The iPad mini 6 has the iPhone 13’s chip, but there’s a catch

So quite recently we learned that Apple is offering a somewhat stripped down version of 5G for the iPad mini 6. For most people, that detail probably will not matter much, but it was still a bummer.

Now, MacRumors states that according to their benchmarks, there is one more part where Apple decided to downgrade its newest iPad mini. The part in question is none other than the chip powering the small tablet itself—A15 Bionic—the same one that is inside all iPhone 13 series models.

While the A15 Bionic in the iPhone 13 lineup is clocked at 3.2Ghz, the ones put in the iPad mini 6 are downclocked to 2.9GHz. To translate this into English, the difference in performance between the two devices amounts to 2-8%.

While 2-8% doesn’t sound like much—and to be honest, it is not—it begs the question of why Apple would do that. Was it to make the iPad mini’s battery last longer? Or maybe there was some statistical mark that had to be reached.

Whatever the case might be, you most likely won’t feel the difference when using the iPhone 13 models and the iPad mini 6 side by side.

MacRumors actually reached out to the GeekBench founder John Poole, to ask him whether the results they are getting are to be trusted, and he replied that indeed—they are.

Anyway, even with its slight downgrade, the A15 Bionic inside the iPad mini 6 is still approximately 20% faster than the A13 Bionic placed in the 9th generation iPad.

You can get the iPad mini 6 at its base price of $499 for the 64GB Wi-Fi only version, or for $649 for the larger storage option of 256GB. The 9th-gen affordable iPad, on the other hand, is available for $329 and $479 for the model with 256GB storage.