Apple's New iPad Mini Gets OLED and a $200 Higher Starting Price

The 8.5-inch tablet starts at $699 with preorders opening Wednesday, and Apple says it reaches stores Nov. 6.

Apple's next iPad mini gets an 8.5-inch OLED screen, a thinner body and a $699 starting price, $200 more than the last one started at.

Apple unveiled the tablet Monday, two days before its "Pro and Tell" event, TechCrunch reported. The cellular version costs $849. Apple's press release calls it the mini's "biggest update ever." The seventh-generation model it follows sold for $499, according to The Verge, whose review back then called that tablet "a new low for the product."

Most of what's new starts with the screen. Apple says peak brightness reaches 1,200 nits, more than double the old mini's, and the dimmest setting drops to a single nit. The company pitches that for reading in bed, or for pilots looking at electronic flight bags in a dark cockpit.

Bezels that are 24 percent thinner let the display grow from 8.3 inches while the tablet stays the same size, The Verge reported. It's 5.4 millimeters thick, and it now carries an IP67 rating for water and dust.

Then there's the chip, and the fine print that comes with it. Apple's release says the A20 Pro has "up to" a six-core CPU and claims up to 60 percent faster multithreaded work, like photo editing. The Verge reported that the 128GB and 256GB models get five CPU cores, not six. TechCrunch described the chip as six-core and didn't mention the split.

The 512GB model also gets something the others don't. Apple's release says that configuration alone gets the Dual 16-core Neural Engine, which doubles the old mini's processing power. The glare-cutting nano-texture screen Apple borrowed from the iPad Pro skips the cheapest tier too: The Verge said it's offered only at 256GB and 512GB.

The AI comes with its own asterisk. According to TechCrunch, Apple's new Siri AI arrives on the tablet out of the box, able to use what it knows about its owner and whatever is showing on the display. Apple's own release is more careful, saying Siri AI is "rolling out in beta" with iPadOS 27. The claim of up to 4.5 times faster AI performance than the last mini comes from Apple.

Some things didn't move. The Verge noted that the technical specs still list a 60Hz refresh rate, so there's no ProMotion for smoother scrolling. The front camera did move, to the long edge, which suits video calls with the tablet held sideways. By Apple's count, a charge lasts up to 10 hours of Wi-Fi web browsing or video, The Verge reported.

Preorders open Wednesday across 36 countries and regions, the U.S. among them, and Apple says the tablets reach customers and its stores Nov. 6, in midnight or starlight. A new Smart Folio cover costs $79.

The education discount helps only a little. With Apple's education pricing, the new mini starts at $649, which is still $150 more than the old one's full price.

Source: TechCrunch, retrieved October 26, 2026. Other sources: Apple, The Verge.