iPad mini 7: What’s new and my thoughts

iPad mini 7 is here!

Apple surprised us early October 15th with the new iPad mini 7 announcement. The announcement was expected to be released with the Macs in an event or in a similar timeframe, but I guess Apple had other plans.

From looking at it, the new iPad mini does not have any design changes although there is the introduction of new colors: blue and purple, including the previous starlight and space gray.

Advancements to the iPad mini 7 include a new A17 Pro chip that allows the iPad mini to run Apple Intelligence, which is the same chip found in the iPhone 15 Pro. This chip has a great improvement in performance over the previous A15 chip, with the A17 Pro chip being 30% faster than the A15 Bionic chip found in the previous iPad mini, and the new GPU is up to 25% faster with a 2x faster neural engine than before. With the new chip, it enables the USB-C port to run USB 3 (10 Gpbs) speeds and the USB-C port is now 2x faster as well.

Other new features in the new iPad mini include the support for Wi-Fi 6E, delivering 2x faster performance than previously. With Wi-Fi + Cellular models, the models are now eSIM only, getting rid of the SIM ejector. The camera also gets improvements by adding Smart HDR 4 photography for more vivid and detailed shots with the 12MP rear camera.

Also, Apple Pencil Pro is now compatible with the new iPad mini, bringing new gestures like squeeze, barrel roll, and Apple Pencil hover. And, the Apple Pencil Pro has Find My support, great for when it’s lost. The iPad mini is also compatible with connecting the Apple Pencil USB-C as well. One tidbit that I noticed now about the Apple Pencil is the Apple Pencil (1st Generation) and the Apple Pencil (2nd Generation) were both discontinued. They may have been discontinued earlier, but this simplifies Apple’s pencil lineup drastically, trimming from four down to two options: Apple Pencil Pro ($129) and Apple Pencil USB-C ($79). This probably happened because the Apple Pencil Pro replaced the Apple Pencil (2nd Generation) and the Apple Pencil (1st Generation) is not obsolete because no iPad has the lightning port anymore, hence why Apple is selling the Apple Pencil USB-C now.

My thoughts on the new iPad are while the timeframe of this announcement did not make sense to me, the announcement itself makes sense to me because of Apple’s huge push for the addition of Apple Intelligence to many of their products. Most of the updates included are in line with many of the additions that Apple is adding to other products like Wi-Fi 6E, Apple Intelligence, more base storage, new colors, and the latest Apple Pencil support. I think this new iPad mini model will entice even more buyers for the compact form factor with Apple Intelligence which is found in many of the higher-end Apple products, bringing high-performance and advance features to an attainable price and portable design.

The iPad mini 7 will start at $499 for Wi-Fi and $649 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model, which are the same prices as the last model. But, the new model now comes standard with 128GB and goes up to 512GB as opposed to the iPad mini 6, which started at 64GB.

iPad mini 7: What’s new and my thoughts

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