iPad mini How long will A12 chip be good for general use?

[senoltreble]

How many more years will it take for iPad A12 chips to show the sign of slowdown? Considering this is an already 2.5 years old chip.

I am debating whether to continue using my current iPad mini 5 until it starts to slow down or replace with Mini 6 while the resale value of 5 is still good.

I don't do a lot with my iPad. It's mostly browsing through websites, doing some spreadsheets and media consumption. While these are not the most intensive tasks, I still want my iPad use experience to feel snappy.

 

[Shirasaki]

If this is your use case, A12 can handle just fine and don’t need to upgrade. In fact, unless your iPad mini dies, there is no need to upgrade.

 

[senoltreble]

I guess the only downside of waiting till 5 dies is that there is no more resale value. Whereas I can sell it for few hundred dollars now.

 

[Realityck]

The A12 Bionic is the basis of the ATV4K also, its hardware decoding is modern enough to be used for some time with video playback performance. Performance for web page surfing is quite adequate. More demanding gaming would show its limitations.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I do the same things with an A8X, and that is working great, so..

 

[Realityck]

I do the same things with an A8X, and that is working great, so..

The A12 Bionic is capable of VP9 4K HDR playback of Youtube. It's quite noticeable on the iPad mini 5th gen.

 

[ruslan120]

They get marginally slower compared to new models every year. Where you draw the line depends on the user

 

[rui no onna]

A15 seems to be just a slightly more efficient A14 with better GPU so I honestly wouldn't worry about it at this point. Gone are the days we got 2x CPU improvement in a single generation.

However, you probably lose more or less around the same amount selling and upgrading now, then upgrading again in 2023 versus keeping the mini 5 now and upgrading in 2023.

One consideration though, no idea how jelly scroll would affect mini 6 resale in future and it's probably keeping mini 5 resale relatively high right now.

 

[Digitalguy]

The A12 was a big jump over the A10 and even A10X (I am not considering A11 since it was never on iPads).
In normal use the chip is just as fast as the A12X and A12Z in the 2018 and 2020 iPad pro.
It won't be a cause for any slowdown over the coming years, but other components will bottleneck the mini.
3GB of RAM should not cause any slowdown anytime soon, but will indeed cause more and more reloads.... I didn't even upgrade my mini 5 to iPadOS15 and I can already notice it reloading more than it did on IOS 12 or even 13. 3GB will become at some point what 2GB was and still is...
Also battery will be an issue before any risk of slowdowns in a few years.... But battery can be replaced for a $100 fee if it's severely degraded (if it's still decent but not great Apple will refuse to service the battery regardless of money).

 

[Username-already-in-use]

A12 and 3GB RAM will be fine for the uses you mentioned. So upgrading is not a must, but more a ‘would be nice to have’ in regards to A15 CPU / 4GB RAM / redesign / better camera / 5G.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

The A12 Bionic is capable of VP9 4K HDR playback of Youtube. It's quite noticeable on the iPad mini 5th gen.

It also does many other things, but OP also didn't note any that as requirements Either.

 

[Shanghaichica]

I think at least another 3-4 years.

 

[omzig]

a12 is not a bottleneck. ipados is. so just don't upgrade and stay at 14.8 if possible. most apple soc are overkill for everyday tasks. a12 is way faster than midtier snapdragons, like sd 750G, so it is ok for several more years. but your actual experience may be handicapped by 3Gb RAM coupled with new ipados versions, which are more hardware demanding with each iteration. so just stay at whatever version you got know and you ll be good

 

[Sensamic]

Is A13 better than A12X/Z? In singlecore it seems, right? So it will age better than the Pros for common tasks? Safari uses singlecore cpu only I believe.

 

[Realityck]

Is A13 better than A12X/Z? In singlecore it seems, right? So it will age better than the Pros for common tasks? Safari uses singlecore cpu only I believe.

see https://www.notebookcheck.net/A12Z-...s-A12X-Bionic_11937_11496_10881.247596.0.html
A12X = 1077 days old, A13 = 757 days old, A12Z = 572 days old
A12Z is better multicore, versus A13 Bionic is better single core
Most web browsers take advantage of multi-core to a limited extent.

 

[Digitalguy]

Is A13 better than A12X/Z? In singlecore it seems, right? So it will age better than the Pros for common tasks? Safari uses singlecore cpu only I believe.

No, A12X is better overall. It will age better because it has double the cores and they are still pretty fast. While in Safari the speed of a single core is generally more important (but you will barely feel the difference), more cores will help with multitasking, which could become even more important if iPadOS improves on that front. And even more important, A12X has at least 4GB of RAM, while the iPad 9 has 3, so it will definitely age better. If you are comparing A15 and 4GB RAM to A12X then yes A15 may age a bit better, but not A13...

 

[snipr125]

Any IOS device with a 6 core Bionic chip (A11 onwards) will provide more than enough performance for iphones/ipads for the next half decade I reckon.

 

[Moneymiike420]

Any IOS device with a 6 core Bionic chip (A11 onwards) will provide more than enough performance for iphones/ipads for the next half decade I reckon.

Prob more than 5 years.cmt dad still watches wrestling payperviews on his iPad 2 lmao. He's a trooper!

 

[perezr10]

Well, Apple just launched their updated Apple TV 4K with the A12 in April of this year. So they must think it’s fairly decent yet.