How excited are you for next week’s release of a faster and smarter than ever iPad mini edition with full Apple Intelligence support? If your answer fits anywhere on a scale from “tremendously” to “moderately”, I have something today that might well surprise you and should definitely raise your excitement level by a degree or two.
Priced at the exact same $499 point as its 2021 predecessor in an entry-level configuration with double the storage space, the seventh-generation iPad mini is incredibly discounted at Walmart while still on pre-order. Dubbed iPad mini (A17 Pro) for marketing purposes rather than iPad mini 7 or iPad mini (2024), the small but mighty new tablet can be had at $484 at the time of this writing with 128 gigs of local digital hoarding room.
Although you’re obviously not looking at the deepest price cut ever offered by a major US retailer such as Walmart on a device like Apple‘s latest diminutive slate, the fact that this product hasn’t even been properly released yet makes this $15 markdown feel quite special and hard to refuse.
If you hurry, you can opt for one of four different colorways as far as the cheapest iPad mini (A17 Pro) configuration is concerned, and the same goes for 256 and 512GB Wi-Fi-only variants currently sold for $589 and $779 after $10 and $20 discounts of their own respectively.
As you’ve undoubtedly guessed already, the most important upgrade of this hot new 8.3-incher over the 8.3-inch iPad mini released three years ago is that Apple A17 Pro chip in its (full) name. Naturally, you’ll have to wait for our review to confirm the exact magnitude of Apple’s latest processing power improvement, which should be massive given that the iPad mini 6 uses an outdated A15 Bionic SoC.
The A17 Pro processor will allow the iPad mini 7 to unleash all the force and convenience of Apple Intelligence… soon enough, at which point you’re unlikely to find a better sub-10-inch device at a similar price. Even right now, you’re clearly looking at one of the best tablets you can get for less than $500, especially if you’re a hardcore Apple fan who doesn’t dig gargantuan models like the new iPad Pros and iPad Airs.