Apple iPad mini 7 review: The ultimate digital notepad

Now, more than ever, seems an odd time to release a new iPad mini. With phone manufacturers releasing folding phones that are increasingly effective and more reliable, the market for premium compact tablets like the mini seems to be shrinking by the day.

Yet Apple, some three years after last updating it in 2021, has released the iPad mini 7. Why? Does it think the market for foldable phones isn’t there yet? Perhaps. Or is it to generate some interest, some extra hype around Apple Intelligence, Apple’s other big incoming product launch?

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Apple iPad mini 7 review: What you need to know

In the end, the reason doesn’t really matter: I’m just glad it’s here because it’s a product that I rather like. And Apple has given us a few decent upgrades this time around. First on the list is the inclusion of the A17 Pro chipset – the same as found inside the Apple iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, and the lowest chipset capable of running Apple Intelligence thanks to its 16-core neural engine.

I say the same, but it’s actually slightly less capable, with a five-core instead of a six-core GPU, but you shouldn’t notice too much difference when it comes to day-to-day use.

Elsewhere, there’s now support for the new Apple Pencil Pro with its squeeze and rotation sensors and haptic feedback. The base storage, at 128GB, is double that of the 6th generation iPad mini, with options for 256GB and 512GB in addition to that. There’s more RAM at 8GB (up from 6GB) and it now has support for Wi-Fi 6E over Wi-Fi 6, although the number of people who have upgraded to this standard at home has to be pretty small, even now.

Otherwise, the tablet is pretty much the same as the 6th-gen model released three years back. The chassis looks the same, albeit a pink version has replaced the old blue version in the range, it weighs the same and the cameras and speakers are the same specification as well.

Apple iPad mini 7 review: Price and competition

That bump in RAM, the new chipset and, um, inflation means the price for the cheapest iPad mini has, unfortunately, risen. Although the cost for the equivalent specification with 128GB has only gone up by £20, you can now only buy that model or higher. Effectively, that means the price for the cheapest iPad mini has risen by £120.

That’s still the cheapest device you’ll be able to access Apple Intelligence on, although we’ll have to wait until at least December for it to arrive in the UK, whereas US owners will gain access this week.

So what are the alternatives elsewhere? In the arena of premium compact tablets, there simply isn’t another manufacturer producing them any more. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab range is only available in 10.9in, 12.9in and 14.6in sizes and most other Android tablet manufacturers are either sticking with 10in and up or going ultra-cheap.

The closest you’re going to get from an Android perspective is if you go out and buy yourself a book-style folding phone. But then, that will set you back a good deal more than even purchasing an iPhone 16 and an iPad mini together.

The Amazon Fire tablets exist, of course (the closest to the iPad mini in format is the Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus) but those are an entirely different breed. They’re competent, but much cheaper, have poorer displays, slower performance and inferior build quality. And they lack support for a proper stylus.

You could argue that a device like the Remarkable Paper Pro is a competitor to the mini with its colour display, premium price and digital notetaking smarts. Unlike the iPad mini, you can’t play games or watch movies on the Remarkable, although it’s very nearly as expensive as buying an iPad mini and Apple Pencil Pro together.

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Apple iPad mini 7 review: Design and new features

The latest iPad mini is, as I’ve said already, pretty much the same physically as it was before. It’s available in pink, purple, starlight or space grey and it measures and weighs 135 x 6.3 x 195mm (WDH) and 194g.

That chassis houses an 8.3in display, stereo speakers and a 12MP, f/1.8 camera on the rear with a 12MP, f/2.4 webcam on the front. Unlike the most recent iPads, however, Apple hasn’t moved the front camera to the long edge; it clearly doesn’t see the mini as a productivity machine in the same way it does its larger tablets.

As usual, it’s all stiff, robust and well-made, and the rounded corners and uniform bezels surrounding the screen set things off nicely from an aesthetic perspective. This makes the iPad mini a great little device if all you want is a slightly larger screen to take away with you on your travels but don’t fancy carting a larger laptop or more fragile tablet with you. It’s an ultra-portable, highly convenient thing.

Elsewhere, the addition of support for the Apple Pencil Pro is a nice upgrade from a usability point of view – if you choose to purchase one, that is. It adds the ability to roll the pencil to get extra effects, gives a slight buzz via its haptic feedback engine and lets you squeeze it to switch pen types on the fly. It is a rather expensive extra £129, however, though you can opt for the cheaper USB-C Apple Pencil (£79) to save some cash if you don’t mind missing out on some of those features.

And then there are all the software upgrades provided, via iPadOS 18 and Apple Intelligence. Some of these are available now to UK customers and some we’ll have to wait until December for.

