Far from it, it's 2024 and those features, especially 120hz are very basic features in many cheaper devices. It's just Apple being cheap and using left over hardware from a year ago.
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iPad Mini 7 Benchmarks Confirm 8GB RAM, 5-Core GPU's Slower Speeds
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Don't know... have never looked as I'm 100% totally satisfied with Apple iPads.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
If you want your "old eyes" to see it, here's the easiest way (but perhaps you should NOT do this, because once you see it, you can't unsee it): on a website like this one with lots of text on the page, touch your finger to the far right or left to quickly scroll up and down and keep your eyes looking right at the spot your finger is touching. Use your peripheral vision to "watch" the opposite side of the page (if you touch far right, peripherally watch far left). You'll see it dragging behind the part of the screen you're touching to scroll... like that part of the page is dragging a bit behind the part of the page you are touching. You can't miss it once you know how to see it. Suddenly, you see it in most scrolls. So don't do this if you don't want to see it often after you know how to see it.
I readily see it but don't care enough to NOT own my 6. However, as an Apple consumer who paid up well for this device (priced much higher than competing-sized tablets from others), I readily expect BETTER from Apple. They are not competing for cheapest small tablet (far from it actually), nor are they exactly starved of margin on all of their offerings where they had no choice at all but to use this screen.
Apple should always present best. Their other iPads generally have less-to-no jelly. This one could too if they chose to put a screen as good in it as chosen for others. Instead, I'm guessing there was a buck or three or four savings and they opted to pocket the extra $1-few dollars vs. proactively mitigate the entire negative experience. Had they chosen customer satisfaction over shareholder maximization in this decision, those who say they don't buy because of jelly and mean it, would add to total iPad Mini revenue... and not perhaps turn away others from purchasing by either pointing out the jelly or just griping about it in thread after thread about this product.
Question: What's wrong with iPad mini 6?
I bet THIS answer jumped right into your mind... no matter who is reading this right now. A better screen decision made years ago would NOT make perhaps the most important component in a tablet the #1 thing collectively viewed as wrong about it.
I own a 6 and love it (and readily see the jelly) but write the above as an Apple consumer... not as a shareholder or executive focused on profit maximization. Apple can do better. So they SHOULD do better. They've already won the "most profitable" contest as "richest company in the world."
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No, 76% (75.52%). The 16 Pro Max has 44% (well, 43%) less area than the mini. See here: https://www.displaywars.com/8,3-inch-3x2-vs-6,9-inch-d{19,5x9}
Alternatively with the numbers from GSMArena:
The 203.9 cm2 of the mini are 176.384% of the 115.6 cm2 16 Pro Max screen.
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The age of AI proves Apple has been far too stingy with device RAM for far too long. No reason why the prior mini couldn’t have had 8 GB ram.
An iPhone is more expensive than an iPad mini perhaps due to greater demand for things like the better displays, better cameras, greater portability, better Messages functionality, more/better functionality with an Apple Watch, Emergency SOS with satellite, Messages with satellite, longer/better OS and security support, etc.
It may be sometime yet before 4 and 6GB models require 8GB’s to run the basic OS. For now my iPhone 15plus and Mini 6 do a great job. I can’t afford to upgrade every year neither. Sorry I am working class Apple.
The seventh-generation iPad mini has now appeared on Geekbench, confirming that it has 8GB of memory and revealing how the 5-core GPU version of the A17 Pro chip performs.
The new iPad mini, identified as iPad 16,2 on the Geekbench database, includes the same A17 Pro SoC first introduced in the iPhone 15 Pro series last year. The six-core chip is clocked at 3.78 GHz, which matches the iPhone version, but with a key distinction—a five-core GPU, which is one core less than the version found in the iPhone. This suggests that the iPad mini 7's A17 Pro chip is likely a "binned" version.
The new iPad mini's Geekbench scores reveal a range between 2,710 and 2,840 in single-core performance and 6,274 to 6,982 in multi-core performance, positioning it slightly below the iPhone 15 Pro in both metrics. For comparison, the iPhone 15 Pro's A17 Pro typically scores around 2,888 in single-core and 7,169 in multi-core tests.
Nonetheless, the benchmarks confirm that the new iPad mini offers a substantial performance upgrade over its predecessor. The sixth-generation iPad mini from 2021 achieved approximate single-core scores of 2,121 and multi-core scores of 5,367.
