iPad Mini (2022) Review: A Portable Powerhouse

The latest iPad Mini might be marketed as a more affordable and portable alternative to the souped-up iPad Pro edition, but that doesn’t mean you should dismiss its power. Far from it.

In fact, this could be the device that sets you up perfectly for the year ahead, whether you need a multifaceted WFH hub or just want to rewatch Succession in its entirety. We put the pint-sized Apple tablet through its paces, and this is what we found out.

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iPad Mini Review: Price

As we mentioned, the Mini is more affordable than the flagship iPad and even many of the latest smartphones from Apple, with prices starting at £479 for the basic 64GB internal storage option. We’d advise paying a little more to get the extra storage as 64GB really isn’t good enough by today’s standards, so you might want to investigate the 256GB version, which starts at £619.

iPad Mini Review: Display and Size

The overall body is 8.3 inches (roughly 3 inches smaller than the Pro and 0.4 inches bigger than the Mini 2019) but the display is almost edge-to-edge, giving you much more screen space to game, doodle, or check out which new watch you should have on your wrist. We also reckon it also looks better than previous models in general, with a modern, stylish finish and the expansive glass front.

It’s a 'Liquid Retina' display, which is basically Apple’s jargon-y way of saying it is better than Full HD (around 2266 x 1488 pixels) with HDR (high dynamic range) capabilities, resulting in great visuals for when we made our way through Get Back on Disney+. Colours pop and you can see all the detail in your shows, so we really enjoyed streaming during our commutes into the office.

Unfortunately you don’t get the smooth 120Hz refresh rate that features on the premium iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max models, but we really don’t think that’s much of an omission, and we rarely found ourselves wishing it was available, even while gaming.

You should never use the iPad as your central speaker, but the two built-in stereo speakers get a well-needed upgrade at the bottom of the device, so whether you’re listening to your Apple Music playlist during your workout, or just giving your ears a break from some heavy headphones, you’re still going to get decent audio.

Despite loving the display, we found some issues with the diminutive size. Some apps are not updated to cope with the smaller screen, and we sometimes saw buttons or text running off the screen. We experienced this most commonly on the NHS Covid app which, as you can imagine, has been a real nightmare given the current state of the world.

The new iPad also doesn’t cope particularly well as an e-reader, as the Kindle app wasn’t quite aligned for us, resulting in wonky pages and words being chopped off the side of the page. It’s worth checking on the app store to see if anything you want to download has had an iPad Mini update just in case.

We also really don’t like how laughably big the keyboard is when using the tablet in landscape mode, with only a sliver of screen being visible if you need to type up a text or input info onto a website.

Of course, these issues are remedied by using it in portrait mode or by purchasing the type cover that has a keyboard built in, but we really think we should live in a world where we can actually see what we’re typing.

iPad Mini Review: Performance

This new tablet offers the same A15 Bionic processing chip that you’ll find in the latest iPhone 13 models, and will help you bounce between apps quickly and efficiently. We’ve been using Apple’s products for years now and have rarely noticed that much of a difference in speeds, but we are yet to experience an app crash on this device.

Among its many uses, this new chip assists with 4K filming (more on the camera later) and will open up the opportunity for 5G data streaming if you fancy putting a SIM card in it. Ignoring the conspiracy theories, 5G is actually the fastest available mobile data service, letting you download an entire movie in literally a few seconds.

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It’s not got the blanket UK coverage of 3 or 4G yet (most of the country’s biggest cities like London or Liverpool do have widespread coverage and it’s getting better with each passing year), but if you get one you can be firing off tweets quicker than a peregrine falcon.

You can add a tablet SIM card onto your smartphone contract pretty easily, and will likely be between £10 and £35 a month from the top networks in the land. One of the best offers we’ve seen is this 10% discount for EE customers.

iPad Mini Review: Design

Apple has shifted a few buttons around on the new Mini which threw us off a little bit. The volume is now on the top of the tablet near the power-on button instead of on the side like on the iPhones, and it no longer has the central home button on the screen. Instead, the Touch ID fingerprint scanner is built into the power button.

