Did You Know
Did You Know: The New iPad mini Has Its Smallest Battery Since 2012, and an Empty Space Below It
Apple gave the OLED iPad mini an 18.9 watt-hour battery, less than any iPad mini since the original. A Chinese teardown found bare chassis under the cell, and an early review test still ran almost four hours past Apple's own estimate.
CUPERTINO, Calif. · Maya Chen, Did You Know · Nov 10 2026
CUPERTINO, Calif. - Did you know that the new iPad mini, the first one with an OLED screen, carries a smaller battery than any iPad mini since the original model of 2012? Apple’s tech specs page lists a built-in 18.9 watt-hour cell. The model it replaces had 19.3 watt-hours, according to Apple’s own spec sheet, and the iPad mini 4 and 5 were both rated at 19.1. You have to go back to the first iPad mini, with its 16.3 watt-hour battery, to find a smaller one.
The cut is small, about 2 percent, and it came with a much thinner body. The new tablet is 5.4 millimeters thick, down from 6.3 millimeters, and the Wi-Fi model weighs 255 grams. What makes it a surprise is what a teardown found when the screen came off.
Image: Gua Ge Shuo Shouji via Bilibili
Gua Ge Shuo Shouji, a creator on the Chinese video site Bilibili, opened the tablet within days of its Nov. 6 release. As Notebookcheck reported, the video shows a strip of empty chassis between the bottom edge of the battery and the USB-C flex cable, to the right of the lower speaker. The creator says that moving the speaker would leave room for a battery several hundred milliamp-hours larger.
Notebookcheck measured the gap from the video at roughly 48 by 13 millimeters. At the energy density of the current cell, it estimates that filling it could add about 1.3 watt-hours, enough to pass the old model’s capacity with room to spare. It also notes the limits of that math. The video does not show whether the space is as deep as the battery bay, and a bigger battery would need an L-shaped cell or a speaker in a different spot. Apple has not said why the space is there.
Image: Gua Ge Shuo Shouji via Bilibili
The label on the cell matches Apple’s numbers. It reads 3.855 volts and 4,900mAh, which works out to 18.89 watt-hours, and the same 4,900mAh figure appears on the tablet’s EU energy label. The supplier is Huizhou Desay Battery.
Here is the part that runs against intuition. Apple rates both the new iPad mini and its predecessor at up to 10 hours of web browsing on Wi-Fi or video playback. In Tom’s Guide’s review, published Nov. 3, the new model lasted 14 hours and 24 minutes of continuous web browsing at 150 nits, against 10 hours and 36 minutes for the previous iPad mini. That was a single run, not the site’s usual average of three, and Tom’s Guide said it would update the figure after more testing.
Image: Apple
Two big parts changed around the battery. The A20 Pro chip is built on a 2-nanometer process, according to iFixit, and the 8.5-inch OLED panel replaces the old LCD. Apple has not said whether either one explains the result, and it has kept its 10-hour rating unchanged.
Screenshot: @MacRumors on X
The space under the battery is also not the only thing Apple moved. The new iPad mini drops its traditional speaker holes for a sealed, IP67-rated design and uses what Apple calls an Acoustic Display, with woofers paired through the screen. Whatever the reason for the gap, it leaves the thinnest iPad mini yet with the smallest battery the line has had in 14 years, and one early test suggesting it lasts longer anyway.
