I can’t stop using the iPad Mini 2024 — even though it’s a pretty boring update | CNN Underscored

If you held the new iPad Mini and its 2021 predecessor side-by-side, you’d likely have a very hard time guessing which tiny tablet is which. They both sport the same perfect-for-reading size, reliable battery life and colorful display that makes comics and movies pop. But only one of them lets you play console-quality games, draw at an even higher level with the Apple Pencil Pro and tap into the much-hyped Apple Intelligence features that are designed to make life a little easier.

But are those perks worth $500 to you? Do existing iPad Mini owners have any meaningful reason to upgrade? And is this still the best tablet for those who like small screens? I spent nearly a week reading, writing and doing an irresponsible amount of gaming on Apple’s new ultra-portable slate in order to help answer those questions.

The 2024 iPad Mini’s design is virtually unchanged from the previous generation, but since it still feels this good to use, I can see why Apple didn’t tinker with this proven formula. Whether I was cozying up on the couch while browsing the web or playing yet another round of Balatro on the train, Apple’s smallest slate just has that perfect size and weight that’s comfy to hold with one hand but big enough to feel like an upgrade from my phone screen.

The latest iPad Mini’s colors are slightly tweaked from the sixth-generation model, with new shades of blue and purple that mirror those of the iPad Air 2024. My blue review unit is nice enough, but its subtle hue can easily be mistaken for silver. I much prefer the bolder pops of color on the 10th Gen iPad, but I’m at least glad that the Air and Mini are more lively than the all-business iPad Pro.

The tablet’s 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display is likewise the same as it was before — but considering the way my digital X-Men and Spider-Man comics leaped off the page with bold, satisfying color, I can’t really be too mad about that. It’d be nice to see the iPad Mini get the more advanced 120Hz ProMotion displays (which enable smoother scrolling and swiping) we’ve seen on the iPad Pro, but I wasn’t thinking about refresh rates much as I tapped around in Marvel Snap and binged on Netflix’s Starting 5.

iPad performance in general feels like an afterthought at this point — this thing let me fly through my usual mix of chatting, gaming and web browsing with nary a hiccup — though there are some notable upgrades worth talking about for this year’s model.

The new iPad Mini is powered by the speedy A17 Pro processor we first saw in last year’s iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. That means that, on top of being even zippier for everyday tasks and enabling a range of new Apple Intelligence features, it can also play the same suite of big triple-A games (like Death Stranding: Director’s Cut and copious Resident Evil titles) that were once exclusive to those phones.

Propping up my iPad Mini on Apple’s Smart Folio case, syncing up my Xbox controller and playing Resident Evil 4 — a game I used to need my PS5 for — was truly a novel experience. Sure, there were a few nasty bits of slowdown, and protagonist Leon Kennedy’s typically majestic hair was tragically pixelated, but this was otherwise the same blood-pumping, undead-blasting experience that I enjoyed on my console. And one that I can now take with me on a tiny tablet that weighs less than a pound, all without being at the mercy of my internet connection like I would be on a cloud-based streaming service.

But while the iPad Mini is more than fast enough for casual everyday use and even some high-end gaming, our benchmark tests confirmed what we already assumed: those with more demanding creative needs will be better off with an iPad Air or iPad Pro. On the Geekbench 6 general performance test, the iPad Mini 2024 blew past recent competitors like the Galaxy Tab S9 FE+ and Google Pixel Tablet, but fell way short of of the latest iPad Pro and iPad Air — particularly on the multi-core portion that gauges a machine’s multitasking chops. This won’t matter to folks who just want to stream some Netflix, play a bunch of Roblox and FaceTime their friends, but it is worth considering if you want a tablet that can handle, say, intensive video editing or 3D design.

As in previous years, the iPad Mini is well equipped to handle a long flight — and a few days’ worth of light reading and streaming on your morning commutes. Apple’s small slate lasted an impressive 11 hours and 30 minutes on our battery test, which consists of nonstop 4K video playback at 50% brightness.

