Apple made us wait three long years, but the new iPad mini 7 is finally here. And if you're thinking about picking up an iPad mini 7 as soon as it arrives in stores on October 23, you'll be happy to know critics are raving about it.
Even though the tiny tablet hasn't been officially released yet, tech reviewers got their hands on iPad mini 7 tablets early. Luckily, the early verdicts are pretty positive.
Here are the most compelling reasons critics recommend the iPad mini 7.
People praise its Apple Intelligence-ready chip
The iPad mini 7 features an A17 Pro chip — up from the iPad mini 6's A15 Bionic chip — which is the same chip found in the iPhone 15 Pro. With it, the iPad mini 7 will be able to support Apple Intelligence when it launches.
Our sister site, Tom's Guide, says "The upgrade to Apple's new A17 Pro chip lets you browse web pages, watch videos and play games more smoothly." On the Geekbench 6 performance test, the iPad mini 7 scored a multi-core score of 7,213, much higher than the iPad mini 6's score of 4,540.
Wired also positively notes the iPad mini 7's "performance boost with [the] A17 Pro" and that it has "double the storage over [its] predecessor," finally bumping the base storage amount from 64GB to 128GB.
People love that it finally supports the Apple Pencil Pro
Apple finally gave the iPad mini 7 support for the Apple Pencil Pro. The Verge writes that "The Mini can do all of the Pencil Pro things other iPads can — all the hovering and squeezing and barrel-rolling works just fine, and if you’re a Mini-toting artist, this might be worth the upgrade all by itself."
Engadget seconds this by saying "the combo of the Apple Pencil Pro and iPad mini makes for a tiny but extremely capable digital notebook and canvas."
This now means that all of the most current iPad models support the Apple Pencil Pro, which is objectively the best Apple Pencil you can pick up right now.
People say the 'jelly scrolling' issue is a lot better
Jelly scrolling is a known issue among critics and fans of previous-gen iPad minis, even though Apple told Ars Technica the issue was "normal behavior for LCD screens." Luckily, it seems the issue is much better with the iPad mini 7.
Stuff writes, "Apple reckons it's optimized the display, but won't provide any details on how. To my eyes, the jelly scrolling doesn't look as bad as I recall it being last time," but notes that he didn't mind it that much on old iPad minis and doesn't have an old one to compare it to.
The Six Colors review expands on this, with the reporter saying "It's my understanding that the new model's display circuitry is different from the old model, and I couldn't detect any 'jelly scrolling' in my use."
However, critics don't love the 60Hz refresh rate
Apple left the iPad mini 7 with an outdated 60Hz refresh rate, which Wired says "isn't surprising considering the new iPhone 16 also didn't get bumped to 120Hz, but it's frustrating, as most phones and tablets have 90- or 120Hz panels at this price."
Engadget similarly describes the iPad mini 7's display as "a very nice screen, but it's still a standard LCD display with a now-pedestrian 60Hz refresh rate."
It took three years for Apple to debut a new iPad mini this time around, but hopefully we don't have to wait another three years for an iPad mini 8, hopefully with a 90 or 120Hz refresh rate.
