Apple's New iPad Mini Brings an OLED Screen, A20 Pro Power and Water Resistance for $699

Apple's smallest tablet just got its biggest upgrade in years. The eighth-generation iPad mini is on sale now with an 8.5-inch OLED display, the A20 Pro chip, and the first water and dust resistance rating on any iPad, starting at $699.

Apple announced the new iPad mini in late October and put it on sale on Friday, November 6, alongside the M6 iMac and the new MacBook Pro models. It is the first update to the mini since 2024, and the changes go well beyond the screen.

OLED at last

The headline upgrade is the display. The new mini moves from LCD to an 8.5-inch OLED Super Retina XDR panel, slightly larger than the 8.3-inch screen on the previous model, with far higher contrast and more than twice the peak brightness. There is also an optional nano-texture glass finish that cuts reflections. The tablet is 5.4 mm thin, almost a millimetre thinner than before, and comes in midnight and starlight finishes.

One thing the OLED screen does not bring is ProMotion: the display still refreshes at 60Hz, which early reviews have criticised at this price. There is still no Face ID and no MagSafe either.

A20 Pro power and a sealed body

Inside is Apple's A20 Pro chip, the same processor family as the iPhone 18 Pro, with Neural Accelerators in each GPU core. Apple claims up to 4.5 times faster AI performance than the previous mini. The tablet also has 12 GB of RAM, confirmed through Apple's Xcode 27.2 release, and a new N1 wireless chip that brings Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.

The mini also gains an Acoustic Display audio system that does away with speaker holes entirely. With the enclosure sealed, it becomes the first iPad with a water and dust resistance rating: IP67. Storage starts at 128 GB, with 256 GB and 512 GB options.

Price and availability

The new iPad mini starts at $699 for Wi-Fi, $150 more than the previous model, with cellular models from $849 and an education price from $649. It is on sale now from Apple's online store, the Apple Store app and Apple Stores, with the first pre-orders arriving to customers on launch day.

Sources

• MacRumors — OLED iPad Mini, M6 iMac, and New MacBook Pros Available From Today
• Cult of Mac — Apple's OLED MacBook Pro and three more products hit stores
• iDropNews — iPad mini & Apple TV 4K RAM Specs Confirmed in Xcode 27.2