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Apple somewhat surprisingly unveiled the brand-new iPad mini 6 at its "California Streaming" event. Find out what the completely redesigned tablet has to offer below.
Rumors had pointed to an October launch. However, contrary to expectations, Apple unveiled the iPad mini 6 at the "California Streaming" event. As several leakers have already suggested, the mini tablet has been fundamentally redesigned and aligned with the design of the iPad Air 4. Two and a half years after the last update to the iPad mini 5, the sixth generation brings the small tablet up to date without changing its compact form. With its 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display, the new iPad mini is just as compact as its predecessor.
USB-C, better camera and center stage
The display also features wide color and offers a brightness of up to 500 nits. To accommodate the new display, Apple has moved the Touch ID button to a corner - a step the company already took with the iPad Air.
In addition, the company has ditched the Lightning port in favor of a USB-C port. Connectivity changes also include support for 5G. As for the cameras, there is a 12-megapixel sensor with Focus Pixel and an f/1.8 aperture on the back, as well as a True Tone flash. A new image signal processor enables intelligent HDR enhancements, and the camera can also record 4K video. The front camera has been upgraded to a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with a 122-degree field of view. This change gives the iPad mini support for Center Stage, the automatic frame adjustment found in other iPad models.
iPad mini 6: Availability and more
Apple has also added support for the Apple Pencil 2, which enables magnetic charging on the device. The audio system has also been improved: it now has stereo speakers when used in landscape mode. The iPad mini is powered by the A15 Bionic chip, whose 6-core CPU offers a 40% performance jump and its 5-core GPU offers an 80% performance increase. With the 16-core Neural Engine and new ML accelerators, the A15 is said to be twice as fast at ML tasks as its predecessor. The iPad mini can be pre-ordered starting Friday in 28 countries with storage capacities of 64GB and 256GB. It will be available in pink, starlight, purple and space gray. The starting price is $499 for 64GB with WiFi, while WiFi + Cellular models start at $649. Apple says deliveries will begin on September 24. (Image: Apple)
