It's an iPad Air 2, but smaller. Great for media, reading and checking your emails, but not as productive as its bigger brothers.

Great size for media and games; iPad apps are the best; Looks and feels lovely; Fast

Expensive; iOS needs more tablet additions

After a yearlong wait, we finally have a properly upgraded iPad Mini. While it adopted the iPad Air 2's super-slim aesthetic and got a similarly great screen, the iPad Mini 4 makes do with Apple's dual-core A8 chipset.

Vibrant screen; iOS 9 is great for multitasking; Solid performance; Respectable battery life

Rotation lock switch is gone; Still less powerful than the iPad Air 2; Base model only has 16GB of storage

The most interesting feature of the Apple iPad Mini 4 is the new operating system iOS 9. The ninth version of the Apple OS not only introduces several new and useful features, it also seems to have a positive effect on the overall performance, which is confirmed by some benchmarks during a retest of...

Impeccable build quality; Sophisticated materials; Low weight and thickness; High performance; Excellent GPS sensor; Convenient display with usable "anti-reflective coating; Usable features thanks to iOS 9; Usable cameras ..

..; only under good lighting conditions, Proprietary Lightning connector, Bad maintainability, No NFC, High price

This year we got (at last) a good iPad Mini, there are a lot of great and improved features and although it has been claimed to be a shrunken iPad Air 2, it clearly isn't, hardware-wise it's quite different.

Great display; Premium design; Good cameras; Multitasking; Reasonable battery life

Only 16GB storage for the base model; No microSD storage; A bit expensive; Performance is a bit under iPad Air 2; Audio quality could be improved

This year we got (at last) a good iPad Mini, there are a lot of great and improved features and although it has been claimed to be a shrunken iPad Air 2, it clearly isn't, hardware-wise it's quite different.

Farewell, iPad mini 3 , we hardly knew ye. Casually announced at the end of Apple's iPad Pro presentation, the iPad mini 4 replaces last year's mini 3 as the company's high-end small-screen tablet .

Excellent build quality; Upgraded hardware from last iteration; Good camera; Reduced screen glare; Unbeatable app experience

Expensive; Occasional minor performance issues in testing

Editors' note, June 8, 2017: At its Worldwide Developer's Conference , Apple unveiled a new iPad Pro . Starting at $649, ￡619 and A$949 , the new model packs a a bigger screen -- a 10.5-inch Retina display -- into a footprint similar to that of the cheaper 9.7-inch model Apple debuted a few months...

Compact size, vivid display, works with split-screen apps in iOS 9; Basically, a shrunken-down iPad Air 2; Perfect hand feel for vacations

Price is high for an 8-inch tablet; Slower graphics mean some apps and games don't feel as zippy; Small screen makes for cramped typing and multitasking

Among the best compact tablets you can buy-if money is no object-the iPad Mini 4 is now a true, almost-no-compromise small alternative to the iPad Air 2.

Screen is as good as you'll find on a compact tablet; Improved rear camera; Closer in performance to full-size iPads than the Mini 3 was

Pricey for a compact tablet; Costly relative to Apple's own previous-gen (and still-available) Air and Mini iPads; Rotation-lock switch relegated to software; As ever; no storage expansion via MicroSD

Sep 25 2015 - Apple's 4th generation iPad Mini received many of the updates that it should have last year when they released the iPad Mini 3. The tablet is now thinner thanks to the laminated glass display which also greatly helps improve the display especially outdoors.