I've seen a lot of people on these boards who have an iPad mini 6, and are wondering whether the A17 Pro iPad mini is worth it.
I've just upgraded from an iPad mini 6 to an A17 Pro (7th gen), and wanted to share my thoughts in case it helps anyone in such a quandary.
Firstly getting the obvious out of the way, design-wise there's nothing here in terms of upgrades. It's still the same iPad mini you love from before, and I'm sure many iPad mini users will be happy with that on the whole. Sure, bezels could be reduced, but otherwise I still think it's the iPad mini in its perfect form for now.
The main upgrade here is the chip. I'm not going to talk much about Apple Intelligence, because where I am in the UK, it isn't out yet. However, if Apple Intelligence is a must-have for you then of course the upgrade is a no-brainer.
With a new chip comes performance upgrades. I was excited about the 8 GB RAM in the new iPad mini, and I was right to be.
Right off the bat, the iPad mini 7 feels so much more responsive. My iPad mini 6 would often hesitate when bringing up control centre, swiping to the Home Screen, and generally felt 'laggy'. That feeling was exacerbated by the 'jelly scrolling', which further bogged down the smoothness of the system animations.
Still, if I was just using the 6 as a basic web browsing / YouTube machine, it was and still is a perfectly capable and fantastic device for this purpose.
However, for me, I had a different idea for my mini 6 and while on the face of it, it worked really well, some limitations came in which the 7th gen addressed and then some.
For context, I use Procreate a lot, and the iPad mini is my secondary iPad - my main iPad being an M1 iPad Pro (until today, iPad Pro M4 is due to be delivered!!).
My initial idea was to transfer drawings in-progress from my big iPad Pro to the iPad mini, so I could continue them when on the go.
This did work really well for sketches, but that pesky 4 GB RAM on the mini raised it's ugly head within a few weeks...
For those who don't know, Procreate operates a layer limit. The layer limit dictates how many layers you can have on a project. Higher resolution projects permit less layers than lower resolution ones, and less-capable devices can't take advantage of as many layers either.
The main issue here turns out to be the RAM. The more RAM, the more layers.
With the iPad Pro having 8 GB RAM and the mini having just 4 GB, it meant that the drawings I was trying to transfer to the mini often exceeded its capabilities (i.e. layer limits).
With the iPad mini 7th Gen having 8 GB RAM, that is no longer an issue at all for me. Both devices are capable of opening the same files and the same amount of layers. Now there's no compromise, I can just choose the best device for the situation. This, for me, was worth the upgrade alone.
I didn't enjoy purchasing a new Apple Pencil for the iPad mini, and that's one major consideration I'd advise for anyone looking to upgrade. I went into it knowing I'd need a new Pencil, but if it had caught me unawares, I'd have been really miffed.
That being said, the Apple Pencil Pro brings some really nice features, my favourite being the haptics. It adds a new level of physicality to the experience, and Procreate uses it well. Other highlights are Apple Pencil hover, which I know is supported on the 2nd Gen Apple Pencil, but wouldn't work on the iPad mini 6 regardless.
Now onto the aforementioned Jelly Scroll. It's still there, but in a much more subtle form than before. You have to go out of your way to see it.
Of course, because I had an iPad mini 6, my brain is tuned to looking for it subconsciously so I saw it. I think that's important to mention, because if you've owned an iPad mini 6 you're somewhat likely to have seen jelly scroll, meaning it's something you know to look for even if you don't necessarily want to. Therefore if you've had a 6 you're more likely to notice it for that reason alone. But if I hadn't had the iPad mini 6 and experienced the true jelly scroll, I wouldn't have seen it at all.
The iPad mini 6, while operating the same 60 Hz. refresh rate as the 7th gen and other non-pro devices, often felt sub-60 HZ because of the jelly scroll. The mini 7 actually feels like 60 Hz. Promotion would be great here, but I accept that it's not in Apple's pipeline for now (not unless they finally give us an iPad Pro in the same form factor as a mini).
In summary:
If I were using the iPad mini as a web surfing / social media / YouTube device only, I would not consider upgrading. It's only because I also use my iPads for illustration that I noticed the shortcomings of the A15 chip's 4 GB RAM, and so the A17 Pro's 8 GB RAM upgrade was an absolute no-brainer.
For me, I'm really happy and glad I went for the upgrade. Aside from pro-motion, there's far less compromise and a much smoother experience overall.
