You may find this hard to believe, but despite its super-advanced age and the rumored imminence of a long overdue sequel, the 2021-released iPad mini is arguably one of the best tablets you can buy right now. That’s at least if you happen to be an Amazon Prime member, in which case you can get this undeniably elegant and respectably powerful 8.3-incher at an unprecedented $150 discount across all variants.
We’re talking 64 and 256GB storage configurations with and without standalone 5G connectivity, the most affordable model of which normally costs $499. This outstanding new Prime Big Deal promotion improves on Amazon’s previous Prime-exclusive offer from just a few months ago, making the sixth-generation iPad mini pretty much impossible to turn down for hardcore Apple fans unwilling to wait for next month’s expected seventh-generation launch.
Of course, the undoubtedly upgraded and potentially redesigned iPad mini (2024) could well start at a higher price than its 2021 predecessor, so even if you are inclined to wait and see what Apple unveils in November, there are no guarantees you will actually be able to afford the compact new slate.
Praised for everything from its unrivaled overall performance to that “modern” and versatile USB Type-C port, punchy stereo speakers, second-gen Apple Pencil support, and perfect size and weight for many users unhappy with the iPad Air and iPad Pro families in our original iPad mini 6 review a while back, this little guy continues to deserve quite a bit of recognition for a lot of those features and capabilities.
No, the Apple A15 Bionic processor is no longer impressive by current iPad Air and iPad Pro standards, but that doesn’t mean the iPad mini (2021) will stutter, freeze, or crash on a daily basis even in some of the most demanding possible usage scenarios.
Fully supported by the latest iPadOS 18 software release, the sixth-gen iPad mini should receive another two or three major OS updates in timely fashion in the next few years, which might be Apple’s biggest advantage over the vast majority of the best Android tablets out there today. Well, that, and in the iPad mini 6’s case, a Liquid Retina IPS LCD screen that’s both refreshingly small and extremely sharp.
