**The Pros and Cons of the iPhone 15 Pro's iPad Mini Successor**

If you've been following the tech world, you're likely aware that the latest iPad Mini, featuring an M-series chip, has brought some exciting upgrades to the table. One of the key features of this new iPad is its compatibility with Apple Intelligence, a cutting-edge technology that promises to revolutionize the way we interact with our devices. But how does this newer model compare to its predecessor, and what about future-proofing? In this article, we'll delve into the pros and cons of the iPhone 15 Pro's iPad Mini successor.

**Pros: A Small but Mighty Device**

One of the standout features of the new iPad Mini is its compact size. For those who prefer a smaller device, this is a major advantage. On the other hand, some may find it too small to be practical for certain tasks. However, for users like my kid who enjoy carrying around an iPad on the go, this is a significant selling point. Additionally, the 5G option available on this model is a welcome addition for commercial users and pilots who require reliable connectivity in remote areas.

**Apple Intelligence: A Promising but Uncertain Technology**

The Apple Intelligence compatibility is another notable feature of this new iPad Mini. While it's exciting to see this technology being integrated into a smaller device, there are still some questions surrounding its limitations. For now, the M-series chip inside this device has not been paired with Apple intelligence, which may raise concerns about future-proofing and compatibility with upcoming updates.

**Design: Still a Work in Progress**

Unfortunately, the design of the new iPad Mini has remained largely unchanged from its predecessor. While this is unlikely to be a major issue for most users, it's worth noting that some features have been lost in translation. The camera, for example, is still positioned on the narrow side, which can make video chats appear a bit awkward when held at an angle.

**The Pencil: A Large but Useful Companion**

The pencil companion to this device has also received some criticism from users. While it's a useful tool for creative types, its size and design may not be ideal for everyday use. However, Apple has wisely included magnetic capabilities that allow the pencil to park neatly on the side of the device.

**Storage: A Welcome Upgrade**

One significant improvement over previous models is the increased storage capacity available on this newer iPad Mini. The base model now starts at 128GB, which is a substantial upgrade from the 64GB offered by its predecessor. Additionally, users can opt for the more expensive 512GB configuration, which may be beneficial for those who need more space for their files and apps.

**The Verdict: A Solid but Not Revolutionary Upgrade**

While the new iPad Mini has made some welcome upgrades over its predecessor, it's clear that this device is not necessarily revolutionizing the tablet market. For those already owning an iPad Mini, these changes may be sufficient to keep you satisfied in the short term. However, for those waiting on the base model iPad to receive similar upgrades next year, it may be worth holding out.

**A Word of Caution: The Base Model iPad**

The latest base model iPad has also seen some significant upgrades, including Apple Intelligence compatibility and modern pencil Pro support. However, these changes come at a higher price point than the new iPad Mini. For those who want to stick with their current device but can't afford to upgrade, this may be a major consideration.

