Apple calls the new iPad mini its “biggest update ever.” Good. For a tablet called mini, it has been carrying rather a lot of border around its screen. The new model trims those bezels by 24 percent, but they are still goddamn huge and ugly. Meanwhile, Huawei’s MatePad Mini fits an 8.8-inch OLED screen within bezels just 2.99 mm thin. Apple may have trimmed the frame, but Huawei has already shown how little of it you actually need.
There is better news inside that frame. The iPad mini (A20 Pro) gets an 8.5-inch OLED Super Retina XDR display, up to 1,200 nits peak brightness, and an optional nano-texture finish. Its body measures 5.4 mm thick and gains IP67 water and dust resistance.
The 2 nm A20 Pro brings a seven-core GPU, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and up to a six-core CPU. Apple claims graphics performance improves by up to 2.7 times. The 512GB version also gets a Dual 16-core Neural Engine for heavier AI workloads.
That’s the same chip family powering the iPhone 18 Pro series and the iPhone Duo. So, yeah, this little tablet should have more processing muscle on paper than Apple’s entry-level MacBook Neo and its A18 Pro. Small enough to hold in one hand, powerful enough to embarrass a laptop at the family gathering. What’s not to love, right? Oh, right. The bezel!
An Acoustic Display pairs woofers through the screen for stronger sound, while a landscape-mounted 12 MP Center Stage camera handles video calls. There’s another 12 MP camera behind, plus Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, fast charging, and iPadOS 27.
Available in midnight or starlight with 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB storage, the new mini starts at US$699 for Wi-Fi or US$849 with cellular. Preorders begin October 28, with availability on November 6, 2026.
Images: Apple.