Apple OLED iPad mini With A20 Pro Costs From £699

Apple did not wait for its Los Angeles event to show its smallest tablet. Two days before the 28 October launch day, it published a press release for a new iPad mini with an 8.5-inch OLED display, an A20 Pro chip and an IP67 rating for water and dust. Apple calls it the biggest update the mini has had.

The tablet costs from £699 for the Wi-Fi model and £849 with cellular, according to Apple’s UK newsroom. The US prices are the same in dollars: $699 and $849. Education pricing starts at £649. Pre-orders open on Wednesday 28 October in 36 countries and regions, including the UK, and the tablet goes on sale on Friday 6 November.

The screen is bigger, but the body has not grown

The display grows to 8.5 inches without changing the mini’s footprint, Apple says, because the bezels are 24% thinner. It is the first OLED panel on an iPad mini, with a resolution of 2,316 by 1,512 pixels at 326 pixels per inch, a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio and a minimum brightness of 1 nit for reading in the dark. Peak brightness reaches 1,200 nits, which Apple says is more than double the last model’s, though the tech specs page makes clear that figure applies to HDR content only. Ordinary full-screen brightness is 600 nits.

The tablet is 5.4 mm thick and weighs 255 grams with Wi-Fi only or 263 grams with cellular. The IP67 rating covers immersion to 1 metre for up to 30 minutes. Apple says the sealed speaker design, which it calls an Acoustic Display, helps achieve that rating by sending sound through the screen. A nano-texture glass option to reduce glare is offered on the 256GB and 512GB models only.

The front camera moves to the long edge, so the 12-megapixel Center Stage lens sits at the top when the tablet is held sideways for video calls. Battery life is quoted at up to 10 hours of web browsing or video on Wi-Fi, from an 18.9 watt-hour battery.

Apple’s speed claims depend on which model you buy

The A20 Pro is built on what Apple calls its latest 2-nanometre process. Apple says it delivers up to 4.5 times faster AI performance than the previous iPad mini, up to 2.7 times faster graphics and up to 60% faster multithreaded processor performance. All three are Apple’s own figures, from testing it carried out in September 2026, and the company has not published the benchmarks behind them.

The configurations are not equal. The 128GB and 256GB models have a 5-core processor and a single 16-core Neural Engine, the chip block that runs AI tasks. Only the 512GB model gets a 6-core processor and two Neural Engines, which Apple says doubles AI processing power. Apple ties its 60% figure to “up to a 6-core CPU” and gives no separate number for the 5-core models.

Connectivity comes from Apple’s own chips. The N1 handles Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread, the smart-home standard. Cellular models use Apple’s C2 modem, which Apple says gives up to 50% faster data speeds than the previous generation, and they rely on eSIM, with no physical SIM slot.

Siri AI arrives in beta, and not in the EU

The mini ships with iPadOS 27 and Siri AI, the rebuilt assistant that Apple says can use personal context from messages, emails and photos, read what is on screen and answer general questions. Apple’s footnotes add several limits. Siri AI is “available in beta in iPadOS 27.2”, it is “not currently available in the EU in iPadOS”, and it is not available to users under 13. Some Apple Intelligence features that rely on Apple’s servers have daily usage limits, and “expanded access to such features will be available for a fee in the future”.

The footnote names only the EU, and English is among the six languages supported, so UK buyers should be able to use the beta. Apple says it is “working constructively with the EU in an attempt to find a path forward”. That echoes the slow rollout elsewhere: in China, Tim Cook said this month that only the first Apple Intelligence features have been approved.

The mini is now priced like a premium tablet, not a cheap one

The mini has long been Apple’s small, lower-cost option. At £699 it is now priced for buyers who want the newest display and chip in the smallest body. Apple’s pitch has shifted to match, with its release naming doctors, pilots, field workers and gamers as the people it has in mind, alongside the usual readers and note-takers.

That makes the details more important than the headline claims. The brighter peak applies only to HDR video. Glare-reducing glass and the faster chip configuration are reserved for higher storage tiers. The most talked-about software feature is a beta with usage caps, a planned fee and no EU availability. Anyone comparing the mini with a larger iPad on value will need the spec sheet as much as the press release.

Apple has spread its autumn launches across several dates, starting with its HomeView hub and new Apple TV on 13 October. The mini’s early announcement leaves the Los Angeles event on Wednesday free for the Macs Bloomberg has reported are coming. The first test of Apple’s performance claims comes on 6 November, when independent reviewers get the mini.