iPad mini 2024 tried out: Some unfulfilled wishes and yet a piece of the future
Apple is making its smallest iPad fit for the future and is focusing on two functions in particular. We have already been able to try out the new device.
The new iPad mini from Apple will be available in stores from Wednesday.
(Image: mki / heise online)
Apple has made the iPad mini fit for the future. This may sound obvious, but in reality it is not, as the smallest of the iPads has not always been a priority in its 12-year history. Meanwhile, some market observers even wanted to declare it dead. Mini fans also had to wait three years for the seventh generation, which will be released on Wednesday. We have already been able to take a look at the device for several days and gather our first impressions. A detailed test report is planned for Mac & i.
However, opinions are divided as to exactly what this future fitness should look like. Apple apparently sees this primarily in two improvements that are the focus of the new device. One is the new chip, the A17 Pro, which replaces the A15 Bionic, paired with a doubling of the working memory to 8 gigabytes of RAM. This is primarily about Apple Intelligence, Apple's own AI functions, which are to be released in October, initially in US English.
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Apple Intelligence? Not for EU citizens
EU citizens can only shrug their shoulders: For iPhone and iPad, they have yet to receive any kind of time perspective from Apple. There is only the promise that efforts will be made to roll them out quickly. But you can't buy anything for it currently – not even an iPad mini. But a better CPU, more graphics performance and more RAM are not only useful for AI. They are already making themselves felt in the browser, when multitasking and in video and graphics apps. Of course, how many people will wrest such workhorse performance from their iPad mini despite the small 8.3-inch screen is an individual question.
The second focus is on the Apple Pencil Pro. The improved stylus, which was unveiled at the iPad event in London in May, is set to make the pencil stand out more clearly from its analog counterparts. This includes the fact that the user receives haptic feedback via vibration or can squeeze the tip to open a small toolbox on the screen.
A real finishing touch
It's a shame that those who have bought every iPad mini now have to change the stylus again: It wasn't until the redesign in 2021 that the 1st pencil generation was followed by the second. The 2nd generation no longer works on the new iPad mini because the magnetic dock doesn't fit. But the decision to switch to the Pro stylus and draw a line under the second generation was still the right one. Someone would have always been left behind.
But apart from other minor details, such as Wi-Fi 6E or new storage options (128, 256 and 512 GB instead of 64 and 256 GB), the inventiveness in Cupertino is already exhausted with the 7th Mini generation. The first reactions to the Mini announcement showed that users had a larger wish list for the display in particular: slightly fewer frames, more display area, higher brightness and a refresh rate of 120 Hertz would have been well received. None of this materialized in the mini update. At least Apple seems to have tweaked the so-called jelly scrolling phenomenon. Our attempts to recreate the previous inconsistent image structure when scrolling quickly did not really work – if this continues to be the case, it would be an improvement.
The good news of the small update
The good news is that Apple has not written off the iPad mini. With the opening of the door to Apple's big AI plans, it appears that the company is still planning to use the device for years to come –, especially now that the model update is already in the early Intelligence stage, even before the standard iPad. On the other hand, the choice of processor for the A17 Pro, which is also not quite as fast as the A17 Pro in the iPhone 15 Pro Max, shows that Apple is continuing to develop the Mini at a comparatively slower pace. According to Cupertino, presumably with appropriate further developments.
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The iPad mini has lost little of its initial charm as a hand flatterer, as a well-sized device for looking at pictures and reading e-books, but with all the tools of a fully-fledged tablet. For the moment, it is also the cheapest entry into Apple Intelligence, as otherwise only the more expensive iPhone and iPad models can do this with Apple's mobile devices. Even if some wishes remain unfulfilled, new buyers of a mini or those willing to switch to much earlier generations can therefore only be advised to purchase this model in terms of future viability and not the one from 2021. Because it is to be expected that more and more new software functions will contain at least a pinch of AI in the future.
(mki)
