Malcolm Owen
The initial benchmarks of the seventh-gen iPad mini have surfaced, with records revealing about a 30% increase in performance over its predecessor.
While Apple makes its own performance comparisons against previous generations in its product launches, it's usually best to wait until the first public benchmarks arrive for real figures. On Friday, those first datapoints started to surface.
Searches in Geekbench 6's results show that there is a considerable improvement when it comes to the use of the A17 Pro in the new iPad mini.
AppleInsider averaged a selection of results, and determined that the Geekbench single-core performance scored 2,801. For multi-core, it made it to 6,796.
These are both improvements compared to the iPad mini 6, which used the A15 Bionic. The seventh-gen model has seen a generational improvement of 32% for single-core performance, and 27% for multi-core testing.
Apple's launch announcement said it offered a 30% CPU boost and a 25% GPU improvement.
Against the iPad, which runs on the much older A13 Bionic, the results are even more impressive. Against the base iPad model, the seventh-gen iPad mini is 61% faster for single-core testing, and 76% better at multi-core.
When measured against the more premium models, the iPad mini 7 holds its own against the iPad Air with M2. It's actually 9% better on the single-core result, but falls behind 31% when it comes to multi-core.
The M4 chip in the iPad Pro outpaces the lot, with the A17 Pro being 23% behind on single-core testing, 48% on multi-core.
For Metal, the average of 25,716 for the iPad mini 7's A17 Pro is admirable, with it 32% better than the A15 Bionic in the iPad mini 6. It's also 89% faster than the A13 Bionic in the base iPad.
However, the score is still far below the 41,408 and 53,451 scores of the M2 and M4 chips, respectively.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
4 Comments
The lack of an M Chip and and improved cameras is a killer for me. Same with the iPad Pro. No 48mp camera in a “pro” but in the phone? Nobody wants to film on a small screen. As for the iPad mini 7, why spend more $ on less tech? It’s a no go for me. Apple is using leftover tech to build sub par devices just to say they did something as improvement. Impress us with high powered SFF.
I just got a Mini 7, moving up from a mini 6 which will go to my wife. She has a much older mini, Basically I am slowly getting rid of everything with the old lightning connectors, going to USB C across the board.
I have not noticed any drastic improvement so far with the 7 over the 6. It does seem to download an open some book apps quicker. I also have a lot of medical references and quicker will be better there. I am honestly the form factor remained the same as I do not have to relearn where the control buttons are located.
She has again a much older iPad pro that is no longer supported and will probably be replaced next year when new models come out.