The iPad Mini 7 Finally Lands in Stores, but Should You Grab One?
Following the announcement of the new seventh-generation iPad Mini, Apple’s latest compact tablet is finally available in stores nationwide. While it does pack some upgrades over its predecessor from 2021, there are some aspects of the device which we wish Apple would have changed.
Perhaps the biggest downer with the new iPad Mini is that it still comes with a 60Hz LCD screen, which in 2024 (and at a starting price of $499) isn’t exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from a brand of Apple’s caliber. It also retains the same design and dimensions (most cases designed for the 2021 Mini will still fit), same battery capacity, and even the same camera resolution, albeit with some improvements.
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So why buy it? Well for one, Apple is banking on the device’s performance to be its main selling point. Beating inside the heart of the iPad Mini 7 is the A17 Pro chipset, the same SoC which powers the iPhone 15 from last year, albeit with one less GPU core this time. It also packs 8GB of RAM, which is twice the memory of the iPad Mini from 2021. The new chipset and larger RAM allocation also mean that the iPad Mini 7 will get access to upcoming Apple AI features, once they finally become available for users.
With that in mind though, folks with the 2021 iteration of the iPad Mini need only upgrade if they really want the newer one for performance and Apple AI features, or if you’re someone who’s buying their first iPad Mini ever, or are after a relatively-powerful compact tablet, something which has been sorely missing on the Android side of things.
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