Apple's new iPad mini goes on sale in India on November 6, and it costs a lot more to get in the door. The Wi-Fi model starts at Rs 69,900, with the Wi-Fi plus Cellular version at Rs 79,900, both prices including GST. That's Rs 20,000 above the previous mini's Rs 49,900 launch price, a jump of roughly 40 percent for what used to be Apple's cheapest premium tablet. Pre-orders open Wednesday, October 28, through Apple India's online store, the Apple Store app and authorised resellers.
The headline change is the screen. The mini drops LCD for an 8.5-inch OLED panel Apple calls Super Retina XDR, with peak brightness of 1,200 nits and 600 nits full-screen for both SDR and HDR content. Bezels are 24 percent thinner than before, so the display grew without the body getting any bigger. For anyone watching Netflix, Prime Video, JioHotstar or Apple TV+, OLED should mean deeper blacks and less of the backlight bleed around subtitles that LCD panels are known for.
What it still doesn't have is ProMotion. Apple's announcement makes no mention of a 120Hz refresh rate, so the mini stays at 60Hz even as every other premium Apple screen, including the iPad Pro, moved on years ago. Nano-texture glass, an anti-glare option that's been exclusive to the Pro line since 2024, is now available on the mini for the first time. Apple hasn't said what it costs in India.
A20 Pro and a first-time IP67 rating
Power comes from the A20 Pro, the same 2nm chip family as the iPhone 18 Pro, with Apple claiming up to 4.5x faster AI performance, 2.7x faster graphics and 60 percent faster multithreaded CPU work than the outgoing mini. Those comparisons are Apple's own, measured against a chip that's three generations old, so they're worth treating as a ceiling rather than a guarantee. The 512GB model gets an un-binned version of the chip with a dual 16-core Neural Engine, aimed at heavier on-device AI tasks tied to iPadOS 27 and whatever Apple Intelligence and Siri eventually ship in India.
The body itself is thinner, at 5.4mm against 6.3mm before, and lighter, at 255g for the Wi-Fi model versus 293g previously. It comes in Midnight and Starlight. The mini now carries an IP67 water and dust resistance rating, a first for the line and arguably the most useful change for buyers here heading into another monsoon season. It won't survive a swim, but a sudden downpour on the commute shouldn't be a problem anymore.
Other additions include Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, 5G on the cellular variant, a 12MP Center Stage front camera moved to the landscape edge for video calls, and an Acoustic Display feature that routes bass through the screen itself. Apple has not published battery-life figures, an odd omission for a device that's both thinner and brighter than its predecessor.
At Rs 69,900, the mini now sits well above the 11-inch iPad Air's Rs 59,900, leaving buyers to decide whether a compact OLED screen and IP67 durability are worth paying more for a smaller tablet. The mini goes on sale November 6.
GDFiled by The Gadgets Desk
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