We really like the flat edges on this model, and the brushed-metal back feels comfortable to hold and secure in our hands, even if we don’t use a cover for it, though we must admit we aren’t a fan of the tiny, solo lens that just looks a bit lonely in the corner of the back of the device.

Perhaps we are spoiled by excessive triple-lens designs on the iPhone 13 Pro, but in our eyes, it just makes the iPad Mini look a little unfinished from the rear.

There are four colour options: purple, pink, and space grey, and starlight, which is basically an off-white colour that we quite like. Our test unit is in purple, and we much prefer this vibrant colour to Apple’s boring grey or black looks of older models.

iPad Mini Review: Camera

You’ll never find us advising you to take pictures at the bar or a gig on your iPad –seriously, don’t be that guy– but if you must take a snap or two, the camera is pretty decent. Obviously the camera phones on offer from Apple are much better for budding photographers looking to take the perfect post for Instagram, but the 12MP wide lens on the back of the Mini is better than the 2019 model, and not really that far off from the quality of the Pro.

You get clear detail in your shots, and the same AI software you get in the recent iPhones will mop up any blemishes or blurring that might ruin your pictures. You can do the same soft-blur on your shots that make you feel like a pro photographer, and given the smaller size we found it much easier to hold one-handed.

We'd suggest using the iPad camera for video calling/FaceTime, but there will always be those who whip out the tablet in the weirdest places. If we had to gripe, we found it hard to take in zoomed photos and still keep the quality, and the lack of additional lenses like a telephoto or ultra-wide limits your snapping freedom.

Videographers will like the 4K / 60FPS filming capabilities that make your videos look crisp and detailed, and there’s plenty of fun editing software to turn it into a slo-mo shot or even edit out a rogue photobomber.

iPad Mini Review: Battery Life

Alas, we haven't got much good news for you on the battery front, but Apple has made some small improvements to make its products recharge faster.

The Mini gave us around nine hours of general use, watching the odd YouTube video, scrolling through Twitter, and browsing for clothes. Apple claims to give you around ten hours but we definitely didn’t see that through our testing, and our battery was significantly reduced once we started to watch Succession in earnest over a weekend.

Graphic-intensive tasks or gaming will drain the juice in just a few hours, and while the Mini comes with a USB-C cable and plug for faster charging that gives us a full battery in about an hour and 45 mins, it still doesn’t feel like it lasts long enough.

It’s also a shame not to see any wireless charging options on the latest iPads, given that Apple has encouraged us to buy the QI-certified discs for its smartphones, we hoped you could use them for all devices, but it will be wired charging for now.

iPad Mini Review: Verdict

We really liked our time with the iPad Mini, quickly grabbing it to add something to our weekly shopping order or streaming the odd show on our lunch break, basically using it as a slightly bigger iPhone when our 13 Pro model just wouldn’t do.

Those of you coming from an older iPad, or perhaps who haven’t got any sort of tablet, will likely get plenty of fun out of gaming on the bigger screen, and even if you have got a more recent iPad, the performance boost and improved display will be a welcome upgrade.

It might seem obvious to say, but the best thing about the Mini is its size, and our necks appreciated the fact we could hold the tablet in one hand slightly further away from our face so we weren’t hunching over our phone responding to texts.

We have also tested the iPad Pro in the last few months, and even though we were impressed with the sheer power of the flagship tablet, we’ve found our hearts stolen by the smaller model, and couldn’t find many reasons to make us think the premium version should get our hard-earned cash instead, especially when it’s almost £500 more expensive.

The Pro model almost rooted us to our seat once we start to use it, feeling more like a laptop that requires us to sit down and pay attention to, but we loved the freedom of moving around and firing off an email as we perused the fridge for snacks, or pulling it out on a cramped tube to catch up on some reading.

If this is your first iPad or you’re looking to replace your ageing tablet, this will be one of the best tech investments you can make in a WFH world.