bracket either way.

On the positive side, the iPad mini fared better than the iPhone in heat management. I believe that’s because of the larger footprint and the all-metal chassis lending a hand with more effective heat dissipation than the tightly packed glass/metal sandwich of any modern-day iPhone.

Genshin Impact was a smooth 60 fps experience, and after a session lasting roughly 20 minutes, the highest temperature I recorded on the rear panel was 104 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s nearly as good as the Red Magic Nova gaming tablet, which features more sophisticated thermal hardware and even fits a 20,000 RPM cooling fan inside the chassis.

The biggest surprise for me was Warframe, which offered a smooth, high-quality experience at 60 fps without any recurring stutters or worrisome thermal woes. I pushed the tablet further with Zenless Zone Zero, another fairly taxing game.

I went with the custom configuration route for this one, enabling high rendering, shadow preset, and fidelity while frame rates were set as high as 60 fps. The game ran smoothly, save for the occasional stutters during intense combat scenes.

It’s not quite ready for the 120 fps ride, especially if you crank all the graphics settings to the highest level, but sticking with 60 fps (which is not too bad, either) will deliver a pleasing experience.

In Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile, I had a nice time getting repeatedly sniped at the best graphics settings and 60 fps, though I noticed something odd with the texture rendering. Another really impressive aspect of the iPad mini is that it cools quickly as well, though I barely ever recorded temperatures above the 104-degree range.

I next switched to emulation across PlayStation and Nintendo games. I loved every bit of it. My preferred upscaling for PSP emulation was 8x, which is on the higher side, but the iPad mini handled it well.

Retro Nintendo titles ran just as well. I tried about half-dozen games and avoided performance pitfalls. This is the ideal size, especially if you need a larger screen, but still stick with onscreen touch controls. Anything bigger than this, and you will notice your palm stretching awkwardly.

I paired the Manba One and GameSir Cyclone T4 series wireless controllers for playing a handful of games and blazed past a few levels without any red flags. If you care about Bluetooth connectivity, the iPad mini jumps to v5.3, up from the v5.0 protocol on its predecessor.

Regarding productivity, you don’t need the iPad mini for demanding workflows. Editing in Lightroom? Good enough. It can also handle short format video edits if you have the patience to deal with the cramped on-screen controls on the small screen.

The iPad mini’s battery life is fantastic

This is a metric I can’t put a number on. That’s primarily because it would depend squarely on what you’re getting out of the tablet. If you buy the slate predominantly for watching videos, it will comfortably last about four Hollywood flicks streamed online.

On a day spent using the iPad as a companion device for my workflow, streaming music, letting off some steam, losing a few team rounds in Call of Duty: Mobile, and reading a few issues of Dark Horse comics, the iPad mini lasted anywhere between seven to nine hours for me.

Apple claims 10 hours of battery life for the iPad mini, which mostly checks out for the tablet’s intended usage. In my case, I used the tablet as a secondary screen when I was running short of screen space on the 13-inch MacBook Air.

In that state, I mostly ran workplace apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams in split-view mode to avoid missing out on work chats. Occasionally, it doubled as a reference screen for reading research papers while I did the heavy lifting on a laptop. It often served as a stage for multimedia playback controls, too.

Overall, I am pretty impressed by the iPad mini’s battery life.

Apple’s seamless implementation of Universal Control and wireless screen mirroring means there are no technical hoops to jump through. Just bring two devices together, drag the cursor, and you’re good to go. In wireless mirroring mode as a macOS screen, the battery drained faster, though.

Overall, I am pretty impressed by the iPad mini’s battery life, and I believe the efficiency gains delivered by the A17 Pro play a key role here. It’s snappy, smooth, and doesn’t underperform in terms of battery estimates.

The iPad mini, particularly the 2024 model with its AI future-proof approach, is a device you want to hold on to for a long time, unlike a phone that demands upgrades more frequently. To that end, Apple assures that the battery will maintain up to 80% of its initial capacity under normal operating conditions after clocking 1,000 complete charge cycles.

Apple’s definition of a charge cycle states that “you complete one charge cycle when you’ve used an amount that represents 100% of your battery’s capacity.” In a nutshell, the iPad mini’s battery should last you roughly three years before it needs a replacement.

iPadOS 18 and Apple Intelligence

The iPad mini runs iPadOS 18, and so does its predecessor. The only key differentiator is the new model’s support for Apple Intelligence — an irreversible situation because the AI stack is tied to the A17 Pro silicon. It’s the baseline for Apple Intelligence, after all.

Unfortunately, iPadOS is still fraught with its own set of perennial problems, but the situation is a tad more forgivable for the iPad mini given its “low-stakes” approach to tablet computing. To put it more accurately, this isn’t the first tablet of choice for any real computing.

I have not encountered a single feature where Apple Intelligence is either supremely reliable, better than rivals, or even convenient.

Apple should take a lesson or two from OnePlus or Samsung regarding split-screen multitasking on an 8-inch screen. Does the iPad mini even need that, now that we are talking about foldable phones that cost at least thrice as much? No, objectively speaking.

