Apple on Tuesday announced a new generation of the iPad mini, coming three years after the introduction of the iPad mini 6. From the outside, iPad mini 7 looks exactly the same as its predecessor, but there’s an important change inside: the A17 Pro chip. Although many have claimed that this is the same chip as the iPhone 15 Pro, it seems that the iPad mini 7 is powered by a binned version of the chip.
A17 Pro chip in the iPad mini 7 is a binned version of the iPhone 15 Pro chip
The A17 Pro chip was introduced last year with the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, and until then these were the only devices to have this chip. In the iPhone, the A17 Pro chip has a 6-core CPU and a 6-core GPU, as well as 8GB of RAM. While the chip in the iPad most likely also has 8GB of RAM, Apple’s website suggests that it uses a binned version of the chip with fewer cores.
More specifically, the iPad mini 7’s technical specifications say that the A17 Pro chip used in the tablet has a 6-core CPU, but a 5-core GPU – one less than the chip used in the iPhone 15 Pro. This doesn’t exactly come as a surprise since Apple has used binned chips in some of its devices before.
Top comment by Chris Laarman
Finding a lesser use for lesser products has made sense for humanity for ages. It makes sense not to waste - in two ways: not to waste the lesser products by disposing of them, and not wasting the better products by using them for a mere fraction of their qualities or features. (I'm thinking of products of agriculture. Notably poultry.)
Zooming in on computer chips: I remember the hollering when we found out (some thirty years ago) that Intel rebranded its binned chips. I remember 386SX for a narrow-bus 386DX, I remember Celeron for 80486 without floating-point processor.
We know. Why should we bother, as long as we get what we pay for?
Zooming in on Apple: I was about to buy a new MacBook Pro when the M4 SoC made its debut. Should I wait? I couldn't help but view this new great M4 as a binned edition of some targeted M4 Max. (I chose not to wait. I settled for an M3 Pro. I have enjoyed it for three months now.)
Sidebar: zooming in on myself, the decision maker: I tend to buy "ultimate" products for a start, then buy a "limited" product to match my actual needs of the moment, from then on be "realistic". (That MBP is my fourth MacBook.) ;-)
For those unfamiliar, chip binning is a quality control process in chip manufacturing. Rather than scrapping chips that haven’t reached the maximum performance of all their cores, some of them are deactivated and the chip can still be used with fewer cores.
It’s easy to assume that Apple had a bunch of A17 Pro chips lying around and decided to use them in the iPad mini 7 as the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max were discontinued in September. Since we’re only talking about one less GPU core, the overall performance of the chip probably won’t be affected for most tasks.
Thanks to the A17 Pro chip with 8GB of RAM, the new iPad mini is compatible with the Apple Intelligence features coming later this month with iPadOS 18.1.
Pre-orders for the iPad mini 7 are now available on Apple’s website, but you can also find good deals on other iPad models on Amazon.
Read also
- The new iPad mini 7 is a surprisingly small update – why is that?
- Planning to buy a new iPad mini 7? List shows countries with the least expensive prices
- iPad mini 7 vs 6: Here’s what’s upgraded plus buyer’s guide
- New iPad mini tidbits: All the details you might have missed
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