Why It's a Bad Time to Buy an iPad Mini Right Now

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The iPad mini is in a league of its own when it comes to Apple tablets. It's too small to be a laptop replacement for most users, and probably isn't most artists' first choice as a digital drawing device. Instead, it's an iPad for extreme portability, for jumping between ebooks and Netflix before slipping into a coat pocket. It's the closest thing Apple has to a phablet, especially when paired with an Apple Pencil. For lack of a better word, it's perhaps Apple's "funnest" device. And yet, you shouldn't buy one—at least, not right now.

That's because on Thursday, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that Apple is readying an OLED iPad mini for later this year, possibly in October. It would mark the first "mini" Apple tablet to ship with the display tech, and the second iPad to get it, behind the Pros. If you care about OLED in an iPad mini, this is glorious news. If you don't, you might be wondering why you should care. The truth is, I don't think you should buy an OLED iPad mini if you don't want one. I just think all prospective iPad mini buyers should wait until it comes out.

Why does OLED matter in an iPad?

OLED is a unique display technology. With the traditional LCD on current iPad minis, a single backlight illuminates all the pixels on the display. While the backlight can get dark, it's always on when using the iPad, so when you're viewing dark images or videos, you'll see gray. It can still look great, but you can notice the effect, especially when watching content in a dark room.

Pixels in an OLED display, on the other hand, light themselves individually. Not only does this give you far more control over the brightness of different parts of the display, but the pixels can actually turn themselves off, too. When you're watching a dark scene, some pixels may disable completely, so all you see is black, providing a much greater contrast than LCD.

OLED isn't the only display tech that can achieve a similar effect. The iPad mini would also benefit from the mini-LED displays of MacBook Pros and previous iPad Pros, which have many "dimming zones" instead of one solid backlight. Like OLED, mini-LED can make dark images truly black, but with less precision, as you still can't turn off individual pixels. I, for one, am happy Apple seems to be choosing OLED here instead of mini-LED.

Is it worth waiting for the OLED iPad mini?

The short answer? Yes, and not just because I think everyone will want an OLED iPad mini. There are definitely users who have been waiting for an OLED iPad mini, so, for them, it's absolutely worth the wait. But I know many people won't necessarily care about the display tech in their iPads, or whether their minis can turn off individual pixels.

If that sounds like you, it's still worth waiting for the OLED iPad mini, because it likely means that older models will come down in price. Apple will probably discontinue the current iPad mini in favor of selling its new OLED model, but other stores, like Amazon and Best Buy, will assuredly sell you the previous models they have on hand. And, because they're now "outdated," they should hopefully be cheaper than they are now.

There's no guarantee, of course. Apple's OLED iPad mini will likely be more expensive than current models, both because of the improved display tech, and the general memory crisis that's making everything pricier. Retailers may take the OLED mini's higher MSRP as an excuse to keep the current mini's price tag the same. I remain optimistic they wouldn't, however: I think most buyers will look for the latest iPad mini model to buy, and, as such, it may behoove Amazon and Best Buy to lower the prices of the older models, so they can actually offload that inventory.

We won't know how retailers will respond until Apple actually debuts the OLED iPad mini. October isn't so far away, however, so I'd encourage you to wait it out. Worst-case scenario, you have your choice between the iPad mini you'd buy today, or a slightly more expensive model with a much better display.