Hands-On: The OLED iPad Mini is Almost an iPad Pro Mini - MacRumors
By Google News Technology ·
The OLED iPad mini is launching this Friday, and we were able to test one out ahead of release. MacRumors videographer Dan Barbera has been using the new iPad for about a week at this point, and he shared his initial thoughts over on YouTube.
A millimeter doesn't sound like much, but the thinner design makes it much nicer to hold in the hand. Thinner also means less weight, and it's 255 grams (just over half a pound), down from 293 grams. It's the lightest iPad Apple has made. If you want a tablet that focuses on portability, the iPad mini is the way to go. Like the iPad Air and the iPhone Duo, the iPad mini sticks with Touch ID.
The iPad mini is the second iPad to get an OLED display after the iPad Pro. It's almost an iPad Pro mini, but Apple stopped short of giving it all the Pro features. The OLED iPad mini is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate and didn't get ProMotion. If all your other devices have ProMotion, you're likely going to notice the lack of it on the iPad mini when scrolling through content.
Bezels are slimmer and the display is 8.5 inches instead of 8.3 inches like the prior version, but the overall size is about the same. Minus the 120Hz refresh rate, it's what you want from an OLED display. Deep blacks make colors stand out, high contrast makes HDR content look more true to life, and there's no loss of brightness. In fact, it's brighter than before. You can get nano-texture for cutting glare if you get one of the higher-end models, and this is the first time it's been offered in an iPad mini.
Apple didn't do fun colors this time around, and you're limited to midnight and starlight. Pricing starts at $699 for 128GB of storage, so it's up $100 over the A17 Pro model. It's $200 more expensive if you look at pre-June prices, but…
Originally published by Google News Technology