60fps is basically fine as long as you are unaware that it can be any better, but once you find out you are forever spoiled by the knowledge.
I know there's a sizable contingent of people who just think a bigger number is better, but realistically this is a device for passively consuming text and video content that is typically around 30 fps anyway. Why waste the battery power on faster refresh?
I'm sure a lot of people now would feel odd if you gave them a 60Hz phone after high refresh has become so common, even if they don't pay conscious attention to that kind of stuff
Without this, it'd be very hard for an average user to "feel" a performance difference between an A18 Pro in the Neo and say as far as the M5 Max in a MacBook Pro unless they had a "special" use case which really needed the extra CPU/GPU cores.
Of course, they can't stay forever on that. E.g. with the iPhone 17 they finally flipped the non-Pro over. Probably because it was starting to make the iPhone seem sluggish/stuttery compared to other phones more than it was making the iPhone 18 seem fast. Tablets have never seemed to be as fierce a market in terms of your average Joe comparing them, but I'd expect the same switch to being a liability instead of a tool will happen there as well (if they aren't already late to the game).
Whether the hardware can keep up with Liquid Glass and push 120 frames a second is a different story, of course.
If only "pro consumers" noticed or cared... well, those "pro consumers" are the ones who think it looks like shit and would rather have a TV without it.
It's probably not actually as hard to go back as we think it is, but holding on to stuff is in our genes.
My personal experience is that I do notice the difference - for like a minute - and then I adjust and never care anymore.
Actually surprised to learn Apple did the OLED swap and didn't use the opportunity to bump it up at least to 90 hz like the OLED Steam Deck.
- Apple introduces OLED and talks about deep blacks and 1200 bits
- Why do they think people care about the above and not 120hz as well?
To the average consumer, neither matters much. True. But the above did not make much sense to me.
The iPhone sells way more units than the iPad, so it makes sense that it's not a feature for the iPad mini yet.
I bought the new 8 inch Alexa tablet the other day, and the price was decent but it's a piece of shit. I only wanted it for putting on a video in bed while I fall asleep but it can't even do that because when you drop the brightness to minimum, the display randomly turns off (not actually locking the screen, it's still running the app and active, you can touch stuff you can't see, but the pixels are turned off)
I can spot a 60Hz display from jiggling the mouse pointer for a second.
I’ve also done side-by-side comparisons of full screen scrolling on 60Hz and 120Hz screens for less technical people who could barely perceive a difference when I was pointing it out, but it took some time to get them to see it.
MKBHD (YouTube tech video and reviewer) talks about this a lot: It’s highly valuable to people like you and me who are attuned to the performance of our devices, but most people don’t notice. Or care!
I would appreciate high Hz displays everywhere, but I admit that Apple has probably made the right consumer choice tradeoff to compromise on refresh rate for these lower end devices where minimum cost and maximum battery life are the two most important features for those who buy them.
So if you’re actively moving between a high-refresh-rate device (like a lot of people here with their 144hz monitors) and then one with a lower refresh rate, you’re probably more sensitive (and potentially annoyed) by the discrepancy.
I was actually excited for this, but now I’m going to pass.
I wanted to upgrade my air(gen4) but with these prices it's just not happening. Oh and no support for the perfectly fine apple pencil I already got with it is just....
AI Optimist: AI is going usher in an era of unparalleled productivity and achievement
The reality: RAM/Chip prices are way, way up. The starter iPad mini is $700.
Is the comparison unfair because today's model is much more powerful than the one from 14 years ago? Perhaps. But perhaps it shouldn't be compared to the past, but to its relative competitors?
[0] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2012/10/23Apple-Introduces-iP...
A toilet from a hundred years ago in the same product tier serves the same function as one today. Old models were also more expensive when adjusted for inflation, but today's toilets can tackle more turds with less water.
So that cloud providers can have servers and GPUs sitting unpowered in warehouses and datacenters.
I know it’s now a trope to say “an incoming Democratic Congress should…” but there are really serious questions to ask about the means by which Nvidia is securing such a radically high value buy-and-hold strategy, and whether it amounts to deceptive channel stuffing.
The whole tech industry is using apparent demand for Blackwell GPUs as a proxy for AI demand, when this is a wholly broken metric because Nvidia seems to be gaming it, and everyone (consumer and business alike) is paying more as a result.
12 reasons why the iPad Mini is $250 more expensive than iPad 11-inch:
1) ...This has tiny 128 GB of storage and unknown but obviously not too high amount of RAM. At best 16, but probably less.
That's just Apple beeing greedy as usual.
I can open my local store and will see shitty 8/128 Android tablets for less than 150 euro. If memorypocalypse was the main reason for pricing new ipad mini as it is, the budget tablet segment would be completely dead because manufacturers just wouldn't be able to afford memory at all.
M4 chip.
Her mom's cats chewed on the corner of the screen. It won't turn on.
The cost to replace that screen: $1200.
Apparently OLED screens break completely if just a single pixel is damaged.
That has been the case basically since Apple Care existed IMHO.
Not true. Apple has a self-service repair program for most of its products, including the iPad mini.
All the repair manuals are available online and you can buy official Apple parts. [1] They'll even sell or rent the tools you will need.
That's Apple saying to you: omg, stop being so poor and wasting our time, just buy another one
Never once did I hold my iPad mini with a case and think, "damn this thing is heavy"
The novelty of how thin my M5 iPad Pro is still hasn't worn off. Sometimes it's just nice to hold some tech in your hand that feels like it's from the future.
Or this exciting marketing twist still to come?
I also question what is required for nanotexture. I read the iPhone Duo has this in a replaceable screen protector, effectively. A replacement, under AppleCare is $15. Are we being charged $100 for a factory installed screen protector? If so, why does that need to be tied to certain levels of storage to reduce SKUs?
https://gizmodo.com/ipad-mini-oled-a20-pro-chip-2000830541#:...
For about the same cost, I can get a used M5 chip with both a Neural Engine™ and GPU cores each with Neural Accelerators™
I wish Apple would make a similar device. I'm fine with recycled chips and getting a bit gimped on RAM size.
Like the MacBook Neo of iPads; I just really want a media consumption device. A20 Pro means nothing to me.
I believe this is the lightest iPad at only 255g. I just wonder how much more weight can they shave off.
And if they are going to kill the iPad? The current iPad line up is split into Pro, Air, (iPad) and Mini. Surely the mini could replace the normal iPad?
As per other comments, my guess is somewhere between 1% and 5% of ipad mini sales are to pilots. It's gotta be significant or they wouldn't drop a line that in their main copy!
Zoinks
edit: That's more than a MacBook Neo, they're only $1,049!
The US government is also trying to kneecap them, threatening Apple with tariffs if they went ahead with YMTC storage, even if only for the Chinese market.
They are thus primarily focusing on the Chinese market, but if they weren’t there, DRAM and flash is a global commodity market and prices would have gone up even more insanely than today.