The New iPad mini Gets a Beautiful OLED Screen

Apple's new iPad mini replaces its LCD with an 8.5-inch OLED display that reaches 1,200 nits on HDR content, in a body 5.4 mm thin with an IP67 rating for water and dust. It's the best screen Apple has ever put in its smallest tablet, with true blacks, a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and HDR highlights that glow in a way the old LCD never could.

Apple announced the tablet on Monday, with preorders opening Wednesday, October 28, and the first units arriving Friday, November 6. The screen grows from 8.3 to 8.5 inches without changing the footprint, because the bezels are 24% thinner. The Apple iPad mini (A20 Pro) runs at 2,316 x 1,512 pixels and 326 ppi with P3 wide color, holds 600 nits full screen for both SDR and HDR, and drops as low as 1 nit for dark rooms. For the first time on the mini, you can order nano-texture glass to cut glare, but only on the 256 GB and 512 GB models. The Wi-Fi model weighs 255 g, down from 293 g for the previous mini, and it comes in midnight or starlight.

Inside is the A20 Pro, built on a 2-nanometer process. Apple claims up to 60% faster multithreaded CPU performance than the previous mini, up to 2.7x faster graphics, and up to 4.5x faster AI performance, with Neural Accelerators built into each of the chip's seven GPU cores. The 128 GB and 256 GB models get a 5-core CPU and a 16-core Neural Engine, while the 512 GB model gets a 6-core CPU and a dual 16-core Neural Engine, which Apple says doubles the neural processing power for on-device AI tools. Apple's N1 chip adds Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, cellular models switch to Apple's C2 modem, and the 12MP front camera moves to the long edge, where it sits properly for video calls with the tablet held horizontally.

For anyone who works with photos, this display is a genuine leap. Every pixel on an OLED panel makes its own light, so blacks are truly black, shadows keep their detail instead of washing out into a gray backlight glow, and HDR highlights jump off the screen at up to 1,200 nits. Your images get a depth and punch the previous mini's LCD couldn't deliver, and with P3 wide color behind them, skies, foliage, and skin tones look rich and accurate. That makes the mini a superb screen for checking raw files on location or handing a client the day's selects to scroll through. Add the nano-texture glass, and you can do all of that outdoors in bright light without fighting reflections. The rear camera is a 12MP f/1.8 unit that records 4K at 60 fps and uses Smart HDR 4 for stills, and it saves HEIF and JPEG files only, so you'll mostly be viewing and editing images shot on another camera. Lightroom and Photoshop both run on iPadOS, and Apple's performance figures are its own until independent reviews test them with real editing work.

OLED first reached the iPad lineup with the M4 iPad Pro in May 2024, where nano-texture glass was limited to the 1 TB and 2 TB configurations. Two years later, that same display technology lands in a tablet you can hold in one hand, and the nano-texture option starts at the 256 GB tier. Apple calls this the biggest update in the iPad mini's history, and the screen is the clearest case for it. The USB-C port still runs at USB 3 speeds of up to 10 Gb/s, the same as the previous mini, while the iPad Pro has Thunderbolt, so offloading a card through a reader won't get any faster. Base storage stays at 128 GB, which fills quickly with raw files from a high-resolution camera. If you plan to edit on the mini, the 256 GB model at $799 is the realistic starting point, and it's also the cheapest way to get nano-texture glass.

Key Specs

• Display: 8.5-inch OLED, 2,316 x 1,512 pixels, 326 ppi, P3 wide color
• Brightness: 600 nits full screen (SDR and HDR), 1,200 nits peak (HDR), 1 nit minimum
• Nano-texture glass: optional on 256 GB and 512 GB models
• Chip: A20 Pro, 5-core CPU (128 GB and 256 GB) or 6-core CPU (512 GB), 7-core GPU
• Rear camera: 12MP f/1.8, Smart HDR 4, 4K video at up to 60 fps, HEIF and JPEG capture
• Front camera: 12MP Center Stage on the landscape edge
• Storage: 128 GB, 256 GB, or 512 GB
• Connectivity: USB-C (USB 3, up to 10 Gb/s), Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, optional cellular with the C2 modem
• Durability: IP67 water and dust resistance
• Size and weight: 5.4 mm thin, 255 g (Wi-Fi) or 263 g (Wi-Fi + Cellular)
• Battery: 18.9 Wh, up to 10 hours of web browsing or video

The Apple iPad mini (A20 Pro) starts at $699 for Wi-Fi and $849 for Wi-Fi + Cellular, with preorders opening October 28. The new TechWoven Smart Folio costs $79, and the tablet works with both the $129 Apple Pencil Pro and the $79 Apple Pencil (USB-C).