at that speed the performance is nearly identical to the iPad Air (doesn't seem like Apple updated the P-core this year, just gave it a clock speed bump). maybe they didn't want to overshadow the Air? still weird though, considering the iPhones have much smaller batteries and a 10% clock difference wouldn't make a huge difference especially with the display being so much bigger and therefore consuming more power. I'm also doubting the binning theory here, the mini is such a low volume device compared to the iPhone, not sure how much value there is in binning this processor.
EDIT: since the volume is so low, I guess that could be a good reason for binning. it's possible that the mini is getting the small volume of chips that have worse thermal characteristics, and therefore are set to a lower clock speed? you wouldn't be able to put those chips into an iPhone because of the smaller body, but the mini is big enough to deal with it.
EDIT: since the volume is so low, I guess that could be a good reason for binning. it's possible that the mini is getting the small volume of chips that have worse thermal characteristics, and therefore are set to a lower clock speed? you wouldn't be able to put those chips into an iPhone because of the smaller body, but the mini is big enough to deal with it.