Little brother in the world’s most popular tablet family, a new Apple iPad mini 3 was announced at Apple’s 16th October event, now in Mk 3 guise. It includes only a few running changes, including the addition of a Touch ID fingerprint sensor for a Home key. Here's our hands-on review of the iPad mini 3.

Poring over the specifications, there are but three differences we can see between the original iPad mini with Retina display (now thankfully and retrospectively renamed simply ‘iPad mini 2’). Apple also announced the iPad Air 2 which has more significant changes and the iMac with Retina 5K display.

The headline grabber is the addition of a Touch ID fingerprint sensor, with which you can unlock the device, and buy apps and media from Apple’s iTunes shop.

Less popular may be the change in storage options. As we’ve seen with the iPhone 6s and iPad Air 2, the middle-ground 32 GB option has been removed, a policy that may lead users to 64 GB models, or else find their device is woefully short of usable storage space. See also: Apple iPad Air 2 first-look review.

Apple iPad mini 3 – still got that screen-lock button magic

In our brief hands-on with the iPad mini 3, the product seemed very light and wieldy, although since this reviewer has never used the iPad mini 2 we have little point of reference.

The display of the iPad mini 2 was found to be underachieving by some users and reviewers, although in the brightly lit demonstration room we could not tell if the display of the iPad mini 3 has been improved over its predecessor.

Apple iPad mini 3 – now available in gold too

In fact Apple will keep the mini 2 and mini 3 models in the new extended family of iPads, dropping the price of mini 2 to start from £239. Unusually, the original iPad also remains on sale for just £199.

The iPad mini 3 still has 802.11n Wi-Fi, against the newly uprated 11ac in the iPad Air 2. But it does get to keep the handy little screen lock button, now removed from the iPad Air 2.

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