Apple iPad Mini 2024 review

The iPad Mini 2024 looks exactly like it's predecssor, with the same sleek and simple aluminium body. If you put them side by side, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. It's still super thin and light, making it easy to hold and carry around. Perfect for snuggling up in bed or on the couch after a long day. The 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display is bright, colourful, and has great viewing angles. The design hasn't changed since the 2021 model, but the USB Type-C port now supports 10 Gbps data transfer speeds. This is a major improvement for anyone who uses the iPad Mini to transfer footage from their cameras or external drives. As someone who uses the iPad Mini for photo editing and gaming, I can tell you that the faster port makes a big difference when moving large files.

ALSO READ: Apple iPad Air 13in (M2) review 

Under the hood, the iPad Mini 2024 is powered by the A17 Pro Bionic chip, the same chip found in the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. It's a speedy processor that can handle even the most demanding tasks with ease. Multitasking is a breeze, and games run well. Apple hasn’t mentioned improved thermals here and we’re guessing they haven’t changed it either. However, the iPad rarely runs hot and it’s only when you’re pushing the tablet to play demanding games for an extended time. Say, Assassin’s Creed Mirage or other games with Ray Traced lighting. Those games can cook the insides a bit faster than something more casual like Pokemon TCG Pocket or Balatro+. Diablo Immortal also works at 60FPS without breaking a sweat. The rear gets a bit warm but that’s about it. There are no performance penalties for gaming on this over a few hours.

The 2021 iPad Mini was an excellent small tablet and with the new processor, the 2024 version is better equipped for running games and other editing apps that require a more powerful GPU and extra RAM. Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Fresco work effortlessly. It’s shocking how much power is still there in a year-old A17 Pro chip. For reference, the iPad Mini 2021 with A15 Bionic chip scores 20506 in GPU performance on Geekbench 6 and the iPad Mini 2024 with A17 Pro Bionic gets a 25862. That’s a good 26% increase in GPU performance. Similarly, the CPU benchmark scores are about 30% higher than the 2021 iPad Mini.

The Apple Pencil Pro support brings hover, squeeze, and barrel roll to the smallest iPad. It’s not going to be a multitasking sketching machine like the Apple iPad Air with M2 but for artists who want a notebook-sized scribbling pad, the iPad Mini 2024 is more than capable of running Adobe’s demanding software.

Apple’s Intelligence is here but partially. Most of the features that Apple promised back in WWDC and even at the Apple iPhone launch are only being drip-fed to the supported devices. It’s still very difficult to get Siri to cough up the right answer and India will get Apple Intelligence next year. If you want to cut the line and get Apple Intelligence before 2025, then follow these steps and you can get it for English US Language. Currently, the only useable iPadOS feature is the one that works with the Apple Pencil. With the new iPadOS update,  your terrible handwriting in the Notes app will straighten itself and make more sense. But no promises if you squiggle on it like a doctor.

You can expect a battery to run for three days with light gaming, reading and a few episodes on Netflix. Realistically, the screen on time will vary with how much you push the performance. Lightroom, video editing and graphics-intensive gaming might drain faster but if you use it to read, watch movies and play card games then expect more than a day’s worth of use. Charging speed, like all Apple devices, is horrid. The included 20W charger in the box is painfully slow if you’re using the iPad Mini daily.

The 12MP rear camera is useful for scanning documents and sending photos of your pets on Instagram and the 12MP front-facing camera is useful for taking videocalls at times. It’s not moved to a landscape orientation like the bigger iPads but we don’t think it’s an issue here. The iPad Mini is very manageable in portrait mode.

There are plenty of Android tablets to pick from in this price range. The iPad Mini 2024 is surely the most expensive tablet for its miniscule proportions and if that pinches you then it may not be for you. The iPad Mini has a very specific lifestyle use, one that doesn’t involve answering your boss’ email or entertaining the marketing team with a quick Zoom call. It’s for reading, gaming, entertainment and browsing. It’s a fantastic little tablet that's perfect for anyone who wants a powerful and portable device.

That said, it’s not perfect, the processor upgrade, however good, feels minor at best and the Apple Intelligence features are barely useful with the current update. Apart from the Rewrite feature which helps convert text, the other important AI features that superpower Siri’s brain still don’t function as Apple showcased during the iPhone launch.