**Conclusion**

The iPhone 15 Pro's iPad Mini successor is an exciting development in the world of tablets. While it has made some welcome upgrades over its predecessor, it's clear that there are still some areas for improvement. For those who have been waiting on the base model iPad to receive similar upgrades, it may be worth holding out. Ultimately, this device will be a solid choice for those who want a compact, 5G-enabled tablet with Apple Intelligence compatibility – but it's not necessarily a game-changer in the world of tablets.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit's been three years since the last iPad mini and not all that much has changed I mean there's pencil Pro support and there's a new processor and that's about it wait there's more wait wait the iPad Mini is a portably device and a family of portably devices that I carry around with me I mean I like playing games on the switch I read books on the Kindle sometimes I carry an actual physical book with me and I've got a large screen phone the iPad Mini wants to be all of those things and a little bit more more I mean the pencil support has always promised this could be a little more like a sketch pad and it can run app side by side but the more I power use it the more I kind of wish that it were a larger screen device a little more like a large iPad or a laptop that being said if you've been looking for an iPad Mini the upgrades in this are going to push it into being a little more future proof for you to buy unfortunately the everyday entry of iPad has not gotten those upgrades yet and back in 2021 the design was pretty much the same I mean Apple didn't need to change a lot about the design of the iPad Mini it's got a nice uh display the bezels are smaller than last time although they're still kind of big and I find it's uh reasonably light it's got USBC however the display is not as fast refreshing it's not OLED so compared to an iPhone Pro I find it a little bit disappointing and you know not much else has really changed here I kind of thought maybe they would make a smaller pencil that would attach in some cool way or maybe some really cool small keyboard case that Apple would make none of those have shown up 3 years later so let's talk about specs the iPad Mini 2024 doesn't have that many different features it has an 8.3in liquid Retina Display which is the same resolution that it had 3 years ago and the same refresh rate and the same screen technology so it's not OLED and it's not going at 120 HZ it also has an a17 Pro processor that's the one that was on the iPhone 15 Pro not the new iPhone 16 and it's not an M series processor and Stage manager which connects to an external monitor to throw additional apps that doesn't work on here there is a faster USBC data through port on this and it also has support for the apple pencil Pro the apple pencil pro has a hover feature it has squeeze haptics and it also has the ability to rotate uh which is a really useful drawing tool and the price of the pencil Pro isn't any more than what the pencil 2 was but you cannot use the pencil 2 on the iPad Mini now it's just the pencil Pro or the USBC cheaper pencil which is frustrating because if you had a pencil to you're going to have to buy a new one for this and let's talk a bit about Apple intelligence Apple's made a big deal this year about generative AI Tools in iOS and iPad OS Mac OS this is Apple intelligence compatible however I've not been able to test it yet uh on this model as I speak right now now it's going to be launching at the end of the month although still in a beta form for people and some of those features are really going to be embryonic and incremental not all the things that Apple's eventually going to unleash but I do wonder how well they're going to work on this iPad Mini because it's it's just eing in the door with an a17 Pro that's what the iPhone 15 Pro had last year which was the first iPhone to get apple intelligence compatibility not having an M series trip is that going to harm this iPad down the line I don't know I mean you know you want to talk about future proofing on this I like that it can do the Apple intelligence because down the road that's going to become a bigger part of iPad OS I'm sure but will it be left out of some updates that other iPads will get so let's talk pros and cons I mean the pros it's a small iPad and you're either going to like that or not like that that's been around for a while but there are a lot of kids like my kid that likes the idea of an iPad Mini if you're using this like you're a pilot or you're using this at point of sale a lot of commercial uses want something like an iPad mini and it also has a 5G option the fact that it's supports the pencil Pro and is a full sketching Tool uh the fact that it can run Apple intelligence but I don't know how well yet and because I have not been able to test it at this point on the iPad mini and I don't know how long that's going the last for support with the a177 pro chip inside one more Pro that I like is that the base model of this at $500 finally has $ 128 GB of storage before it amazingly only had 64 128 is still not a ton but it's a bare minimum uh at a $500 price thankfully they've gotten to that and you can upgrade now to 512 GB of storage which does cost you extra but that wasn't available before what I don't like about it is that you know again nothing has really changed design wise so the camera is still on the narrow side not on the long side so if you're standing it up like this on a table video chats still look a little bit weird as opposed to the rest of the iPad lineup which has them on the landscape Edge it doesn't have a New Concept for what the pencil is and this is a big honking pencil to use on a a small iPad and it does Park very nicely with magnets but it would be nice to have something a little smaller and cuter that you could just pull right out on a whim write a bit and then put it away this feels like you're taking out like a big Style and there was no keyboard case that would be a separate purchase anyhow but I like the idea of writing on iPads and you can buy separate third party accessories that do this but Apple didn't think about any sort of magic keyboard accessory for this which you know if I want to use this as a computer on the go I'm going to be thumb typing or using a pencil and my handwriting is terrible the display and the refresh rate they're fine but you know I use an iPhone 16 Pro Max right now and that has a beautiful OLED display fast refresh rate going back and forth between that and this I feel like this doesn't look quite as nice it's fine for watching videos um it's a really nice Kindle alternative for e-reading and uh it's very kid-friendly in a lot of ways if you want to pay up for this but it's also really the model for what I'd like to see on the iPad Next Generation for the base model the iPad 10th Generation is now several years old has not gotten an update who knows why but I would bet that you know getting some sort of Apple intelligence compatibility for future proofing and being able to have have some sort of modern pencil Pro support would be in the cards for the base iPad I would hope so because of $500 it's now already in the iPad Mini so just take this make it a bit bigger and you've got the template for what I'd like to see in the iPad 11th gen base model so should you get this as opposed to waiting for the base model iPad to eventually get upgraded maybe next year Well if you've been waiting to get an iPad Mini it's a great time to get one because it finally got upgrades that are useful if you already had an iPad Mini in 2021 these upgrades may not be that meaningful to you so you might be fine sticking for now with what you've got and I would be curious to see what the basic iPad model upgrade is if it does come out next year if it gets these types of features and also what price drops might be coming for things like the iPad Air