2019 iPad Mini Review

A mighty device in a small and familiar package.

Since the announcement of the original iPad mini in October of 2012, I have been a fan. The smaller, more compact design to read books, watch movies, browse the web, and other tasks on a much larger device compared to my than iPhone 5 was fascinating to me.

Since 2013 the iPad mini was given a lot of love by upgrading not only the internals but the external hardware as well. In 2013 we got a retina screen, and then in 2014, the iPad mini was given a Touch ID home button.

In 2015 we thought we were getting the last of the iPad Mini upgrades which did not change anything on the outside but did beef it up quite a bit on the inside. It was able to support a lot of the new iOS features that came out later like picture and picture, split view and slide over.

Since 2015 we had not seen a new version of the iPad Mini, nor did we even get any indication from Apple that it was an important product. So the rumor was that the iPad Mini 4 was the last of them. And if they ever did come out with a new version, it would have a redesign similar to the new iPad Pro’s.

Then out of nowhere on March 18th, 2019, Apple surprised us with a new iPad mini. It kept the same design and like usual upgraded the internals, but they also included an…