Apple A17 Pro chip is the star of the first iPad mini update in three years

Apple quietly announced a new version of its iPad mini tablet via press release this morning, the tablet's first update since 2021.

The seventh-generation iPad mini looks mostly identical to the sixth-generation version, with a power-button-mounted Touch ID sensor and a slim-bezeled display. But Apple has swapped out the A15 Bionic chip for the Apple A17 Pro, the same processor it used in the iPhone 15 Pro last year.

The new iPad mini is available for preorder now and starts at $499 for 128GB (an upgrade over the previous base model's 64GB of storage). 256GB and 512GB versions are available for $599 and $799, and cellular connectivity is an additional $150 on top of any of those prices.

Apple says the A17 Pro's CPU performance is 30 percent faster than the A15's and that its GPU performance is 25 percent faster (in addition to supporting hardware-accelerated ray tracing). But the biggest improvement will be an increase in RAM—the A17 Pro comes with 8GB instead of the A15's 4GB, which appears to be Apple's floor for the new Apple Intelligence AI features. The new iPad mini will be the only iPad mini capable of supporting Apple Intelligence, which will begin rolling out with the iPadOS 18.1 update within the next few weeks.