iPad mini 4

Despite being an older tablet, there's still a lot of desire for something this small. Yes, Apple has started making phones that are pretty much this size, but the Mini 4 comes with a lot of storage and a much cheaper price tag.

There are cheaper tablets – cheaper iPads even – but if you can afford to buy the iPad mini 4 you won’t be disappointed. It finally has a great screen and while it can’t match the more powerful iPad Air 2, it’s got more than enough poke to satisfy demanding users. The rear camera is decent and a big step up from many cheaper tablets. With great build quality and battery life on top, it’s hard to fault the new mini so unless you want to wait to see if Apple launches an iPad Air 3, or you want the Air 2’s bigger screen, it’s a good buy.

Often the unloved tablet in Apple’s lineup, the latest mini-iPad is pretty much an

The iPad mini 4 is the “best” iPad mini, but that’s from a technical standpoint. If you’re happy to trade off performance, screen quality, camera quality, and a Touch ID sensor (plus the more subtle differences in the table) then the £100 saving on the iPad mini 2 means it could be the one for you. The upgrades arguably make the mini 4 worth that extra £100 and it will no doubt be a more future-proof purchase if you care about being able to upgrade to the latest version of iOS. We expect the mini 4 to get at least the next two versions – iOS 10 and iOS 11. The iPad mini 3 is only a good deal if you can find a refurbished model at a low price – i.e. not much more than the equivalent iPad mini 2.

The iPad Mini 4 has a camera on the rear, and although the 8-megapixel iSight unit with an f/2.4 aperture is perfectly adequate, I’m going to take a guess and say that the smartphone in your pocket can probably do a much better job.

The iPad Mini 4 is the iPad Air 2 in a compact shell, proved by the fact that the internals are almost identical. There’s Apple’s A8 CPU, rather than the more graphically capable A8X, the M8 co-processor for movement tracking and 2GB of RAM.