which is a very capable product right now uh and has an M2 Chip inside all those are big questions I'd have but the iPad Mini is doing just fine it's just not really taking amazing strides into new territory if you have questions or anything else let me know below and as always thanks for watchingit's been three years since the last iPad mini and not all that much has changed I mean there's pencil Pro support and there's a new processor and that's about it wait there's more wait wait the iPad Mini is a portably device and a family of portably devices that I carry around with me I mean I like playing games on the switch I read books on the Kindle sometimes I carry an actual physical book with me and I've got a large screen phone the iPad Mini wants to be all of those things and a little bit more more I mean the pencil support has always promised this could be a little more like a sketch pad and it can run app side by side but the more I power use it the more I kind of wish that it were a larger screen device a little more like a large iPad or a laptop that being said if you've been looking for an iPad Mini the upgrades in this are going to push it into being a little more future proof for you to buy unfortunately the everyday entry of iPad has not gotten those upgrades yet and back in 2021 the design was pretty much the same I mean Apple didn't need to change a lot about the design of the iPad Mini it's got a nice uh display the bezels are smaller than last time although they're still kind of big and I find it's uh reasonably light it's got USBC however the display is not as fast refreshing it's not OLED so compared to an iPhone Pro I find it a little bit disappointing and you know not much else has really changed here I kind of thought maybe they would make a smaller pencil that would attach in some cool way or maybe some really cool small keyboard case that Apple would make none of those have shown up 3 years later so let's talk about specs the iPad Mini 2024 doesn't have that many different features it has an 8.3in liquid Retina Display which is the same resolution that it had 3 years ago and the same refresh rate and the same screen technology so it's not OLED and it's not going at 120 HZ it also has an a17 Pro processor that's the one that was on the iPhone 15 Pro not the new iPhone 16 and it's not an M series processor and Stage manager which connects to an external monitor to throw additional apps that doesn't work on here there is a faster USBC data through port on this and it also has support for the apple pencil Pro the apple pencil pro has a hover feature it has squeeze haptics and it also has the ability to rotate uh which is a really useful drawing tool and the price of the pencil Pro isn't any more than what the pencil 2 was but you cannot use the pencil 2 on the iPad Mini now it's just the pencil Pro or the USBC cheaper pencil which is frustrating because if you had a pencil to you're going to have to buy a new one for this and let's talk a bit about Apple intelligence Apple's made a big deal this year about generative AI Tools in iOS and iPad OS Mac OS this is Apple intelligence compatible however I've not been able to test it yet uh on this model as I speak right now now it's going to be launching at the end of the month although still in a beta form for people and some of those features are really going to be embryonic and incremental not all the things that Apple's eventually going to unleash but I do wonder how well they're going to work on this iPad Mini because it's it's just eing in the door with an a17 Pro that's what the iPhone 15 Pro had last year which was the first iPhone to get apple intelligence compatibility not having an M series trip is that going to harm this iPad down the line I don't know I mean you know you want to talk about future proofing on this I like that it can do the Apple intelligence because down the road that's going to become a bigger part of iPad OS I'm sure but will it be left out of some updates that other iPads will get so let's talk pros and cons I mean the pros it's a small iPad and you're either going to like that or not like that that's been around for a while but there are a lot of kids like my kid that likes the idea of an iPad Mini if you're using this like you're a pilot or you're using this at point of sale a lot of commercial uses want something like an iPad mini and it also has a 5G option the fact that it's supports the pencil Pro and is a full sketching Tool uh the fact that it can run Apple intelligence but I don't know how well yet and because I have not been able to test it at this point on the iPad mini and I don't know how long that's going the last for support with the a177 pro chip inside one more Pro that I like is that the base model of this at $500 finally has $ 128 GB of storage before it amazingly only had 64 128 is still not a ton but it's a bare minimum uh at a $500 price thankfully they've gotten to that and you can upgrade now to 512 GB of storage which does cost you extra but that wasn't available before what I don't like about it is that you know again nothing has really changed design wise so the camera is still on the narrow side not on the long side so if you're standing it up like this on a table video chats still look a little bit weird as opposed to the rest of the iPad lineup which has them on the landscape Edge it doesn't have a New Concept for what the pencil is and this is a big honking pencil to use on a a small iPad and it does Park very nicely with magnets but it would be nice to have something a little smaller and cuter that you could just pull right out on a whim write a bit and then put it away this feels like you're taking out like a big Style and there was no keyboard case that would be a separate purchase anyhow but I like the idea of writing on iPads and you can buy separate third party accessories that do this but Apple didn't think about any sort of magic keyboard accessory for this which you know if I want to use this as a computer on the go I'm going to be thumb typing or using a pencil and my handwriting is terrible the display and the refresh rate they're fine but you know I use an iPhone 16 Pro Max right now and that has a beautiful OLED display fast refresh rate going back and forth between that and this I feel like this doesn't look quite as nice it's fine for watching videos um it's a really nice Kindle alternative for e-reading and uh it's very kid-friendly in a lot of ways if you want to pay up for this but it's also really the model for what I'd like to see on the iPad Next Generation for the base model the iPad 10th Generation is now several years old has not gotten an update who knows why but I would bet that you know getting some sort of Apple intelligence compatibility for future proofing and being able to have have some sort of modern pencil Pro support would be in the cards for the base iPad I would hope so because of $500 it's now already in the iPad Mini so just take this make it a bit bigger and you've got the template for what I'd like to see in the iPad 11th gen base model so should you get this as opposed to waiting for the base model iPad to eventually get upgraded maybe next year Well if you've been waiting to get an iPad Mini it's a great time to get one because it finally got upgrades that are useful if you already had an iPad Mini in 2021 these upgrades may not be that meaningful to you so you might be fine sticking for now with what you've got and I would be curious to see what the basic iPad model upgrade is if it does come out next year if it gets these types of features and also what price drops might be coming for things like the iPad Air which is a very capable product right now uh and has an M2 Chip inside all those are big questions I'd have but the iPad Mini is doing just fine it's just not really taking amazing strides into new territory if you have questions or anything else let me know below and as always thanks for watching\n"