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The iPad mini is one of the best iPads in Apple’s line up. It’s not the most powerful or the one with the biggest screen (as you will have guessed from its name) but when it comes to portability and usability, it’s superb.

It currently has an LCD display like the regular iPad (A16) and the iPad Air (M3), but rumours have suggested Apple is planning to update it with an OLED panel next year. That should mean a significant improvement, with deeper blacks, punchier colours and brighter whites – all known attributes of OLED panels compared to LCD.

An iPad mini with an OLED display was first mentioned by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who has a decent track record with Apple launches. He only said “as early as next year”, however, so the timeline was still quite vast.

When might we see an iPad mini with OLED screen?

Now a new report has narrowed that down. A pair of posts on Weibo (picked up be 9to5Mac) claim the new iPad mini won’t launching in the first half of the year. The post, translated into English says: “The earliest it will be released is the third or fourth quarter of next year.”

The most recent iPad mini (A17 Pro) arrived in October 2024, while its predecessor, the iPad mini 6 launched in September 2021. Based on that timeline, a later launch for the iPad mini OLED is highly plausible.

That said, Apple has been known to launch iPads in the first half of the year too, with both the iPad (A16) and the iPad Air (M3) both arriving in March last year.

For now, there is nothing official from Apple, nor is there likely to be until the device arrives. We typically take most rumours with a pinch of salt until there is more evidence, so the best thing to take away is that a new iPad mini could be coming with an OLED display, and it's expected next year.

If you’re on the fence about buying one now and you can wait a year, then you might be able to benefit. If you can’t wait, the iPad mini (A17 Pro) is excellent so it will no doubt serve you well anyway.