Apple's New iPad mini Gets OLED, IP67 and a 2nm Chip - and a $699 Price
Apple's new iPad mini: 8.5-inch OLED, IP67, 2nm A20 Pro, 5.4 mm, from $699. What changed, what it costs, and who should buy or wait.
News Report
What Apple announced
Apple announced a new iPad mini on October 26, calling it the line's "biggest update ever" in its newsroom release. The changes are the ones small-tablet owners have asked for across several generations: an 8.5-inch OLED screen, IP67 water and dust resistance, and an A20 Pro chip built on a 2-nanometer process. It is also 5.4 mm thick, and the Wi-Fi model weighs 255 g.
Then there is the price. The Wi-Fi model starts at $699, Wi-Fi + Cellular at $849 and education pricing at $649. Pre-orders open Wednesday, October 28, and the tablet reaches stores and customers on Friday, November 6, in 36 countries and regions.
A $200 climb in one year
According to MacRumors, the previous iPad mini launched at $499 in 2024 and Apple raised it to $599 in June 2026. The jump to $699 is the second increase this year. Since January, the entry price of the smallest iPad has gone up by $200, or 40%.
That moves the mini to a different shelf. It used to be the cheap way to get Apple Pencil support in something you can hold in one hand; now it is a premium small tablet, and the extras stack on top. The new TechWoven Smart Folio is $79 and Apple Pencil Pro is $129. MacRumors reports nano-texture glass as a $100 upgrade, offered only on the 256GB and 512GB models, so a matte screen also forces a storage upgrade. Fast charging to about 50% in 30 minutes needs a 35W or higher adapter sold separately - the US box ships with a 20W one.
Apple's release lists only starting prices. The 256GB and 512GB prices were not in it as of October 27, 2026.
The OLED display, and the spec Apple skipped
The panel grows from the old 8.3-inch LCD to 8.5 inches of OLED at 2316 by 1512 pixels and 326 ppi, per Apple's spec page. Bezels are 24% thinner, which is how the bigger screen fits in the same footprint. Apple quotes 600 nits full-screen for both SDR and HDR, 1200 nits peak (more than twice the previous generation), a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio and a 1-nit minimum for reading in a dark room.
Refresh rate is the missing line. Apple's materials say nothing about ProMotion, and MacRumors reads that as the panel staying at 60Hz. If smooth scrolling is the reason you skipped the last two minis, this one does not fix it. The iPad Pro is still where ProMotion lives.
A20 Pro: not the same chip in every model
The A20 Pro sits in a new package that Apple says was inspired by its M-series chips. Each of the seven GPU cores carries its own Neural Accelerator, ray tracing and mesh shading run in hardware, and unified memory bandwidth more than doubles. Against the previous mini, which MacRumors notes used the A17 Pro, Apple claims up to 4.5x faster AI work, 2.7x faster graphics and 60% faster multithreaded CPU performance.
Read the spec page before picking a capacity. The 128GB and 256GB models get a 5-core CPU (two super cores, three efficiency cores) and one 16-core Neural Engine. The 512GB model gets a 6-core CPU and a dual 16-core Neural Engine. Apple does not state RAM for any of them. If on-device AI is the reason you are buying, the top tier is the only one with the doubled Neural Engine.
It ships with iPadOS 27. The new Siri AI arrives as a beta with iPadOS 27.2 in English, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish - not in the EU, not for users under 13, and with daily usage limits. Our Apple Intelligence explainer covers what came before it. iPadOS 27.2 also adds an extended display mode for external monitors, and the USB-C port runs at USB 3 speeds, up to 10Gb/s.
IP67, a thinner body and no speaker holes
The IP67 rating covers up to 1 metre of water for up to 30 minutes under IEC 60529, and MacRumors calls this Apple's first water-resistant iPad. Apple's own footnote sets the limits. Resistance is not permanent and may decrease over time, and liquid damage is not covered by the warranty. Treat it as insurance against a spilled drink or a rainy platform, not as permission to read in the pool.
The rating partly comes from the speakers. Apple calls the new system "Acoustic Display": woofers fire through the screen, custom tweeters sit between the glass and the aluminium enclosure, and there are no speaker holes left to seal. Apple says the result is more volume and punchier bass.
The body measures 195.3 by 132.6 by 5.4 mm, down from 6.3 mm, and the Wi-Fi model weighs 255 g against the old 0.65 lb (about 295 g). MacRumors puts that at roughly 15% thinner and lighter. Touch ID stays in the top button. Colours are down to two, midnight and starlight, and the enclosure is 100% recycled aluminium.
Cameras, wireless and battery
The 12MP Center Stage front camera moves to the landscape edge, so video calls no longer look off to one side when the mini sits sideways in a stand or folio. The 12MP rear camera adds Smart HDR 4, 4K video at 60 fps and an Adaptive True Tone flash.
Wireless runs through Apple's N1 chip with Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread. Cellular models switch to Apple's C2 modem, which Apple says delivers up to 50% faster cellular data than the last generation, and they use eSIM only. Battery life is where nothing moved: up to 10 hours of web or video on Wi-Fi and 9 hours of web on cellular, the same advertised figures as before. A thinner body with a faster chip and a brighter screen holding the line is fine. It is not an improvement.
Who should buy, who should wait
Buy it if you use a small tablet where water and glare are real problems: pilots reading charts in a cockpit, field technicians, anyone who reads in the kitchen or outdoors. Anyone still on an A15 mini or older also gets a large jump in display, speed and durability in one step.
Skip it if you own the A17 Pro mini and mostly read and stream. You would pay $699 for a better panel that still runs at 60Hz and the same battery claim. If all you want is a cheap Apple tablet for video, the base iPad is the better buy now that the mini has left that price bracket.
Waiting one day costs nothing. Pre-orders open on October 28, the same day as Apple's "Pro and Tell" event in Los Angeles, which Bloomberg reported Apple confirmed on October 19. Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak has teased an "exciting week", and MacRumors expects an M6 14-inch MacBook Pro, an M6 iMac and touch-screen OLED MacBook Pros. None of those are announced yet. If you are weighing a mini against a small laptop, see what Apple shows first. Our earlier report on Apple's iPhone plans covers the rest of the hardware year.
