iPad mini may be on track to get a display upgrade before the iPad Air, weirdly

The next iPad mini, surprisingly, appears to be on track to get an OLED screen before the more expensive iPad Air. But according to a new report from a prolific leaker, this still won’t happen until the second half of next year.

The matter was discussed in a post this week by the Weibo account Instant Digital. “iPad mini will be the first to feature OLED technology,” the account wrote (via Google Translate), “while iPad Air has not seen any movement.”

It may be worth pointing out that the iPad mini won’t actually be the first iPad to get an OLED display. That distinction falls to the M4 iPad Pro models, which got an OLED panel last year. But this may be an issue with translation.

At any rate, Instant Digital elaborated on its prediction in below-the-line discussions with commenters. When asked if the mini’s screen would be 60Hz, the account responded that it didn’t know, but “the earliest it will be released is the third or fourth quarter of next year, we’ll see then.” A Q3 launch would see the next iPad mini release alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, and perhaps the iPhone Fold.

That would be a two-year wait from the launch of the 7th-gen mini, which came out in fall 2024, but this pales in comparison with the gaps between the past few generations. There was a three-year gap between the 6th and 7th minis, two and a half years between 5th and 6th, and three and a half between 4th and 5th. Yearly iPad mini refreshes haven’t been the norm since 2015.

In another conversation, this time focusing on the relationship between refresh rate and price, the account said “the overall cost of the OLED screen in the mini is kept very low.” Which appears to suggest that a 60Hz rather than 120Hz is more likely. Nevertheless, the inclusion of OLED on a comparatively budget-focused tablet like the iPad mini would be a pleasant surprise, to go with more pedestrian upgrades like the expected A19 Pro chip.