Apple's iPad mini cost $499 in June; the new OLED model starts at $699 with the same 128GB
Apple's new iPad mini with an 8.5-inch OLED screen and the A20 Pro starts at $699, after a June price rise to $599 and a $499 price before that, with base storage still at 128GB.
Apple’s announcement prices it plainly: “iPad mini starts at $699 (U.S.) or $58.25 (U.S.) per month for 12 months for the Wi-Fi model,” and “$849 (U.S.)” for Wi-Fi plus cellular. Storage comes in “128GB, 256GB, and 512GB configurations.” Pre-orders opened Wednesday, October 28, and it arrives “starting Friday, November 6.”
The hardware is a real jump. “The larger 8.5-inch OLED display” reaches “peak brightness of up to 1200 nits,” with “600 nits of full-screen brightness for SDR and HDR content.” It also gets “an IP67 rating to protect against water and dust.” Dave Pakula, Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering, pointed to “a remarkably thinner and lighter design, a stunning new OLED display, the incredibly powerful A20 Pro.”
The price history is the other story. MacRumors notes “the previous-generation iPad mini kept its $499 price in 2024,” “even when Apple doubled base storage to 128GB.” Then in June, “Apple increased the starting price to $599 as part of sweeping price increases” “across its product line owing to memory and chip shortages.”
Apple’s statement to MacRumors at the time was blunt: “We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.” The June list put the base iPad at $449, up from $349, and the iPad Air at $749, up from $599.
Now the mini is $699. “The new model starts with the same 128GB of storage, so the $100 increase since June isn’t offset by a capacity bump,” MacRumors wrote. Cellular models rise “from $749 to $849,” and “education pricing starts at $649.”
Some things got smaller. “The color range though has narrowed from four finishes to two: Midnight and Starlight.” And the case costs more: a “new TechWoven Smart Folio that costs $79, up from $59 for the previous Smart Folio.”
| iPad mini (OLED, A20 Pro) | iPad mini (A17 Pro) | iPad | iPad Air | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start price, spring 2026 | – | $499 | $349 | $599 |
| Start price, after June | – | $599 | $449 | $749 |
| Start price now | $699 | replaced | $449 | $749 |
| Base storage | 128GB | 128GB | not compared | not compared |
| Screen | 8.5-inch OLED | not compared | not compared | not compared |
| Water and dust rating | IP67 | not compared | not compared | not compared |
| Colors | 2 | 4 | not compared | not compared |
Prices from Apple and MacRumors’ October and June reports.
What Apple didn’t say. The announcement gives no reason for the price and no comparison to the old one. It also carries fine print: Siri AI is “available in beta in iPadOS 27.2,” features that use server-side models “are subject to daily usage limits,” and “Siri AI is not currently available in the EU in iPadOS.”
What it means for anyone buying tablets in bulk. Schools and businesses that standardized on the mini as a low-cost device now pay $649 at education pricing, more than the old consumer price. A budget built on the spring consumer price of $499 is $200 a unit short at retail, and the case is $20 more on top.
Why now. The OLED screen and the A20 Pro arrive in the same year memory prices jumped, so the mini’s biggest hardware update lands at its highest price.
Prices that rise with a shortage don’t always fall with it. Apple raised 2026 prices across the lineup in one move in June, and nothing so far says when, or whether, any come back down.
Whether $699 is the new floor or a shortage price is the part Apple hasn’t addressed.