The new iPad Mini, an updated version of the ultra-portable tablet computer from Apple that features several hardware and software improvements, including the A17 Pro chip, Apple Pencil Pro support, and Apple Intelligence—Apple’s AI—is now available for pre-order ahead of its release on October 23 at a starting price of $499, Apple has announced. Customers can choose from four colors (i.e., blue, purple, starlight, and space gray), while storage options include 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB configurations. A look at how the iPad Mini measures up with the Apple Pencil Pro can be seen below.
The new iPad mini gets a major update with A17 Pro, delivering incredible performance and power efficiency in an ultraportable design. A17 Pro is a powerful chip that unlocks a number of improvements over A15 Bionic in the previous-generation iPad mini. With a 6-core CPU — two performance cores and four efficiency cores — A17 Pro delivers a 30 percent boost in CPU performance. A17 Pro also brings a boost in graphics performance with a 5-core GPU, delivering a 25 percent jump over the previous generation. A17 Pro brings entirely new experiences — including pro apps used by designers, pilots, doctors, and others — and makes it faster than ever for users to edit photos, dive into more immersive AR applications, and more. The new iPad mini brings true-to-life gaming with hardware-accelerated ray tracing — which is 4x faster than software-based ray tracing — as well as support for Dynamic Caching and hardware-accelerated mesh shading. From creating engaging content faster than ever in Affinity Designer, to playing demanding, graphics-intensive AAA games like Zenless Zone Zero, users can take the powerful performance and ultraportable iPad mini anywhere.