Apple reveals that the new iPad mini has a smaller battery — but here’s why that’s actually a good thing

• The 8th-gen iPad mini has a 4,900 mAh capacity battery
• It’s a slight reduction on what we saw with the previous model
• However, actual battery life hasn’t been reduced

Apple is always rather coy when it comes to the battery capacities in its devices, but European Union regulations mean it has to now publish this data publicly: and we just learned that the new 2026 iPad mini has a battery capacity of 4,900 mAh.

As Notebookcheck points out, that’s lower than the 5,034 mAh battery capacity we saw with the 7th-generation iPad mini, which launched in 2024. It’s about 97% of what it was previously, so it’s not a huge reduction.