Apple has once again raised the bar for compact tablets – yes, those are still a thing – with the official announcement of the new and upcoming iPad mini 7. It comes with a sleek design and a bunch of future-ready features, as you might expect, but at its core is Apple’s own custom A17 Pro chip, the exact same thing that powers the iPhone 15 Pro. Because of that, it is said to be fully equipped to run iPadOS 18 with all the niceties – including Apple Intelligence.
The iPad mini 7’s new chipset gives it a somewhat respectable performance boost over its predecessor, with a CPU that’s 30 percent faster and 25 percent better graphics performance. Apple even mentions hardware-accelerated ray tracing specifically as one of the highlights, which should make the new iPad mini 7 great for graphics-intensive mobile games like Zenless Zone Zero.
The increase in performance extends to more than just games and various kinds of iPad-centric apps, of course. Apple says the new iPad mini is built for Apple Intelligence, which is their take on a general purpose AI system that aims to make daily tasks simpler through smart features that are integrated right into iPadOS 18. Some of these features include Math Notes, creating custom Genmoji, better Siri, ChatGPT integration, and even refining your personal writing. Whatever the application, Apple’s A17 Pro chip makes quick work of it – and does it all locally on the device to preserve a user’s privacy.
The iPad mini 7 comes with an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display, a 12MP wide camera that can shoot 4K video at the back, a front-facing 12MP Ultra Wide camera for FaceTime, built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, USB-C, and support for two types of Apple Pencil: the Apple Pencil Pro and Apple Pencil (USB-C).
In the US, the base model comes with 128GB of internal storage and costs $499 USD or about Php 28,700. However, local pricing is already out and the base model with 128GB of storage costs Php 34,990 in the Philippines. Other storage options include 256GB for Php 41,990, and 512GB for Php 55,990. Available colors are Space Gray, Blue, Purple, and Starlight.
Source Apple
