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charlesn said:

Funny, isn't it? The complete redesign of the iPad Mini that gave us the 6 three years ago was greeted with rave reviews. And now that same design is trash, it's lazy, it's outdated, blah, blah, blah. Nevermind that Apple never redesigns a product in the first iteration after an overhaul. (This is a typical tactic in Apple criticism--criticizing Apple for not doing something that it never does.) And nevermind that the Mini is completely consistent with the design language of the whole iPad lineup. Apple needed to change the design because the technosphere niche that has nothing to do with the Mini target market demands it. 

Where's the M chip? Where's the OLED display? Where's the ProMotion refresh rate? Yeah, I'm waiting on Mazda to deliver a Lambo Urus at the price of my CX-5, too. What do you think is taking so long? If you want an iPad Mini Pro, that's easy enough to get: it's called the iPad Pro 11". You can buy one today. What's that? Oh, you want all the Pro goodies, but you want them at a Mini price point. Got it. Same for me: Urus at the price of a CX-5. Which one of us do you think will get our wish first?

The Mini 7 is everything that a model refresh should be--which is to say, it's everything that the Airpods Max "2" wasn't--and it came with a gigantic price cut to boot! If you needed more than 64GB of storage with the MIni 6, the price jumped from $499 to $649 -- that's a 30% jump in price to get 256GB of storage, which was the minimum amount you could buy above 64GB. Now $499 buys you 128GB, which will be a comfortable amount for many if not most of the Mini target market buyers. $499 also gets you a chip that's two generations ahead of the 6 and bench tests at 25-30% faster, Apple Intelligence compatibility, updated wifi and Bluetooth specs that match the M4 iPad Pros, a much faster USB-C port, faster 5G cellular support (mmWave) and Apple Pencil Pro support.

By the way, even now with the price cuts on the Mini 6, if you want more than 64GB of storage, it's not a good deal vs the 7. Best Buy is charging $549 for the Mini 6 256GB model--$50 more than the base 7 with 128GB, which is the superior iPad in many other ways. The lack of Apple Intelligence compatibility is also going to seriously ding the resale price of a 6 when it's time to upgrade.