iPad Mini 2024 vs. 2026 Buyer's Guide: Should You Upgrade?

‌iPad mini‌ (seventh generation, 2024) ‌iPad mini‌ (eighth generation, 2026) 8.3-inch display 8.5-inch display Liquid Retina display with LED backlighting and IPS technology Super Retina XDR ‌OLED‌ display with 1-nit minimum brightness and 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio 2266-by-1488 resolution 2316-by-1512 resolution Wider display borders 24% thinner display borders 500 nits maximum brightness 600 nits maximum SDR and full-screen HDR brightness; 1,200 nits peak HDR brightness Optional nano-texture display glass on 256GB and 512GB models for an additional $100, supplied with a polishing cloth Extended external display mode with iPadOS 27.2 IP67 water and dust resistance, rated for a maximum depth of 1 meter for up to 30 minutes A17 Pro chip A20 Pro chip, with CPU and Neural Engine configurations varying by storage capacity Portrait front camera Landscape front camera Center Stage front camera with ƒ/2.4 aperture Center Stage front camera with ƒ/2.0 aperture True Tone rear flash Adaptive True Tone rear flash Landscape stereo speakers with external speaker holes Acoustic Display with display-coupled woofers and concealed tweeters, without external speaker holes Third-party wireless module Apple N1 wireless networking chip Wi-Fi 6E connectivity Wi-Fi 7 connectivity Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity Bluetooth 6 connectivity Thread networking technology Qualcomm Snapdragon X70 5G modem (Cellular models only) Apple C2 5G modem; up to 50% faster cellular data speeds according to Apple (Cellular models only) U.S. cellular model (A2995) supports 5G band n76 U.S. cellular model (A3596) supports LTE band 106 UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA cellular support UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+ cellular support 19.3Wh battery 18.9Wh battery Fast charging up to 50% in around 30 minutes with a 35W or higher USB-C power adapter Available in Space Gray, Starlight, Purple, and Blue Available in Midnight and Starlight Previous polyurethane Smart Folio design Redesigned two-panel TechWoven Smart Folio with adjustable viewing angles, available separately in Navy Blue and Taupe for $79 More than 25% recycled content overall 35% recycled content overall Originally started at $499 (Wi-Fi) or $649 (Wi-Fi + Cellular); Wi-Fi starting price subsequently increased to $599; now discontinued Starts at $699 (Wi-Fi) or $849 (Wi-Fi + Cellular) A17 Pro vs.

A20 Pro ‌iPad mini‌ (seventh generation, 2024) ‌iPad mini‌ (eighth generation, 2026) Chip Apple A17 Pro Apple A20 Pro Manufacturing process 3-nanometer 2-nanometer CPU 6 cores 128GB and 256GB: 5 cores 512GB: 6 cores Higher-performance CPU cores 2 performance cores 2 super cores Efficiency CPU cores 4 cores 128GB and 256GB: 3 cores 512GB: 4 cores GPU 5 cores 7 cores GPU Neural Accelerators Dedicated Neural Accelerators in each GPU core Neural Engine 16 cores on all storage configurations 128GB and 256GB: 16 cores 512GB: Dual 16-core Neural Engine, totaling 32 cores Unified memory 8GB Increased capacity, according to Apple; exact amount not yet known Unified memory bandwidth 51.2 GB/s 115.2 GB/s Up to 60% faster multithreaded CPU performance.

Up to 2.7 times faster graphics performance. Up to 4.5 times faster AI performance.

Dimensions and Weight ‌iPad mini‌ (seventh generation, 2024) ‌iPad mini‌ (eighth generation, 2026) Height 7.69 inches (195.4 mm) 7.69 inches (195.3 mm) Width 5.3 inches (134.8 mm) 5.22 inches (132.6 mm) Thickness 0.25 inch (6.3 mm) 0.21 inch (5.4 mm) Weight (Wi-Fi) 0.65 pound (293 grams) 0.56 pound (255 grams) Weight (Wi-Fi + Cellular) 0.66 pound (297 grams) 0.58 pound (263 grams) Should You Upgrade?

Which Model Should You Buy?