The new OLED iPad mini does not get a 120Hz display, and Apple has now explained why it went another way. The answer is that refresh rate is only one part of how a screen looks in use.
Dave Pakula, Apple’s vice president of Hardware Engineering, addressed the missing ProMotion in an interview with YouTuber Christopher Lawley published on October 29. Pakula told Lawley that display quality is about more than a single spec.
OLED pixel response is Apple’s answer to the 60Hz screen
Pakula’s main point is speed of a different kind. He said OLED pixels respond more than an order of magnitude faster than the pixels in an LCD, which gives smoother motion and less blur even at a lower refresh rate.
He also pointed to contrast, brightness and color as the reasons the panel stands out. That fits the display Apple built, an 8.5-inch OLED with a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, wide P3 color and a 326 ppi resolution.
The 60Hz refresh rate was expected, because we first heard about a 60Hz panel in July, then saw a rumor that the screen would skip ProMotion in early October. A report from mid-October said Apple had tested 120Hz and 60Hz screens before settling on the slower one.
What ProMotion would have added, and what you get instead
ProMotion is Apple’s adaptive refresh technology, which scales the screen between 10Hz and 120Hz depending on what is on it. Among iPads, Apple still keeps it for the iPad Pro, so the iPad mini runs at a fixed 60Hz, the same rate as the LCD model it replaces. Scrolling, animations and Apple Pencil strokes will look familiar to anyone coming from the old iPad mini, and slower than an iPad Pro or an iPhone Pro.
The display makes up for it elsewhere with 600 nits across the full screen, up from 500 nits on the previous iPad mini, and a 1,200-nit peak with HDR content. Minimum brightness drops to 1 nit for reading in the dark, and the 256GB and 512GB models can be ordered with a nano-texture glass option that cuts glare.
If you read, watch video and play games, those OLED traits matter more than refresh rate. If you spend hours scrolling and sketching and notice the difference on a 120Hz screen, the iPad mini will feel a step behind. Shoppers cross-shopping the iPad Air with M4 or the iPhone Duo as a small iPad should weigh that gap.
The iPad mini starts at $699 and ships November 6
Beyond the display, the iPad mini has the A20 Pro chip, IP67 water and dust resistance and a 12MP Center Stage front camera, all part of the reasons to buy the OLED iPad mini. It costs $699 for the 128GB Wi-Fi model and reaches customers on Friday, November 6.
