Apple's OLED iPad mini costs 749 euros and stays at 60Hz

Apple’s iPad mini has been the same basic slab since 2021, and on 26 October the company finally redesigned it. The new model, officially named iPad mini (A20 Pro), has an 8.5-inch OLED display, a 5.4mm body, IP67 water and dust resistance and a 2nm chip. It also costs noticeably more than the tablet it replaces, and it doesn’t get a 120Hz screen.

Apple calls it the “biggest update ever” for the line. For once the marketing line holds up on the spec sheet, which makes the price and the missing ProMotion the interesting parts.

What Apple announced

The new mini fits the same footprint as before, but the screen grows from 8.3 to 8.5 inches because the bezels are 24% thinner. It’s the first iPad to carry Apple’s Super Retina XDR label, with a peak brightness of 1,200 nits and 600 nits full-screen for both SDR and HDR content. A nano-texture glass option arrives with it, limited to the 256GB and 512GB models.

Apple also removed the speaker holes. A new “Acoustic Display” system produces sound through the screen, which is how the company got to IP67, the first such rating on any iPad. The front camera is now 12MP and sits on the landscape edge with Center Stage, the N1 chip brings Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and Apple Pencil Pro works with it.

Here’s how it compares with the model it replaces.

Spec	iPad mini (A20 Pro), 2026	iPad mini (A17 Pro), 2024
Display	8.5-inch OLED, 2316 x 1512, 326 ppi	8.3-inch LCD, 2266 x 1488, 326 ppi
Thickness (mm)	5.4	6.3
Weight, Wi-Fi model (g)	255	Apple says the new one is 13% lighter
Chip	A20 Pro (2nm), 7-core GPU	A17 Pro
CPU cores	5 (128GB, 256GB) or 6 (512GB)	Binned chip, per GSMArena
Water and dust rating	IP67	None
Refresh rate (Hz)	60	60
Wireless	Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 (N1)	Older generation
Start price, US ($)	699	499 at launch, 599 since June
Start price, Germany (EUR)	749	599 at launch, 679 latest

Apple claims up to 60% faster CPU performance and up to 2.7× faster graphics than the A17 Pro. Those are manufacturer numbers, so the independent data further down matters more.

Why the display stops at 60Hz

ProMotion would have let the panel drift between 10Hz and 120Hz depending on what’s on screen. Apple’s tech specs never mention it, and Dave Pakula, Apple’s vice president of Hardware Engineering, confirmed the omission in an interview with the YouTuber Chris Lawley. His answer was that “Display experience is about more than just a single spec.”

Pakula pointed to OLED pixel response, which he described as more than an order of magnitude faster than LCD. That cuts motion blur, and it’s a fair point: sluggish LCD response is part of why scrolling on the old mini looked smeary. It doesn’t change the refresh rate, though, and anyone who has used a 120Hz iPad Air or Pro will notice the difference when scrolling or drawing with a Pencil.

The OLED stack is also thinner. Pakula said it has fewer layers than the LCD, which helped Apple shave close to a millimetre off the enclosure. The panel dims to 1 nit, which will please anyone who reads in bed.

For readers who skim spec sheets: 60Hz is also what the previous mini had. Apple hasn’t gone backwards, it has just left the one upgrade many people wanted for a later generation. The cheaper iPad Air still has no OLED, so the mini now has a display advantage over its pricier sibling, and the Air has a refresh-rate-style advantage nowhere in this table.

Performance: a first Geekbench listing

A unit with the identifier iPad19,2 (the cellular model) has turned up in the Geekbench 7 database, and GSMArena dug into it. It scored 3,879 points single-core and 9,870 multi-core, with 12GB of RAM, a figure Apple never states in its marketing. Notebookcheck’s read of the listing shows two performance cores at 4.93GHz plus three efficiency cores, which means this is the binned 128GB or 256GB configuration.

Only the 512GB model gets the full six-core A20 Pro. That explains why the mini trails an iPhone 18 Pro Max (4,024 single-core, 11,424 multi-core) by about 4% on one core and 14% on all of them.

Geekbench 7 scores (early listing for iPad mini)

Against the old mini’s 2,638 and 7,103 points, the new one is 47% faster single-core and 39% faster multi-core. Other outlets quote slightly different baselines for the old model, depending on which run they pick, but the gap lands in the same range.

