By means of a press release, Apple has secretly revealed the arrival of a new iPad Mini, which is the first upgrade to the company’s smallest tablet since the year 2021. At a price of £499, the upgraded Mini is currently available for pre-order, and it will be ready for purchase beginning the following Wednesday.

With Apple’s new A17 Pro processor, which claims a 30% faster central processing unit (CPU), a 25% faster graphics processing unit (GPU), and a neural engine that is twice as fast as it was before, the most recent model is mostly an improvement in performance. Up from 64 gigabytes, the basic model now comes with 128 gigabytes of storage space. It is also compatible with the new Apple Pencil Pro, which is a feature that artists who like the smaller Mini would find interesting. The new Mini is an improvement on several fronts, including a faster Wi-Fi 6E and a speedier USB-C connector, while maintaining the same design as its predecessor.

The color selections, which now include new purple and blue models, are one of the design changes that is obvious. On the other hand, the colors are not as bright as those shown on the iPhone 16, which is a significant difference. The last redesign of the iPad Mini, which took place in 2021, brought about major modifications. This most recent iteration largely adheres to that design while also providing a power bump to complement Apple’s breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. Additionally, Apple claimed that the new gadget is capable of hardware-accelerated ray tracing, which means that it can improve the graphics of games.

The iPad Mini has always been something of an anomaly within Apple’s tablet lineup, making it comparable to the iPhone SE in popularity; however they have a dedicated following, particularly among pilots, the bigger iPad versions are typically more popular than the smaller ones. Earlier this year, Apple released updates for its other iPad models, which caused some people to speculate about the future of the iPad Mini. On the other hand, it seems that the business is satisfied to maintain the Mini on a distinct upgrade schedule than the rest of its portfolio.