26.10.2026 at 17:43

Apple unveils iPad mini (2026) with OLED display and water resistance

Apple has introduced a completely redesigned iPad mini with an OLED display, a thinner and lighter body, an A20 Pro processor, and— for the first time in the lineup’s history—official IP67 water and dust resistance.

Design

The new iPad mini is just 5.4 mm thick and weighs 255 grams for the Wi-Fi model and 263 grams for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model. It comes in two colors: Midnight and Starlight.

For the first time, the iPad mini has IP67 water and dust resistance. The device can withstand immersion in water up to 1 meter deep for 30 minutes.

To achieve this, Apple redesigned the speaker system and did away with the familiar speaker grilles. In the Acoustic Display system, special woofers work with the display to deliver more powerful bass and higher volume, while the high-frequency speakers are concealed between the glass and aluminum body.

Display

One of the biggest changes is the switch to an 8.5-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display. By reducing the bezels by 24%, Apple’s engineers were able to increase the screen size from 8.3 to 8.5 inches while keeping the device’s overall dimensions almost unchanged.

The display has a resolution of 2316 × 1512 pixels at 326 ppi, a 2, 000, 000:1 contrast ratio, and support for the P3 color space. Peak brightness is 600 nits for SDR content and up to 1200 nits in HDR, while minimum brightness has been reduced to 1 nit.

Despite the switch to OLED, the refresh rate remains 60 Hz—the iPad mini does not support ProMotion at up to 120 Hz.

Optional nano-texture glass is available for the 256 GB and 512 GB models to reduce glare in bright light. It costs an extra $100.

Performance

The iPad mini is powered by a 2 nm A20 Pro processor, but its configuration varies depending on storage capacity. The 128 GB and 256 GB models have a 5-core CPU, 7-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine. The top-end 512 GB model has a 6-core CPU and two 16-core Neural Engine units, for a total of 32 neural cores.

In all models, the GPU has neural accelerators in every core and supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing. Apple says that compared with the previous generation, AI performance is up to 4.5 times faster, graphics performance up to 2.7 times faster, and CPU multithreaded performance up to 60% faster.

Battery and charging

The tablet has an 18.9 Wh battery. Apple claims up to 10 hours of video playback or internet use over Wi-Fi, and up to 9 hours when connected to a mobile network.

Fast charging is also available: using a power adapter rated at 35 W or higher, the battery can be charged to about 50% in 30 minutes.

Cameras

The 12 MP Center Stage front camera has moved to the long edge of the bezel, placing it in the center during video calls when the tablet is used in landscape orientation.

The rear wide-angle camera also has a 12 MP resolution and supports 4K video recording at up to 60 frames per second. Apple has also added an Adaptive True Tone flash, which is used, among other things, to scan documents more clearly.

Connectivity and other features

Wireless connectivity is handled by Apple’s proprietary N1 chip, which supports Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread. Wi-Fi + Cellular models use the new Apple C2 modem, which the company says delivers up to 50% faster mobile data speeds than the previous generation.

Cellular models use eSIM and do not support physical SIM cards.

The iPad mini is compatible with Apple Pencil Pro and Apple Pencil with USB-C, and its display supports Apple Pencil Hover. The tablet runs iPadOS 27.