The single-core result also edges past the M5 iPad Pro 13 (3,580), by about 8%. Multi-core is where the bigger tablets pull away: the Pro scores 15,126, which is 53% ahead, and the M4 iPad Air 13 scores 12,686, which is 29% ahead. One listing doesn’t say how the A20 Pro behaves under sustained load in a 5.4mm chassis, and Notebookcheck notes that a proper review will have to answer that.

Price and availability

Pre-orders opened on 28 October, and the first units arrive on 6 November. In the US the Wi-Fi model with 128GB costs $699, and the cellular version starts at $849. The 256GB tier is $799, and the 512GB model is $999 for Wi-Fi and $1,149 for Wi-Fi plus cellular.

MacRumors points out that this is the second US price increase for the mini this year, after the old model went from $499 to $599 in June.

In Germany, Apple charges 749 euros for 128GB, 879 euros for 256GB and 1,129 euros for 512GB on Wi-Fi. Cellular adds 170 euros at each step. Nano-texture glass pushes the cheapest matte-screen model to 1,009 euros, and the fully loaded 512GB cellular nano-texture version costs 1,429 euros. Apple lists an education starting price of 699 euros.

iPad mini (A20 Pro) German prices by storage

The step to 512GB costs 380 euros on Wi-Fi, and it’s the only way to get all six CPU cores. For typical mini use (reading, video, notes, light games) the missing core is unlikely to be felt, as German outlet Apfelpatient also concludes.

How it compares with the iPad Air and iPad Pro

PhoneArena’s verdict is that $699 puts the mini a single step below the M4 iPad Air. The Air has an LCD, but it has a larger screen and a faster multi-core chip. The Pro has the best screen of the three and costs far more.

Model	Display	Chip	Start price, US ($)
iPad mini (A20 Pro)	8.5-inch OLED, 60Hz	A20 Pro	699
iPad Air (M4)	11 or 13-inch LCD	M4	749
iPad Pro (M5)	Tandem OLED	M5	1,199

In Germany the gap between the mini and the Air is 50 euros, since the Air starts at 799 euros against the mini’s 749. That’s a small premium for a bigger screen and more multi-core headroom, though the Air’s panel is the weaker one.

Android rivals are worth a glance if budget matters, since small OLED tablets there tend to start lower. The iPad mini’s real competition is its own family, and the old A17 Pro model, which Apple no longer sells in Germany’s configurator.

Also this week

Samsung W27. Samsung has launched the W27 in China, a luxury take on the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra with gold trim and red or blue finishes. Core specs are unchanged (8-inch inner OLED, 6.5-inch cover screen, Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, 5,000mAh battery). Android Authority lists 18,999 yuan (about $2,852) for 16GB/512GB and 21,999 yuan for 16GB/1TB, with shipping starting on 13 November according to Beebom. It’s officially sold only in China.

Motorola Signature 27. Motorola has confirmed 5 November as the US launch date for the Signature 27, its answer to the Galaxy Ultra range. US pricing is still unannounced; a European retailer leak (a rumour, not a Motorola figure) pointed to 1,594.90 euros, according to Android Authority. Motorola has promised seven OS upgrades and up to seven years of security updates.

What this means for you

If you own the 2021 or 2024 mini and read, draw or watch video on it, this is the upgrade you’ve been waiting for. The OLED panel, the thinner body and IP67 are all real changes, and the 47% single-core jump in the early Geekbench listing means it should feel quick for years.

If 120Hz matters to you, it’s the wrong tablet. Look at the iPad Air or Pro, or accept 60Hz and judge the screen in a shop first, since Apple’s faster pixel response argument is easier to evaluate by eye than on paper.

For storage, 128GB at 749 euros works only if you stream and keep little offline. The 256GB model at 879 euros is the better balance, and you only need the 512GB version if you want the sixth CPU core and plenty of local files. Nano-texture glass adds 130 euros on the 256GB model, which is worth it mainly for glare-heavy reading outdoors.

If you’re in the US and pre-ordering, 9to5Mac is tracking gift card offers from retailers on Apple’s new launches, so check before you pay full price. Reviews should land around 6 November, and waiting for them to settle the sustained-performance question costs you nothing.

Apple’s OLED iPad mini costs 749 euros and stays at 60Hz