I’ve had my hands on Apple’s newest tiny tablet for a month now and in that time i’ve used for everything from recording and editing music to recording and editing video, streaming music, drawing and taking notes and loads more.
It’s brilliant – which surprised me a bit honestly.
When it launched there seemed that every tech-bro with a Youtube channel was lining up to say how bad this iPad Mini was.
It’s not perfect by any means, but if you’re in the market for a super portable and affordable tablet for music production and everything else you’d use an iPad for, the iPad Mini 7 might be right up your street.
Watch my video overview below.
Full disclosure, I was sent this iPad Mini 7 (A17 Pro) by Apple to review on the understanding that I would be completely honest about my experience with it. I’ll be giving it back when i’m done and this review was not vetted or looked over by Apple or anyone else before publishing .
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iPad Mini S?
Apple don’t do ‘S’ models for their iPhones anymore.
We used to get a major iPhone redesign one year and then a refinement of that design with improved internals, performance and additional features in the same basic hardware the next.
This every other year design cycle resulted in some of the best iPhones ever; the iPhone XS, the iPhone 6S and one of my favourite Apple devices of all time: the iPhone 4S.
Apple completely redesigned the iPad Mini back in 2021 with the 6th generation, giving it a fresh new design and updated internals. The best way to look at the iPad Mini 7 is as the ’S’ version of that previous model.
On the outside, the iPad Mini 7 looks pretty much identical to the previous model and resembles a shrunken down iPad Air.
Like the iPad Air, the iPad Mini forgoes Face ID for a Touch ID system that’s situated on the power button.
You’ll find the volume buttons on the top edge of the device.
You’ll also find a pair of speakers, the built in microphone and the front facing camera up here.
Apple haven’t repositioned the front camera like they did on the iPad pro and air models also released this year, which at first might seem a bit unfortunate depending on how you use this iPad.
On the side of the Mini is the magnetic charging connector for the Apple Pencil Pro – more on that later on.
On the bottom edge of the iPad Mini 7 is another pair of speakers and a USB C port. This port supports 10 Gb/s data transfer speeds and connection of 1 up to 4k 60HZ external display.
Like I said, not much has changed hardware design wise between the 6th and 7th generation iPad Mini.
On the inside though, it’s a different story.
Powerful Performance
The iPad Mini 7 is powered by the A17 Pro chip.
While this isn’t an M series chip, it’s no slouch either, delivering up to a 30 percent increase in performance over the previous iPad Mini model.
This iPad is also now has 8GB of Ram and starts at 128GB of storage. All of that at the same base price as the previous version.
Specs aside, how does this iPad deal with iOS music production apps and DAWS?
VERY well.
In GarageBand, it opens and closes projects quickly, loads instruments and sounds really fast and provides an all around silky smooth experience.
It pretty much matches my 12.9” M2 iPad Pro when it comes to opening, closing and loading apps and instruments.
I created a ‘try to completely break GarageBand’ project file way back when I was testing the M1 iPad Pro back in 2021 and have used it to benchmark iOS devices with GarageBand ever since.
The project is designed to essentially make GarageBand crash and force the dreaded ‘Optimizing Performance’ message to appear.
The iPad Mini 7 loaded and played back this project with zero issues (minus a couple of third party plugins that I don’t have installed). Seriously impressive stuff.
It handles Logic Pro for iPad surprisingly well too. Offering all the same features available to M series iPad models, it deals with multiple instances of Chromaglow, several simultaneous Session Players and loads of on board AUv3 plugins without breaking a sweat.
All of this extra power has been jammed in here with Apple Intelligence in mind. At the time of writing I don’t have access to it as it hasn’t launched here in the UK yet.
Apple Pencil Required?
The iPad Mini 7 has an 8.3” display and working with GarageBand and other music production apps can get a bit fiddly – especially if like me you are cursed with big fat sausage fingers.
A stylus or Apple Pencil will really help here.
Note that this new iPad Mini model is only compatible with the Apple Pencil Pro or Apple Pencil USB. if you have a 1st generation Apple Pencil or the Apple Pencil 2 (that IS compatible with the previous generation iPad Mini) they will not work with this model.
Apple’s pencil lineup is a bit messy right now. If you’re just looking for something to use with GarageBand specifically and don’t really care about the admittedly really cool features of the new official Apple Pencils on offer, a cheapo one from Amazon will totally get the job done.
It’s also worth noting that the iPad Mini 7 doesn’t support Stage Manager and as such if you hook it up to an external monitor you’ll only be able to mirror the iPad Mini’s screen.
Worth it?
There is just something about the iPad Mini’s form factor that I absolutely love.
Almost small enough to fit in a pocket, but probably more suited to be thrown into a backpack or bag, you can pretty much take this thing anywhere.
No, it’s not the most exciting iPad Mini upgrade that Apple have ever done, but it’s actually really capable. If you are on the lookout for a super portable and fairly affordable iPad that not only runs GarageBand really well, but will also allow you to work with more CPU intensive apps like Logic Pro for iPad, plus give you access to the world of Apple Intelligence, this could be a really good option for you.