Chip GPU cores Memory Single-Core CPU Score Multi-Core CPU Score Metal GPU Score iPad mini 6 (2021) A15 Bionic 5 4GB 2,121 5,367 19,486 iPad mini 7 (2024) A17 Pro 5 8GB 2,840 6,982 25,895 iPhone 15 Pro (2023) A17 Pro 6 8GB 2,888 7,169 27,144
The Geekbench listings also confirm the seventh-generation iPad mini's adoption of 8GB of memory. While this was expected due to Apple Intelligence's 8GB memory, it was not actually known until now. The previous-generation iPad mini featured just 4GB of memory, marking a substantial upgrade on the latest device.
Article Link: iPad Mini 7 Benchmarks Confirm 8GB RAM, 5-Core GPU's Slower Speeds
I don’t think the upgrades were that great to be honest.
Sure .. it’s a bit faster (not that it was slow).
The screen gets no love from what I can tell.
But if buying, for the same price as before it’s still probably a good buy just for being a mini. Obligatory no 120hz or even a paltry 90hz mention …
Just wish they’d stop with the massively over promoted “Hello, non existent Apple Intelligence” on every page of their marketing.
Sure .. it’s a bit faster (not that it was slow).
The screen gets no love from what I can tell.
But if buying, for the same price as before it’s still probably a good buy just for being a mini. Obligatory no 120hz or even a paltry 90hz mention …
Just wish they’d stop with the massively over promoted “Hello, non existent Apple Intelligence” on every page of their marketing.
I highly doubt it. Judging by the benchmark scores, Apple seems to compensate for the lack of one core with higher clocks, and that usually means efficiency goes down. It's likely the 15 Pro used less energy for its score than the mini 7 used for its slightly lower score.
Not a big deal either way, as the iPad obviously has a larger battery as well.
I'm disappointed that they won't release a mini with pro specs. Having said that, it's the form factor I use most at home. In spite of the modest upgrades, I moved from the 6 to the 7 because it will be another couple of years before the next upgrade and with the trade-in value of my 6, the price drops to $369 for a 256GB WiFi model. That works out to twelve $30.75 payments, which doesn't affect my finances at all. Besides, the battery in my 6 is noticeably weaker, so in the end, it's kinda a no-brainer.
so you are not running ML/AI on your mobile device ?
i thought most people did that
and that's why we needed 16GB RAM, 20 core CUP/GPU. WiFi7, 6G
Here's hoping the update next year for the regular 11" iPad also gets 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage.
Clock speed is exactly the same. Or are you talking specifically about GPU clock speed?
8GB of RAM and a fast chip? Sounds like a great gaming device to me.
That is the one thing with the Mini, it's a very good size for games. And the new chip will run any game in the App Store now, I think with ray tracing too? Not sure how much you'd notice it though or how much performance it would take a hit on.
I guess they have to do something to clear out the warehouse full of defective iPhone 15 Pro CPU's with a bad core...
Bit like all the binned MacBook Pro chips, MacBook Air chips, iPhone none Pro chips, basically ANY chip with fewer cores then other models... pretty good way to recycle them and I believe it takes several weeks to make a chip with the processes involved. So no point wasting a wafer.
GPU clock speed, yeah. Should be higher as GPU benchmarks should otherwise scale fairly linearly with GPU core count. Some of it might be down to equal memory bandwidth as well, of course, but I'm pretty sure it's also clocking higher under load. Many desktop GPUs do the same, where cheaper/smaller models compensate (to an extent) for having way fewer cores with higher clocks.
If those iPad mini GPU cores are actually clocking higher, then they could still be doing so under a similar power envelope. The Metal score is lower than previous 17 Pro scores so while the fewer GPU cores in the iPad mini may be punching above their weight, it's not as if they're drastically punching above their weight.
Wonder what's up with the system management or design that being clocked the same the Mini 7 is slower than iPhone with the same chip. Perhaps some more aggressive thermal throttling?
-R
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They don't drop it. TSMC is required to build A17pro/6 chips (with 6 cores) for iPhone 15 pro. But their process yields a significant amount of A17pro/5 chips (with only 5 functional cores, one being damaged or dysfunctional). These A17pro/5 are fetched from the bin (binned) to produce the new iPad Mini, and voila!
When it doesn't make sense as to why Apple's product lineup sometimes doesn't make sense. I am reminded that they put chips that weren't good enough for their phones in other products. Thats why they stick around but aren't treated like priority devices. They are just there to take the rejected iPhone chips once they pile up enough of them.