Apple’s 2026 iPad mini starts at $699 and, for the first time, uses an OLED display. The 8.5-inch screen replaces the 8.3-inch panel on the 2024 model, the starting price is $200 higher than that model’s launch price, and the tablet is powered by the A20 Pro chip also used in the iPhone 18 Pro. Pre-orders opened October 28, with the tablet arriving in stores on November 6.
Tech news worth reading: Get Techpresso, the daily email with the most interesting tech news and insights, read by 400,000+ professionals from Google, Apple and OpenAI.
We may earn a commission if you sign up.
Apple announced it on October 26, at the front of a week of Mac and iPad launches. The money question is what $699 buys that $499 did not.
An 8.5-inch OLED panel in the same footprint
In Apple’s announcement, the company calls the display an 8.5-inch OLED Super Retina XDR panel, with peak brightness up to 1,200 nits, more than double the previous generation, and 600 nits of full-screen brightness for both SDR and HDR content. The contrast ratio is listed at 2,000,000 to 1. Bezels are 24 percent thinner, which is how a bigger screen fits the same footprint, and an optional nano-texture finish reduces glare.
Dave Pakula, Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering, called the tablet a huge leap forward for users who love having the full iPad experience in the palm of their hand. The body is 5.4 millimeters thin, comes in midnight and starlight, and carries an IP67 rating for water and dust resistance that Apple says comes from lab testing and can decrease with wear.
A20 Pro, N1 and the C2 modem
Apple says the A20 Pro is built on a 2-nanometer process and has up to a 6-core CPU, with up to 60 percent faster multithreaded performance than the last model, a 7-core GPU that is up to 2.7 times faster, and AI performance up to 4.5 times faster. Those are Apple’s comparisons against the previous iPad mini, so they are the company’s marketing figures and not independent benchmarks. Engadget, in its report on the iPad mini update, notes that Apple promotes the chip for running local language models.
The wireless hardware is new as well. An N1 chip handles Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread, and cellular models use the C2 modem, which Apple says delivers up to 50 percent faster cellular data than the previous modem, with eSIM support. The cameras are a 12-megapixel Center Stage front camera on the landscape edge and a 12-megapixel rear camera that records 4K video at up to 60 frames per second. A first-of-its-kind Acoustic Display puts woofers behind the screen and tweeters between the glass and the aluminum enclosure.
Engadget’s roundup of Apple coverage carries the summary that the new tablet starts at $699, and the same pages note the 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M6 chip and a refreshed iMac arriving in the same run of launches.
What the $699 covers, and what it does not
The $699 price is for the Wi-Fi model, and the Wi-Fi plus Cellular version starts at $849. Storage options are 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. Apple lists education pricing at $649 for the Wi-Fi model and a financing offer of $58.25 a month for 12 months on the base configuration. Accessories are priced separately: a Smart Folio is $79, Apple Pencil Pro is $129, and the USB-C Apple Pencil is $79.
Engadget puts the increase in plain terms: the new Wi-Fi model costs $200 more than the 2024 iPad mini cost at launch. Before the announcement, Tech Advisor contributor Jon Mundy wrote that the launch price looked painful, citing Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who had guessed a starting point closer to $799. The real figure came in below that guess, though still well above what the 2024 model cost new.
Apple’s own product page for the iPad mini shows placeholder price fields in the version read for this article, and it lists only the 256GB and 512GB tiers, so the Apple newsroom release remains the clearest statement of the $699 figure.
Software, supply and the open question
The tablet ships with iPadOS 27. Apple says Siri AI arrives in beta with iPadOS 27.2 in English, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish, but not in the European Union and not for users under 13, and an extended display mode for external monitors also depends on that 27.2 update. Several of the features Apple leads with are therefore not on the shelf on November 6. Apple also lists an Apple Upgrade lease at $14.99 a month for 36 months on the Wi-Fi model, $18.21 on the cellular one, plus trade-in credit that depends on the condition, year and configuration of the old device, and Apple Card Monthly Installments at 0 percent APR.
Apple also lists 35 percent recycled content overall, a 100 percent recycled aluminum enclosure and a 100 percent recycled cobalt battery. What nobody has published yet is independent testing of the OLED panel, the battery life and the refresh rate, so whether the screen justifies the extra $200 will become clear only when reviewers get hold of finished units.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
Tech news worth reading: Get Techpresso →
We may earn a commission if you sign up.
More from Morning Overview
- The NSA says three phone features should be off whenever you aren’t using them
- Hurricane Hunter radar shows four warning signs that a tropical cyclone is about to strengthen, a University of Miami study found
- Tropical Storm Rachel is dumping up to 12 inches on four Mexican states on its way to major hurricane strength
- The FTC says Lens.com doubled the price shoppers saw in Google ads
