Apple iPad mini 6th gen (2021) review

Apple Pencil and Sidecar support

If you like taking notes on the go and you are good in sketching and drawing, maybe you will also appreciate the Apple Pencil support, now bumped to Generation 2. It attaches magnetically on the side and recharges automatically.

You can write and draw within the Notes app, add markup on photos, or maybe even draw within apps like Adobe Fresco.

Apple iPadOS 15 also brings a new feature called Quick Note. It does exactly what the name suggests - it brings a pop-up window where you can take a quick note. You can draw, but you can also put whatever on it - web links, tags, and a number of mentions to events or people.

You can start a quick note from the Control Center, from a keyboard shortcut, you can also swipe from the corner using the Pencil or your finger.

Quick Note(s)

There is also the Sidecar feature, which requires a compatible Mac (models released in 2016 or later). If you have such Mac, you can use the Apple iPad mini as a second display - mirrored or extended.

You can drag windows in extended more just like you would do on a real monitor. It's a cool feature for when needing more screen estate to do your complex work.

Performance and benchmarks

One of the best features of this new iPad mini is its heart - the Apple A15 Bionic chip, the same one powering the latest iPhone 13 models. It is manufactured on a second-gen 5nm TSMC process and packs the whopping 15 billion transistors.

The A15 chip relies on a hexa-core processor with 2 big Avalanche cores clocked at 2.93GHz and 4 small Blizzard cores working at 1.82GHz. The high-speed cores work at a slightly lower clock speed on the iPad instead of the 3.23GHz on the iPhone 13 series.

There is a 5-core Apple GPU for the iPad mini, the same found within the iPhone 13 Pro devices.

The new A15 has a new 16 core Neural Engine, too, powering features such as on-device voice and image recognition and other advanced machine learning tasks. On top of that, there is a new ISP on board, twice the amount of cache, as well as a new display engine and new video encoders and decoders.

The iPad mini (2021) has 4GB of RAM and can be purchased in 64GB and 256GB options. You can also choose between Wi-Fi-only and 5G Cellular versions, with the latter employing Qualcomm's X60 5G modem.

We ran the usual benchmark apps, and quite expectedly, the Apple A15 Bionic processor aced them all. The single-core performance is incredible, which matters quite a lot during OS interactions and basic operations.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad Pro 12.9 (2020)
  4709
• Apple iPad mini (2021)
  4476
• Apple iPad 10.2 (2021)
  3124
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+
  2690
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  2583
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE
  1904

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad mini (2021)
  1587
• Apple iPad 10.2 (2021)
  1328
• Apple iPad Pro 12.9 (2020)
  1121
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+
  959
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  743
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE
  615

The 5-core Apple GPU is incredibly powerful, and for such a small tablet with a 60Hz screen, it is, in fact, overqualified for the job. Oh, and yes, it is one of the most powerful mobile GPUs in the world right now.

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad mini (2021)
  108
• Apple iPad 10.2 (2021)
  70
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+
  54
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  46
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE
  19

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad mini (2021)
  60
• Apple iPad 10.2 (2021)
  44
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  24
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+
  24
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE
  9.7

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad mini (2021)
  9092
• Apple iPad 10.2 (2021)
  7537
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+
  4126
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  3396
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE
  1092

AnTuTu also says the iPad mini seems to be one of the most powerful tablets to this very day.

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad mini (2021)
  108
• Apple iPad 10.2 (2021)
  70
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+
  54
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  46
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE
  19

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad mini (2021)
  60
• Apple iPad 10.2 (2021)
  44
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  24
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+
  24
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE
  9.7

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad mini (2021)
  9092
• Apple iPad 10.2 (2021)
  7537
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+
  4126
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  3396
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE
  1092

The new Apple A15 Bionic chip is doing an amazing job in terms of performance, and it can handle anything. The CPU and GPU are so powerful, overly powerful for this moment anyway. This means if you get this iPad mini, it should be up for whatever task for the next 2-3-4 of years.

It also offers great sustained performance - it throttled down to 88% in 3D Mark Stress Test and 79% in the APSI CPU stress test.

3D Mark • APSI Bench

The iPad mini is all metal and cools very well even when using 100% of its hardware (which rarely happens). It doesn't get hot, just warm at one of its sides, and that's it.