Apple plans three new iPads early next year – should you buy an iPad mini OLED now or wait?

Apple announced a new iPad mini last week, slimming down the aluminium unibody and replacing the LCD display with an OLED panel. The 8.5-inch tablet arrived the same week Apple revealed its first touchscreen MacBook and a more powerful iMac running on the M6 processor. But while that is probably it for this year, more announcements may be coming soon.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who has a strong track record on Apple rumours, the company is planning to update the rest of the iPad line-up in early 2027. Gurman said in his Power On newsletter, which was picked up by 9to5Mac, that Apple will launch a new base iPad, a new iPad Air and a new iPad Pro in the first half of the year.

What iPad upgrades can you expect?

The regular iPad will apparently get the A19 chip and 8GB of RAM, meaning it will finally support Apple Intelligence. It’s claimed it §will also get the N1 wireless networking chip, which you’ll find in the iPhone Duo, as well as the C1X modem like the iPhone Air.

For the iPad Air, Gurman claims it will follow the same path as the latest iPad mini in terms of display, switching to OLED. However, like the iPad mini, it is thought it too will retain a 60Hz refresh rate rather than move to the iPad Pro’s 120Hz. There is no indication that the iPad Air will upgrade to Face ID over Touch ID, either, though the processor is expected to jump to the M5.

Lastly, Gurman has suggested that Apple might add a vapour chamber to the iPad Pro while upgrading the chipset, though that’s it as far as rumours go on the top-of-the-range model for now.

If you’re in the market for an iPad, the iPad mini has always been a great little device for reading, and the OLED display means watching content will be a better experience than before – you get punchier colours and deeper blacks.

It’s as portable as they come, though its screen is only 8.5 inches (although it is bigger than it was before), so you might want to hold out for the refreshed iPad Air if you want a tablet with a bigger display.