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The iPad mini is in a league of its own when it comes to Apple tablets. It’s too small to be a laptop replacement for most users, and probably not most artists‘ First choice as a digital drawing device. Instead, it’s an iPad for extreme portability, jumping between ebooks and Netflix before slipping into a coat pocket. It’s the closest thing Apple has to a phablet, especially when paired with the Apple Pencil. For lack of a better word, it’s probably Apple’s “most fun” device. And yet, you shouldn’t buy one—at least, not right now.
Because on Thursday, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports That Apple is preparing an OLED iPad mini later this year, possibly in October. It will mark the first “mini” Apple tablet to ship with Display Tech, and the second iPad to receive it, behind the Pros. If you care about OLED in the iPad mini, this is glorious news. If you don’t, you might wonder why you should care. The truth is, I don’t think you should buy an OLED iPad mini if you don’t want one. I think all potential iPad mini buyers should wait until it comes out.
Why is OLED important in the iPad?
OLED is a unique display technology. With the traditional LCD on the current iPad minis, a single backlight illuminates all the pixels on the display. While the backlight can be dimmed, it’s always on when using the iPad, so when you view dark images or videos, you’ll see gray. It may still look great, but you may notice the effect, especially when viewing content in a dark room.
Pixels in an OLED display, on the other hand, illuminate themselves individually. Not only does this give you more control over the brightness of different parts of the display, but the pixels can actually turn themselves off. When you’re viewing a dark scene, some pixels may be completely disabled, so all you see is black, which provides much higher contrast than LCD.
OLED isn’t the only display tech that can achieve a similar effect. The iPad mini will also benefit from the mini-LED displays of the MacBook Pros and previous iPad Pros, which have several “dimming zones” instead of one solid backlight. Like OLED, mini-LEDs can make dark images really black, but with less precision, because you still can’t turn off individual pixels. I, for one, am glad that Apple is choosing OLED over mini-LED here.
Is the OLED iPad mini worth the wait?
The short answer? Yes, and not just because I think everyone would want to An OLED iPad mini. There are definitely users who are waiting for the OLED iPad mini, so, for them, it’s totally worth the wait. But I know a lot of people don’t care enough about the display tech in their iPads or whether their mini can turn off individual pixels.
What do you think so far?
If that sounds like you, it’s still worth waiting for the OLED iPad mini, as it’s likely to drop in price over the older model. Apple may be discontinuing the current iPad mini in favor of selling its new OLED model, but other stores, like Amazon and Best Buy, are sure to sell you the previous models they have. And, since they are now “old”, hopefully they should be cheaper than now.
Of course, there are no guarantees. Apple’s OLED iPad mini will be more expensive than the current model, both due to improved display tech, and A common memory crisis that makes everything more precious. Retailers may take the OLED Mini’s higher MSRP as an excuse to keep the current Mini’s price the same. I remain optimistic that they won’t, though: I think most buyers will look to buy the latest iPad mini model, and, as such, it may choose to have Amazon and Best Buy lower the prices of older models, so they can actually offload that inventory.
We won’t know how retailers will respond until Apple actually debuts the OLED iPad mini. However, October is not far away, so I would encourage you to look forward to it. Worst case scenario, you have a choice between the iPad mini you buy today or a slightly more expensive model with a better display.
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