Apple iPad mini 3 battery life falls way short of mini 2 for some reason

The folks from Cupertino left the iPad mini 3 largely unchanged from its already svelte predecessor in terms of design, but included a Touch ID fingerprint scanner, which means you can now use it with Apple Pay - the company's budding mobile payment system. There's a new golden color option, and the 32 GB model has disappeared in favor of a 64 GB one, but that's about it - other than those it sports the dimensions and silicon of its predecessor.

Imagine our surprise then, when we measured significantly shorter battery life with the new mini 3, compared to its predecessor. As usual, Apple doesn't list battery capacities, but it's not hard to assume that the juicers are the same, as is most everything else with the two tablets. Still, the iPad mini 3 did last about hour and a half less on our tasking battery benchmark, compared to the mini 2, so have this in mind when gunning for the Touch ID-laden version. This still means that the tablet would get you through the day with average use, but you can't expect much more endurance from the new mini 3.