Of the features that you can play with now if you buy an iPad mini in the UK, one thing stands out for me. Not the calculator app, which is something the iPad ought to have had years before now, but a related feature: Math Notes. Announced at Apple’s WWDC developer conference earlier in 2024, this is an amazing feature that lets you jot down sums (and even complex equations) with the Pencil and works out the answers for you.

It works with variables, and can generate graphs – if you scribble the right equation – and it’s a great way to free yourself from the tyranny of spreadsheets for simple back-of-the-envelope calculations.

The only downside is that it can be a little finicky at recognising certain things: it seems to be particularly shaky at picking up symbols. Even basics like x and y flummox it at times, though admittedly, my handwriting isn’t the neatest in the world.

Another feature available straight away, and one that plays to the iPad mini’s strengths as a digital note-taking device, is “Handwriting refinement” and “ Handwriting reflow”. These two features take your spidery scrawls and make them (marginally) more legible by straightening them out and polishing up your character formation. It works very well: I challenged it with the very worst of what I suppose you could call my “handwriting” and, although it couldn’t quite turn it into flowing copperplate script, it did indeed improve it.

Ironically, I think both Math Notes and these handwriting tools are more interesting and exciting than many of the upcoming Apple Intelligence features. Having a cleverer Siri will certainly be helpful, but that’s an upgrade rather than an exciting new feature. And the other AI tools are, for the most part, things we’ve seen elsewhere: writing and summarising tools, smart replies, image generation and transcription are all things Apple’s rivals are offering on their various platforms.

The one I’m most interested in trying out is the ‘text summary from transcription’ feature. But even this, I think, misses the mark somewhat. I can usually remember the general gist of a presentation, meeting or lecture quite easily and summarise it briefly without too much effort. What I need a transcription tool to do is create a full-text transcription accurately – and, again, we already have tools like that available.

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Apple iPad mini 7 review: Display

With the display, however, it’s back to “as you were”. It’s not necessarily a bad thing that the display is the same as it was before. It’s the same size at 8.3in across the diagonal, has a resolution of 2,266 x 1,488 pixels and the ability to display the P3 colour gamut. But with its 60Hz refresh rate, it does feel a touch behind the curve.

In testing, I found it performed just as well as you’d expect it to. Peak brightness reaches a maximum of 520cd/m2 in general use, which is probably not as bright as your phone’s display will go, especially if you own an iPhone, but it’s still bright enough to be readable in all but the sunniest of conditions. It’s colour-accurate, too, with an average Delta E score of 0.68 (lower is better, zero is perfect) in SDR mode.

On the flip side, it doesn’t go any brighter during HDR playback than during regular use – say web browsing or note taking – and this will limit how good it looks during movie and TV show playback. The iPad mini may well provide a larger display than your iPhone, then, but it won’t look anywhere near as good.

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Apple iPad mini 7 review: Performance and battery life

It might not get near to an iPhone’s display performance, but it might do for raw speed thanks to the Apple A17 Pro chip inside. And although this isn’t the latest and greatest, it’s still a seriously rapid chip. It’s a hexa-core part built on a 3nm manufacturing process, runs at up to 3.78GHz and is backed by 8GB of RAM – another significant upgrade over the previous iPad mini’s 6GB.

For most purposes, it matches last year’s iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max for performance and in the Geekbench 6 CPU test, there’s nothing between the devices. It’s only when we get to the GPU tests that we see much of a difference – not that there’s any app or game that will stress this little tablet. If anything, it’s overpowered for its size.

What is a little on the disappointing side is battery life, particularly given the big strides that Apple has made recently with its M4 chip and the improvements that laptops across the board are getting. Indeed, well you consider how good Apple’s 16th gen iPhones are now, delivering a mere 12hrs 21mins in our local video playback test is fairly undemanding.

Is it better than the iPad mini 6? Yes. Is that good enough in 2024? I would say that’s a firm no. Give us a bigger battery, Apple.

Apple iPad mini 7 review: Verdict

That being said, it’s nice to see the iPad mini get an update. It’s been three years since the last one and it deserves its place in Apple’s tablet lineup. This is a tablet that’s compact enough to sling in a bag without a second thought, and yet the screen is large enough to deliver more expansive media output than your phone, albeit not quite at the same level of quality.

I also love the idea of using the iPad mini as an overpowered note-taking, sketching and reading device. Coupled with an Apple Pencil Pro and the smarts of Math Notes and (eventually) Apple Intelligence, it makes the ultimate digital notepad. It can turn your scribbles into readable handwriting, work out equations for you, generate graphs and even transcribe and summarise the spoken word.

Yes, it has its foibles and battery life is the big one, not to mention the disappointing 60Hz display. However, if you look at (and indeed use) the iPad mini, not like a compact tablet, but instead like a more powerful, more flexible version of the note-taking e-readers we’re seeing with increasing frequency, then it starts to make a whole lot more sense.