This other conversation may bring additional insight about the performance question:
https://forum.omz-software.com/topic/1025/python-benchmarking/14
A first generation iPad mini should have a performance comparable with iPad 2, as it has the same processor and amount to memory. I have an old iPad 2, I can say that Pythonista is not nearly as fast as in my iPhone 7, but it works for simple tasks and for reading documentation.