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Marques Brownlee - iPad Mini 2021 Review: Pocketable Power!

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Author: Marques Brownlee
Categories: Real Estate Technology Creativity & Design
Tags: real-estate, technology, creativity
Views: 2 · Last viewed: 2026-10-16 08:09 UTC

Short Summary

Main recommendation: The 2021 iPad Mini is a worthwhile buy at $499 for people who already have a specific use case in mind, such as note-taking with Apple Pencil 2, flight planning for hobby pilots, or as a pocketable home-control hub, while the reviewer personally would not buy it. The refresh brings a squared-off aluminum design, USB-C, Touch ID, a new 12MP rear camera, Apple Pencil 2 support, and the A15 chip, but the display and battery are its main weaknesses.

Key Points

  • The 2021 model adopts the iPad Air-style design: unibody aluminum, four new colors, no home button, Touch ID in the top power button, and USB-C at the bottom.
  • Pencil 2 magnetically attaches to the side of the tablet, which is why the volume buttons moved to the top edge.
  • The 8.3-inch screen is larger than last year's 7.9-inch display and has a more widescreen aspect ratio, but it remains an LCD at 60 Hz with about 500 nits of brightness (same as last generation), so outdoor use is limited.
  • Battery life is the weakest point: the reviewer got roughly seven or eight hours of screen-on time under heavy use and needed to charge it daily.
  • The tablet runs the same iPadOS 15 software as the iPad Pro, with the A15 chip and five-core GPU, which should mean long software support.

Details Worth Noting

  • Concrete instructions: The reviewer gives no step-by-step setup, but the actionable buying advice is: first identify your specific use case; if you need the smallest iPad for note-taking, sketching, pilot charts, or a smart-home panel, the Mini fits; if you want a larger, cheaper screen and do not need the Mini form factor, consider the 9th-gen base iPad, which is $170 less; if the 64 GB base storage is too small, the 256 GB model costs $150 more; and the reviewer wishes for a 'Mini Pro' with 120Hz, Face ID, and Pro cameras but says that doesn't currently exist at this price.
  • The Pencil 2 works with the swipe-up-from-corner gesture for quick notes, and the front ultra-wide camera with Center Stage is usable for FaceTime and Zoom, though slightly shaky.
  • The Mini has no millimeter-wave 5G, which the reviewer says matters little for most people.
  • Padding around Home Screen icons makes the UI feel more compressed, and the weather widget text is small, though apps use the larger screen fully.
  • Competing options the reviewer mentions include a Galaxy Tab, a Surface Go, and the new Kindle with wireless charging.

Bottom Line

The iPad Mini is a compact, capable tablet at a reasonable price, but it suits buyers with a clear purpose, while general users may get more value from the larger, cheaper base iPad.