New to this? Read it in simple words
- Apple’s new iPad mini has an 8.5-inch OLED screen and the A20 Pro chip.
- It costs $699, which is $200 more than the 2024 model at launch.
- Apple says AI tasks run up to 4.5 times faster, but nobody has tested it yet.
- Siri AI comes as a beta and is not offered in the EU.
- OLED
- A screen where every pixel makes its own light, so blacks are deeper and colours brighter.
- Neural Engine
- The part of Apple’s chip built to run AI tasks quickly and with little power.
- Private Cloud Compute
- Apple’s own servers, which run the AI tasks that are too big for the device.
Apple calls it the biggest update the iPad mini has ever had. It brings a brighter screen, a faster chip, and a higher price.
What is new
The new iPad mini has an 8.5-inch OLED screen, a little larger than the old 8.3-inch one, with up to 1,200 nits of brightness for HDR, Apple says. It is 5.4 millimetres thin and rated IP67 against water and dust.
Inside is the A20 Pro chip, which first appeared in the iPhone 18 Pro, Engadget reports. The 512GB model gets two Neural Engines, the parts of the chip built for AI, MacRumors reports. The other models get one.
Apple says AI tasks run up to 4.5 times faster than on the previous iPad mini, and graphics up to 2.7 times faster. These are Apple’s own figures.
From Apple’s announcement of October 26, 2026, and early reports.
Price and dates
The Wi-Fi model costs $699 and the cellular model $849, with 128GB, 256GB or 512GB of storage. A nano-texture screen, which reflects less light, costs $100 more and comes only on the 256GB and 512GB models.
That is $200 more than the 2024 iPad mini cost at launch, Engadget notes. MacRumors adds that the old model’s price had already risen to $599 in June.
Orders open on Wednesday, October 28, in 36 countries and regions, and the iPad mini goes on sale on Friday, November 6.
Where the AI runs
Apple Intelligence uses both on-device processing and Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers, Apple says. Siri AI, the photo editing tools, Image Playground and the cloud models in Shortcuts rely on server models, with daily limits.
Siri AI comes as a beta in iPadOS 27.2, in English, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. Apple says it is not available in the EU on iPad, or to users under 13.
Engadget’s reporter doubts that many iPad mini buyers want to run local AI models on a tablet. No independent review or benchmark has been published yet.
Sources
Every fact in this story comes from the sources below. Open them to check our work.
- 1
- 2
- 3Research · October 26, 2026Apple updates the iPad mini with an A20 processor and OLED display Engadget
- 4
Prices and dates come from Apple’s own announcement. The speed figures are Apple’s claims, and no independent test is out yet.
Apple’s new iPad mini gets OLED, an A20 Pro and a $699 price. Silicon AI News, October 26, 2026. https://siliconainews.com/stories/apple-ipad-mini-oled-a20-pro
A new iPad mini with an OLED screen and faster chip is a launch, but the $200 price rise and untested claims temper it. How we rate the mood
The mood shows how the news frames the event for the tech and AI world: as an opportunity (6 and above) or as a loss (below 5). It is not our verdict on who is right.