My next upgrade if my 12 mini gives up will be an 13 mini. And from there I will probably just stick to refurbed 13 minis until a good alternative comes out.

I highly recommend hunting down a 13 mini now (with a lot of battery left) so you can switch when you have to. I did last summer and was glad I didn´t have to organize one on short notice. And if you avoid ios26 - make sure the ios18 on the device is updated because now you no longer get updated within ios18

Where are you finding refurb’ed 13 Minis? Apple only goes back to 14s now on store.apple.com in the U. S.