Apple Announces OLED iPad Mini With A20 Pro and IP67, Starting at $699
Apple on Monday announced the eighth-generation iPad mini, calling it the tablet’s “biggest update ever.” The new model moves to an 8.5-inch OLED display, adopts the A20 Pro chip from the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo, gains IP67 water and dust resistance, and starts at $699, up $100 from the outgoing model’s current price, according to Apple’s press release.
A bigger OLED screen in the same footprint
The Super Retina XDR panel grows from 8.3 to 8.5 inches while the tablet keeps the same footprint, thanks to bezels Apple says are 24 percent thinner. Apple lists 600 nits of full-screen brightness, 1,200 nits peak for HDR content, a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio and a 1-nit minimum for dark rooms. A nano-texture glass option, previously an iPad Pro feature, is offered on the 256GB and 512GB models. MacRumors notes that Apple’s spec sheet doesn’t mention ProMotion, so the display appears to stay at 60Hz.
Thinner, sealed, and a camera that finally moved
The new mini is 5.4mm thick, almost a millimeter thinner than before, and its IP67 rating is a first for the line; the seventh-generation model had no official rating, Ars Technica reports. The 12MP Center Stage front camera now sits on the landscape edge for video calls. MacRumors also lists a new Acoustic Display audio system without speaker holes and Apple’s N1 wireless chip with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. Apple says the battery fast-charges to 50 percent in about 30 minutes.
A20 Pro, with a storage-tier catch
The 2-nanometer A20 Pro replaces the A17 Pro. Apple claims up to 60 percent faster CPU performance, up to 2.7x faster graphics and up to 4.5x faster AI performance from Neural Accelerators in each GPU core. Not every configuration gets the full chip, though: Ars reports that only the 512GB model has the dual 16-core Neural Engine and six CPU cores, while the 128GB and 256GB versions get a single 16-core Neural Engine and five CPU cores. The tablet ships with iPadOS 27 and Siri AI, which Apple currently offers in English, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.
Price and availability
The $699 base model has 128GB of storage and Wi-Fi. Per Ars, 256GB adds $100, 512GB adds $300, nano-texture glass is another $100, and cellular starts at $849. For context, the seventh-generation mini launched at $499 in 2024 before rising to $599. Preorders open Wednesday, October 28, at 10:10 a.m. PT (1:10 p.m. ET), with deliveries and in-store availability starting Friday, November 6.
Sources: Apple Newsroom, Ars Technica, MacRumors