Newest iPad mini has a subtle scrolling problem

Enlarge / The 6th-generation iPad mini. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Apple’s newest iPad mini was released to the general public on Friday, and over the weekend, users began to complain about a subtle scrolling problem when using the tablet in portrait mode (MacRumors has a good round-up post). The tablet appears to refresh the left and right halves of its screen at slightly different rates, creating a subtle-but-noticeable “jelly scroll” effect. The Verge’s Dieter Bohn has captured slow-motion video that demonstrates the problem.

The issue is subtle enough that we didn’t notice it when testing the mini for our review, but our review unit does indeed appear to suffer from the same problem. It’s the most noticeable when scrolling relatively slowly up and down a webpage or document—the left side of the screen seems to trail the right side by just enough that paragraphs of text appear rubbery and wobbly to an attentive eye.

In our testing, the problem does appear to affect the screen in landscape mode, where the left and right halves of the screen become the top and bottom halves of the screen. But horizontal scrolling is much less common in most apps than vertical scrolling, making the effect less obvious. Some users have reported not being able to notice the problem in landscape mode at all.