iPad Mini 7 Gets 6 Small Changes, Including a Faster USB-C Port

Joe Rossignol

Apple today announced iPad mini 7 with a faster A17 Pro chip, support for Apple Intelligence, and Apple Pencil Pro. Additionally, the device also received a few small updates and changes compared to the previous model, as described below.

The new iPad mini is available to order today, with a release scheduled for Wednesday, October 23.

Here are six small changes to the device.

Faster USB-C port

Apple says the USB-C port on the iPad mini 7 is capable of transferring data at up to 10 Gbps, double the 5 Gbps limit on the iPad mini 6.

This update enables faster data transfer over a USB-C cable for tasks like exporting photos from your iPad mini to your Mac.

Here are the USB-C and Thunderbolt for all recent iPad models:

Device	Specifications
iPad Pro (2021 and later)	Thunderbolt (up to 40 Gbps)
iPad Pro (2018 and 2020)	USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps)
iPad Air (2022 and later)	USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps)
iPad Air (2020)	USB 3.1 Gen 1 (up to 5 Gbps)
iPad mini (2024)	USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps)
iPad mini (2021)	USB 3.1 Gen 1 (up to 5 Gbps)
iPad (2022)	USB 2.0 (up to 480 Mbps)

eSIM only

Following the footsteps of the iPad Pro and iPad Air, the cellular iPad mini no longer has a nano-SIM card slot worldwide. Unlike the iPad mini 6, the iPad mini 7 relies entirely on eSIM digital technology for its cellular plans.

Apple has a support document with useful information about using eSIM on iPad.

Faster Wi-Fi

Like many other recent Apple devices, iPad mini 7 supports faster Wi-Fi 6E.

Wi-Fi 6E extends the capabilities of the regular Wi-Fi 6 specification to the 6 GHz band, providing faster wireless speeds and reduced signal interference. In addition to the iPad mini 7, you'll need a router that supports Wi-Fi 6E.

The iPad mini 7 also supports Bluetooth 5.3.

Double the Base Storage

The iPad mini 7 starts with 128GB of storage, compared to 64GB on the iPad mini 6. Better yet, the iPad mini still starts at $499.

Enhanced HDR Photos

The new iPad mini supports Smart HDR 4, compared to Smart HDR 3 on the previous model.

Apple says Smart HDR 4 makes photos “even more detailed and vibrant.”

Here's how Apple previously described Smart HDR 4:

Introduced in the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13, Smart HDR 4 uses intelligent segmentation to apply different adjustments to the color, contrast, and noise of the subject compared to the background. This ensures that faces are correctly exposed in difficult lighting, and displays people in a single photo individually, with different settings optimized for the lighting and skin tone of each person.

iPad mini Label

As Parker Ortolani noted, the iPad mini 7 has the iPad mini label on the back. Previous models of the device simply display “iPad.”

a tiny detail, but the new iPad mini now actually says “mini” on the back, just like other models in the last few years that have received their modifiers pic.twitter.com/EjSEqvJ4PE — Parker Ortolani (@ParkerOrtolani) October 15, 2024