Thirteen years ago, Apple released the first version of the iPad mini. I bought one, and I really liked it. As I noted in my review, sometimes less is more, and it was delightful to have the functionality of a regular iPad in a smaller package. Three years later, in 2015, I started using the 12.9" version of the iPad Pro. After using that device for a decade, the iPad Pro is definitely the best iPad for me. Whether I am looking at documents while doing work, enjoying pictures, or just studying my busy calendar, the larger screen is fantastic. And I love that the iPad Pro is the fastest, most powerful iPad. This has often made me wonder: does an iPad mini still have a place in my life?
For the last few weeks, I’ve had an opportunity to answer that question. My law firm purchased a number of iPad minis to use for a project, and before they were all put into use, I was able to borrow one of them and see what it is like to use an iPad in 2025, from the perspective of someone who uses a 13" iPad Pro. I have been using it for both work during the day and for entertainment at night. My conclusion? As Thomas Wolfe wrote, you can’t go home again. The iPad mini is still cute as a button, but as someone who has become accustomed to using a fast and large 13" iPad Pro, this slower 8.3" device has too many compromises.
The size
At 5.3" x 7.69", the iPad mini is less than half the size of my 13" iPad Pro, which is 8.48" x 11.09". It feels like I cut my iPad Pro in half.
This small size makes the iPad mini small and light, and sometimes that is a good thing. There is no risk of my hand becoming tired from holding it for a long period of time. But the small size means that the edges of my fingers cover even more of the screen when I am holding it, which is sometimes annoying and distracts from the otherwise nice experience of holding something that is small and light.
The more important problem for me is that with so much less screen real estate, everything is cramped. For example, when I look at emails, I cannot even see the full names of people in the list of emails on the right side of the screen.
When I look at documents, the type is so small that I find myself either squinting or panning left and right to read everything.
When I use my iPad Pro, I almost always use it in landscape mode. For the iPad mini, everything is so cramped in landscape mode that I often found myself using it in portrait mode. In this orientation, it works almost like a larger iPhone. And for certain types of apps, that can work reasonably well, such as scrolling through Instagram, Reddit, or Ivory (my Mastodon client). But for just about all of my work tasks, the small size of the iPad mini was too small for me to be productive.
In other words, the iPad mini worked best when I used it, in portrait orientation, as if it were a larger iPhone. And it was sort of nice to have a screen that is larger than an iPhone. But for the same reason that I don’t use my iPhone to do the things I do on my iPad—such as reading and annotating documents—I didn’t enjoy using an iPad mini for those tasks.
The speed
The other thing that I don’t like about this device is the speed. The A17 Pro chip is not that old; it was used just two years ago in the iPhone 15 Pro, and it seemed like a fast processor when I used that device. But every time I opened an app or tried to do anything even remotely intensive, I found myself frustrated by the noticeable decrease in responsiveness. To be fair, I’m probably just spoiled by the speed of an iPad Pro, but I’m sure that an iPad Air with its M3 processor also feels a lot faster than this iPad mini with an A17 Pro chip.
The screen
Like the iPad Air and the iPad, the iPad mini uses a Liquid Retina display. The iPad Pro uses an Ultra Retina XDR display with ProMotion technology. The iPad mini’s peak brightness is 500 nits. The iPad Pro’s peak brightness is 1000 nits, and HDR content can reach 1600 nits. What this means is that when nothing is moving on the screen, everything looks much better on the iPad Pro. And when something is moving—for example, when I am scrolling through a document, a social media app, emails, etc.—it is much harder to read the screen. As a result, I find myself waiting until I pause scrolling before I start to pay attention to words, which slows me down even more.
The price
One very nice thing about the iPad mini is the price. The full retail price is $499, and you can currently get it on Amazon for only $399. That is the version with only 128GB, which doesn’t give you a lot of space for larger documents and videos. However, if you are primarily using this device to browse the Internet and stream files, 128GB may be enough.
The future
There is, however, one thing about the iPad mini that intrigues me. I mentioned above that the iPad mini worked best for me when I thought of it as a larger iPhone, not a smaller iPad. It is rumored that Apple is working on an iPhone with a screen that can unfold, opening up like a book. That rumored device would unfold into something with a screen size that is not that different from the size of an iPad mini. If I put my iPhone on top of the iPad mini, I can imagine how that might look when an iPhone screen unfolds.
An iPhone with a screen that unfolds would still be too small to use as an iPad substitute. But using the iPad mini for the last few weeks has shown me the appeal of having an iPhone with an even larger screen. So in a way, the iPad mini is interesting because it is a peek into a possible future of the iPhone.
Conclusion
Any time I review a product, I provide my personal opinion, cognizant that others may disagree. I feel that is more true for the iPad mini than for any other product that I have tried in a long time. The most important reason that the iPad mini is not for me is that I have grown to appreciate everything that makes the 13" iPad Pro so special: the huge and beautiful screen, and the speed. If you currently use an older version of the 11" iPad Air, I suspect that the switch to an iPad mini will be far less jarring for you. When I discussed the iPad mini (A17 Pro) without having had a chance to use it back on October 16, 2024, I thought that is might be the right device for some lawyers. I suppose I still think that, but only for some folks. For most lawyers, I think that the compromises are too great for this to be your one-and-only iPad.
If Apple were to upgrade the iPad mini to give it a better screen and a faster processor, that would make a difference to me. The considerably smaller screen would still be too cramped for me to use this device as my main iPad for work, but it would erase some of the other annoyances. The iPad mini (A17 Pro) is already a year old, and there are rumors that an improved iPad mini will be released in 2026. We’ll see.
I loved having an opportunity to try out an iPad mini again, after all of these years. But I can now say that it is not the device for me. Moreover, I think that the screen is so small that I suspect that many others who are looking to use this device to get work done will find it to be unsatisfactory. On the other hand, if you want something small and light for casual, one-handed use—something similar to an iPhone, just a little bigger—that is where the iPad mini makes much more sense. And of course, for kids, or for people looking for a portable entertainment device, this may be the best version of the iPad.
Click here to get the Apple iPad mini (A17 Pro) from Amazon ($399).