What matters here is that the OS is as smooth as it gets. There are plenty of apps to play with, and most of them are thoughtfully designed. The lack of Stage Manager stings, as that at least offers a new avenue for multitasking, but once again, I don’t imagine myself engaged in any hardcore multi-app workflow, so it’s excusable.

Apple Intelligence is the big draw, though it won’t matter a lot in its current iteration. So far, I have not encountered a single feature where Apple Intelligence is either supremely reliable, better than rivals, or even convenient.

Take, for example, the ChatGPT integration with Siri. The idea here is that you invoke Siri, and if your query is beyond the virtual assistant’s grasp, it will offload that to the OpenAI chatbot. Of course, you must grant it consent before it can answer your burning questions.

It’s just an unnecessary friction. I find opening the standalone ChatGPT app more convenient. Plus, in the app, you get access to all the additional niceties, such as your custom chat agent, image generation, and AI search functionality. Plus, if you are a paid user, there is no reason to invoke Siri to access ChatGPT.

The way Apple Intelligence summarizes notifications is also hit-or-miss. The most recent fiasco was a Microsoft Teams chat, where the AI combined two separate conversations into a laughably bad blend. “You want to cover, Nadeem Sarwar?” my editor asked in response to a link I shared in the group as a story pitch.

“Joe wants to cover Nadeem Sarwar,” said the notification. It’s also pretty bad for almost any chat where you aren’t using pristine English in all its safe-for-work glory. I prefer my notifications to be clustered and filtered as per my Focus mode preferences rather than having an AI fudge them — especially my workplace communications.

I have grown quite fond of the Reduce Interruptions focus feature, but it also has a habit of misfiring. It “understands the content of your notifications and shows you the most important ones, but silences notifications that are less important,” assures Apple.

It was also hit-or-miss. Things can get unpredictable if you’ve got a particularly buzzy Discord server or even a workplace Slack or Teams group. The onboard AI decides the importance of a conversation based on how frequently you interact with the source.

Most of our conversations happen in a group chat on Teams, and I regularly get notifications alerts from the channel in a summarized format. Just over a week ago, however, the Reduce Interruptions focus thought the direct messages weren’t worth surfacing, and I missed them entirely.

Since the AI-powered focus syncs across all your Apple devices, I didn’t get the message alert on any of my iPads, iPhones, or Macs. It sets the mood for an uninterrupted workflow, but I trust the app exceptions I have manually created for my work focus instead of letting an AI take over.

Then there are the Writing tools, which can help you with document chores, such as making style adjustments, formatting a wall of text into bullet points and tables, or even making it more concise. I have not found much utility in any of it, except the proofreading system to fix my typos.

I am not sure if any employer, teacher, or editor would like to read AI-generated material presented to them in any capacity whatsoever. Journalism is already at existential loggerheads with generative AI, so I have an even lower tolerance for such tools.

Even with AI-generated email responses that sound more courteous, I feel I am somehow deceiving the recipient with words that didn’t come out of my mind, though I fully intend those sentiments. However, if that’s something that can make your life easier, consider yourself lucky.

The object remover trick in Apple’s Photos app is neat, on the rare few occasions that it works. In my experience, it left an easily noticeable see-through warping effect in place of the removed object. In my most recent trial, it identified a food bowl on the table and removed it cleanly, but forgot to handle the object’s shadow.

Visual Intelligence, Apple’s equivalent of Google Lens supercharged on generative AI, is useful. But once again, it’s an occasional convenience and won’t add any significant ease into your daily workflow or even casual usage.

Siri’s big overhaul with App Intents, which allows it to interact with apps and execute tasks with vocal cues, won’t arrive until next year. Then there are Genmojis, which I only tried a couple of times and forgot about, primarily because GIFs and stickers already exist.

Overall, the iPadOS 18 experience on the iPad mini is unchanged and offers nothing remarkable (from a practical utility perspective) riding atop the Apple Intelligence stack. At least not at the moment.

Should you buy the iPad mini 2024?

The iPad mini is a fantastic tablet. If you have a fifth-gen iPad mini, you should hold off on upgrading. For those looking for a small tablet that can handle reading and Netflix streaming, double as a digital diary, and play games like a champ, this is arguably the most joyful device out there.

The software is silky smooth (though Apple can do a lot better), the build is lovely, the battery life is surprisingly solid, and there aren’t any red flags that could dissuade an enthusiast from giving their cash to Apple. It’s just not pulling any remarkable stunt that puts its predecessor to shame.

On the unsavory side of things, the sixth-gen iPad mini doesn’t fix any lingering problems. The screen is still not bright enough for comfortably consuming content under sunlight. The OnePlus Pad 2, for roughly the same asking price, serves a panel with nearly double the peak brightness.

The iPad mini is a fantastic tablet.

The lack of a headphone jack will continue to be a missed opportunity, especially for a tablet. The front camera is still in an awkward portrait position. And you will have to spend money on a newer Apple Pencil if you’ve got an older one lying around.

For better or worse, though, this is the only small tablet out there worth its salt. I wish Android could offer an option, but Apple’s mini tablet isn’t a bad choice on its own. On the contrary, it just might leave you a very happy and productive person bound to a desk.