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BY Harry McCracken

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For a device with such a straightforward name, the iPad Mini has had many lives over its 14 years. Yes, it’s always been a small iPad. But at various times, it’s also been a cheap iPad with a lesser display, an iPad as technologically sophisticated as any you could buy, and a midrange iPad.

Last week, Apple announced a new iPad—one of the remarkably large number of products the company introduced during what may have been its most productive October ever. It remains a small iPad. But the new version replaces the LCD screen of past versions with OLED, a technology previously available only in the iPad Pro. That’s one of several upgrades that take the new Mini to a tier of its own—not quite on the level of the iPad Pro, but in some respects above the iPad Air models the previous Mini closely resembled.

The new iPad Mini also costs $100 more than its predecessor.…