by Jason Snell

Apple announces new iPad mini

Looks like it’s going to be one of those weeks. Apple Newsroom:

Apple today unveiled the all-new iPad mini, featuring a stunning OLED display in an even thinner and lighter design, a huge leap in performance with A20 Pro, and water and dust resistance. The larger 8.5-inch OLED display, also available with a nano-texture option, delivers higher contrast and more than 2x higher peak brightness than the previous-generation iPad mini.

The OLED display is really the top-line new feature here, although of course a processor three generations newer will dramatically boost performance. It’s the first iPad mini with real water resistance, which Apple chalks up to a new feature called the Acoustic Display, in which audio is being channeled through the display surface rather than more porous speakers.

The starting price is now $699 for a binned Wi-Fi-only version. That’s not cheap, but also not as expensive as I feared. Fans of this beloved model will particularly love the idea of using the new nano-texture option, I suspect.