That number beats out Apple’s own estimates of up to 10 hours of web surfing, and is a slight bump over the 10 hours and 15 minutes we got from the 2021 model. It’s also much higher than what we got from recent Amazon tablets like the Fire HD 10 (4:32), but not quite in the 12 to 13-hour ballpark we’ve seen from newer Galaxy Tabs (we recently made some tweaks to our test, so not all of these comparisons are perfectly apples-to-apples). Naturally, you’re also not going to get the same whopping months-long battery life of an e-reader like the new Kindle Paperwhite. All of that said, the new iPad Mini is still a very long-lasting tablet that you’ll likely only have to charge every few days if you’re just popping it out of your bag to flip through another chapter of the book you’ve just picked up or playing “just one more round” of Balatro.

The 2024 iPad Mini may be pretty familiar on most fronts, but it’s gotten significantly better for those who enjoy sketching and doodling on a small slate. Apple’s tiny tablet now finally supports the more advanced $129 Apple Pencil Pro, which enables handy features like squeeze controls, barrel roll for more natural rotations, haptic feedback and Find My support should your pen go missing.

My artistic ability is limited to elementary school-quality doodles, but Apple’s high-end pencil did feel quite good to use as I squeezed to quickly change instruments, barrel-rolled to spread virtual paint around and hovered my pen over the screen to get a preview of my current writing tool. More importantly, this is largely the same writing experience you can get on the iPad Pro — except without that tablet’s $999 price tag. And if you don’t want to drop $129 on a stylus, the iPad Mini also supports the $79 Apple Pencil USB-C, which sacrifices things like squeeze and barrel roll but still has Pro-level perks like hover and magnetic charging.

You’ve probably seen the words “Apple Intelligence” mentioned in nearly every ad for every new Apple product, even if you don’t know exactly what that means. Apple Intelligence is the company’s take on the kinds of generative AI features that are becoming standard for a tech product in 2024, with a suite of tools that are designed to help you finesse messages, sort through a mess of notifications, clean up photos and talk to Siri more conversationally. And thanks to the iPad Mini’s upgraded internals, Apple’s smallest tablet can finally take advantage of all of these perks once they officially launch in late October. But should you care?

Based on what we’ve seen in early demos (and our testing of similar tools from rivals), Apple Intelligence’s capabilities range from “that’s pretty cool” to “who asked for this?” Perhaps the most promising upgrade is an improved Siri, which you can talk to more naturally — it’ll even keep up if you correct yourself mid-sentence — and type or scribble to if you need to ask Siri something discreetly. Apple Intelligence can summarize long email chains and notification clusters, the former of which I could see myself utilizing (but not relying on entirely) when catching up on a big thread.

I’m eager to spend more time with Apple Intelligence’s more conversational image search tools, where I can ideally type or speak “find my dog in a pink jacket” and be taken to my photos of exactly that. Perhaps most relevant to the iPad Mini are Math Notes, which let you write out equations with your Apple Pencil and have the app solve them for you (as someone who keeps a messy Notes app log of his band’s merch sales, I legit might use this a lot). Then there’s the usual writing tools we’ve seen before from Samsung and Google, which can reword your text messages and emails if you, say, want to sound more professional or casual. I’ve been playing around with these kinds of tools since the Galaxy S24 first launched at the start of the year, and I still can’t think of a single instance where I’d need this. But to each their own.

The iPad Mini’s Apple Intelligence support certainly doesn’t hurt the tablet — it’s just too early to tell if it’s a true selling point for the small slate (or any new Apple product for that matter). Will be spending lots of time with Apple’s wild new world of AI as it develops over time, and will surely have much more to say down the line.

The display and camera could use some upgrades

While there wasn’t a lot about the iPad Mini that needed fixing, Apple missed an opportunity to modernize a few things that are starting to feel dated. For starters, the display bezels look pretty chunky compared to what you’ll see on a modern iPhone (or on competitors like the Galaxy Tab) and it’s easy to imagine an iPad Mini that packs even more screen space within the same perfectly portable design.