I've just upgraded from an iPad mini 6 to an A17 Pro (7th gen), and wanted to share my thoughts in case it helps anyone in such a quandary.
Firstly getting the obvious out of the way, design-wise there's nothing here in terms of upgrades. It's still the same iPad mini you love from before, and I'm sure many iPad mini users will be happy with that on the whole. Sure, bezels could be reduced, but otherwise I still think it's the iPad mini in its perfect form for now.
The main upgrade here is the chip. I'm not going to talk much about Apple Intelligence, because where I am in the UK, it isn't out yet. However, if Apple Intelligence is a must-have for you then of course the upgrade is a no-brainer.
With a new chip comes performance upgrades. I was excited about the 8 GB RAM in the new iPad mini, and I was right to be.
Right off the bat, the iPad mini 7 feels so much more responsive. My iPad mini 6 would often hesitate when bringing up control centre, swiping to the Home Screen, and generally felt 'laggy'. That feeling was exacerbated by the 'jelly scrolling', which further bogged down the smoothness of the system animations.
Still, if I was just using the 6 as a basic web browsing / YouTube machine, it was and still is a perfectly capable and fantastic device for this purpose.
However, for me, I had a different idea for my mini 6 and while on the face of it, it worked really well, some limitations came in which the 7th gen addressed and then some.
For context, I use Procreate a lot, and the iPad mini is my secondary iPad - my main iPad being an M1 iPad Pro (until today, iPad Pro M4 is due to be delivered!!).
My initial idea was to transfer drawings in-progress from my big iPad Pro to the iPad mini, so I could continue them when on the go.
This did work really well for sketches, but that pesky 4 GB RAM on the mini raised it's ugly head within a few weeks...
For those who don't know, Procreate operates a layer limit. The layer limit dictates how many layers you can have on a project. Higher resolution projects permit less layers than lower resolution ones, and less-capable devices can't take advantage of as many layers either.
The main issue here turns out to be the RAM. The more RAM, the more layers.
With the iPad Pro having 8 GB RAM and the mini having just 4 GB, it meant that the drawings I was trying to transfer to the mini often exceeded its capabilities (i.e. layer limits).
With the iPad mini 7th Gen having 8 GB RAM, that is no longer an issue at all for me. Both devices are capable of opening the same files and the same amount of layers. Now there's no compromise, I can just choose the best device for the situation. This, for me, was worth the upgrade alone.
I didn't enjoy purchasing a new Apple Pencil for the iPad mini, and that's one major consideration I'd advise for anyone looking to upgrade. I went into it knowing I'd need a new Pencil, but if it had caught me unawares, I'd have been really miffed.
That being said, the Apple Pencil Pro brings some really nice features, my favourite being the haptics. It adds a new level of physicality to the experience, and Procreate uses it well. Other highlights are Apple Pencil hover, which I know is supported on the 2nd Gen Apple Pencil, but wouldn't work on the iPad mini 6 regardless.
Now onto the aforementioned Jelly Scroll. It's still there, but in a much more subtle form than before. You have to go out of your way to see it.
Of course, because I had an iPad mini 6, my brain is tuned to looking for it subconsciously so I saw it. I think that's important to mention, because if you've owned an iPad mini 6 you're somewhat likely to have seen jelly scroll, meaning it's something you know to look for even if you don't necessarily want to. Therefore if you've had a 6 you're more likely to notice it for that reason alone. But if I hadn't had the iPad mini 6 and experienced the true jelly scroll, I wouldn't have seen it at all.
The iPad mini 6, while operating the same 60 Hz. refresh rate as the 7th gen and other non-pro devices, often felt sub-60 HZ because of the jelly scroll. The mini 7 actually feels like 60 Hz. Promotion would be great here, but I accept that it's not in Apple's pipeline for now (not unless they finally give us an iPad Pro in the same form factor as a mini).
In summary:
If I were using the iPad mini as a web surfing / social media / YouTube device only, I would not consider upgrading. It's only because I also use my iPads for illustration that I noticed the shortcomings of the A15 chip's 4 GB RAM, and so the A17 Pro's 8 GB RAM upgrade was an absolute no-brainer.
For me, I'm really happy and glad I went for the upgrade. Aside from pro-motion, there's far less compromise and a much smoother experience overall.
