All iPads iPad 9th Gen or iPad mini 7 for 2D animation?

[LGTelephone]

9th Gen iPad or 7th Gen iPad mini?

I would be using it for 2D animations only. Not yet a professional animator, so I will be practicing on the device first but I eventually plan to create more professional looking animations using Procreate Dreams/ToonSquid. Is the iPad 9th Gen enough to handle such task, let's say a 5 minute 2D animation, or do I need the upgraded CPU of the iPad mini 7?

I'm considering the iPad mini because of the screen size and portability, I really don't think the smaller screen would affect my drawing experience in it.


Thanks guys

 

[*~Kim~*]

The internal specs of the Mini are far superior to the 9th Gen (8GB RAM instead of 3GB!) so if you are drawn to the size anyway, go for that one. The Mini 7 will better handle Procreate so you may find it does what you need for years to come. The 9th Gen is unlikely to be adequate for much more than basic tasks (surfing, email, streaming) for that long. The A13 used by the 9th Gen is already a 5 year old chip.

 

[ericwn]

I’d personally do a test with the apps you have in mind. Apple gives you two weeks return time for a reason. Send it back if it doesn’t work out.

 

[iHorseHead]

Hello,
I bought iPad (9th gen) some years ago and I must say that I'm not pleased with it at all. I bought it to replace my iPad mini 2 and yet I'd prefer iPad mini 2 over the 9th gen iPad. Also, I've read rants that iOS 26 runs horribly even on newer iPads.
I'd take m

y iPad mini 2 with me on my trips, but AirPods don't work on them which is no biggie, but here's the thing:



My iPad mini 2 still has a great battery life and I ran YouTube on both devices and both devices were fully charged and interestingly enough, iPad mini 2 lasted longer.
My iPad 9th gen constantly runs out of battery and I swear to god, my MacBook Air M1 lasts easily longer and I don't have to worry about its battery. I have such memories of iPad mini 2 as well. I played San Andreas and went to sleep and casually took it to the university the next morning and it lasted me easily the whole day. Didn't even have to worry about the battery life.

iMazing shows that my 9th gen's battery has degraded way faster and worse than the mini 2's and I bought the mini 2 over 10 years ago.
Also, iPad mini 2 is much lighter.

What happened with Apple's optimisation when it comes to the iPad? I'm afraid I won't update to iOS 26 or macOS 26 on day one at least as I usually do. Even MacRumors has released negative articles about the new operating systems.

The Apple Magic is gone. Does anybody else have the same issues or it's my iPad 9th gen specific issue? Safari often crashes on it as well. Even on MacRumors it has crashed or not loaded properly. I'm afraid things will get only worse, while my iPad mini 2 aged gracefully and is still somewhat usable these days and I've discovered new iOS browsers for iOS 12 that I've never even heard of. Sucks that HBO doesn't work on mini 2 anymore. It'd be perfect if it did.

So I'd definitely go with mini 7.