This is a much smaller nitpick (and a matter of preference), but I also find it peculiar that the iPad Mini still sports a vertically-oriented webcam when nearly all of Apple’s other tablets have moved the camera to the horizontal edge to keep you better centered during video calls. I understand that the Mini is more of a personal device rather than a productivity device, and that lots of folks may use it in portrait mode while FaceTiming friends. And to this tablet’s credit, you still get the fairly reliable Center Stage feature that automatically keeps your face in frame. Still,  it’s worth keeping this quirk in mind if you’re the type to do most of your video calls on a tablet.

Speaking of video calls, the iPad Mini’s camera quality continues to be … fine. The selfies and dog pics I captured looked perfectly serviceable at a quick glance, but also noticeably pixelated once I took a closer look. The tablet’s 12-megapixel wide camera and 12MP selfie cam do get a few notable upgrades for this year, like 4K video capabilities on the rear cam and HDR 4 support across the board for better colors. But unless you see a really cute animal and only have your iPad within reach to capture a photo of it, you’ll almost certainly get better photo quality from your phone while you’re out and about.

Display	8.3-in, 2266 x 1488 Liquid Retina display	10.9-in., 2360 x 1640 Liquid Retina display	11-in. (2360 x 1640) | 13-in. (2732 x 2048) Liquid Retina display	7-in. glare-free display, 150 to 300 pixels per inch
Processor	Apple A17 Pro	Apple A14 Bionic	Apple M2	N/A
Storage	128GB / 256GB / 512GB	64GB / 256GB	128GB / 256GB / 512GB / 1TB	32GB
Dimensions, weight	7.69 x 5.3 x 0.25 in., 0.65 lbs.	9.79 x 7.7 x 0.28 in., 1.05 lbs.	9.7 x 7 x 0.2 in., 1 lb. (11-inch) | 11 x 8.5 x 0.2 in., 1.36 lbs. (13-inch)	7 x 5 x 0.3 inches, 0.48 lbs.
Stylus support	Apple Pencil Pro, Apple Pencil USB-C	1st generation (adapter required), Apple Pencil USB-C	Apple Pencil Pro, Apple Pencil USB-C	N/A
Cameras	12MP ultrawide camera (front); 12MP wide camera with 4K video (rear)	12MP landscape ultrawide camera (front); 12MP wide camera with 4K video (rear)	12MP ultrawide with Center Stage (front), 12MP camera with 4K video (rear)	N/A
Colors	Space Gray, Blue, Purple, Starlight	Silver, Pink, Blue, Yellow	Space Gray, Blue, Purple, Starlight	Metallic Black, Metallic Jade, Metallic Raspberry
Price	From $500 at Amazon	From $319 at Amazon	From $549 at Amazon	$280 at Amazon

Taken on its own, the new iPad Mini is just about the perfect small tablet. It’s a delight to have in your hands, fast enough for most people’s needs and can last through a full day of reading, streaming and gaming on the go. Its improved stylus support makes it a great portable drawing slate, and even if you don’t care about playing the latest triple-A games or tapping into Apple Intelligence, you’ll at least be future- proofed when it comes to performance. If you’re buying your first iPad Mini or upgrading from a fifth-generation model or older, I feel confident saying you’ll love this tablet.

But everyone else should pause for a sec before hitting “buy.” There’s no real reason for sixth-generation Mini owners to upgrade to this near-identical slate, unless you’re absolutely dying to play some Resident Evil or mess around with AI. If you’re cool with a bigger tablet, save some cash with the 10th-generation iPad — our best iPad pick overall — or grab the iPad Air 2024 and its superior multitasking features for nearly the same starting price as the Mini. And if you just want to read some ebooks on the train, newer Kindles like the $200 Paperwhite and $280 Colorsoft are cheaper, better optimized for books and last much longer.

Still, for all my criticisms and reservations, the iPad Mini is still the device I’m going to take with me to the couch tonight while I sink yet another few hours into Marvel Snap with a basketball podcast in the background. Nothing else feels quite as comfy.