Chance Miller Reviews the New A20 Pro iPad Mini

Chance Miller, writing at 9to5Mac:

Unfortunately, the new iPad mini’s screen has one limitation: it doesn’t support ProMotion, or a 120Hz refresh rate of any kind. Instead, it’s still locked to 60Hz. This is an incredibly frustrating decision that I can’t quite wrap my head around.

Apple touts the iPad mini’s OLED screen as offering significantly faster pixel response time than the previous generation’s LCD panel, leading to improvements like smoother scrolling and reduced motion blur.

I’ve noticed that things like swiping between Home Screen pages, scrolling social media, and system animations are noticeably smoother. They aren’t, however, as smooth as an Apple device with a ProMotion display, and they’re not a substitute for a higher refresh-rate display.

Apple is very stingy with ProMotion. Until last year it was exclusively available in iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks that had “Pro” in their name. Last year they added ProMotion to two products without “Pro” in their names: the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air. This year’s $2,000 iPhone Duo of course offers it now too. Apple refreshed the $1,600 Studio Display last year but it still only supports 60 Hz; only the $3,300 Studio Display XDR supports 120 Hz. (Apple does not call this “ProMotion”.)

What makes this frustrating with the iPad Mini is that Apple doesn’t sell an iPad Pro smaller than 11 inches. With MacBooks and larger iPads, if you really care about ProMotion, you can spend money to get it. With a small iPad, however, you can’t.

My big question re: the new iPad Mini is the new “acoustic display”. Miller gives it a thumbs-up:

Essentially, Apple has designed special woofers that vibrate the display to produce low and midrange frequencies. For higher frequencies, custom tweeters are hidden between the glass and aluminum enclosure. Apple says this new system delivers louder audio, “punchier” bass, and clearer highs, despite the iPad mini’s significantly thinner design.

In practice, I think the new iPad mini sounds great. I’d choose headphones or an external speaker for serious music or video consumption, but day-to-day the iPad mini’s built-in speakers are perfectly adequate. (I’d bet that this Acoustic Display technology shows up in future iPhones too, and the iPad mini is serving as a test bed of sorts.)

★ Tuesday, 3 November 2026