Xiaomi Mi Pad Review

Last year, Xiaomi has introduced the Xiaomi Mi Pad and it is one of the first tablet to pack an Nvidia Tegra K1 processor and despite being out for a year, the Xiaomi Mi Pad is still one of the best tablets out there when it comes to performance.  For the past few weeks, I’ve been using the Xiaomi Mi Pad as my tablet and I’m impressed with its performance and software. Check out my review after the break.

Design and Construction

The design of the Xiaomi Mi Pad packs a 4:3 display ratio which make the tablet look like squarish and more similar to the iPad Mini. But no, when you hold the Xiaomi Mi Pad, the tablet isn’t made up of aluminium just like the iPad Mini but the Xiaomi Mi Pad still feels very solid despite having a plastic body with a minimalistic design.

At the front, you could see the Mi logo at the upper left of the display while there’s a thin bezel on the sides of the display. Despite having a thin bezel, the Mi Pad isn’t comfortable to hold in one hand due to its 4:3 display ratio.

At the top, you can see the 3.5mm audio jack while you could see the Micro USB port below along with the speaker grills. The volume rocker and the power button is located on the right while on the other side, you could see the MicroSD card tray and yes, you’ll need a pin to remove that tray from the Mi Pad.

Again, the back is made up of glossy plastic. Most people probably hate plastic on smartphones but the Mi Pad’s glossy plastic back is quite solid. Actually, the tablet is very similar to the iPhone 5c’s plastic back and it looks like it’s a giant iPhone 5c (Remember that phone?). The audio quality of the tablet is satisfying and it feels just right for me.

Display

The Xiaomi Mi Pad got a 7.9-inch 2048×1536 4:3 display. It’s similar to the iPad Mini and the colors were really good. The combination of the nice display and its vivid UI is just amazing. The display features crisper and sharper graphics and it’s really great for browsing the web, playing games and reading books. However, watching movies on a 4:3 tablet feels weird. When you’re outside, you could see the display is very reflective.

Battery life

The Xiaomi Mi Pad got a very powerful hardware and the Nvidia Tegra processors are known for sipping a lot of juice from the battery. Despite that, I got a pretty decent battery life on the Xiaomi Mi Pad which reaches up to 13 hours of video which sums up of a day of average use. Not bad right?

Software and performance

One of the advantages of having a Xiaomi device is their ecosystem and their applications. Their devices are powered by MIUI on Android and the support for their software is pretty good. Their built-in apps are very useful and they’re very fun to use. Compared to other smartphones, MIUI is pretty good because they’re fast and they load smoothly. However, there are some apps on the Play Store that aren’t working or too laggy on the Mi Pad and I believe the reason behind that is the Nvidia Tegra K1 processor inside it.

Speaking of the processor, the Mi Pad is a very powerful tablet. The Nvidia Tegra K1 can handle most of the games that you installed on the tablet and our friend, Mr. Randolph Novino of Pinoy Screencast suggested Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas ran very smoothly on his Mi Pad and it was true, GTA:SA ran really smooth on this tablet.

On Antutu, I got a score of 49986 which is still very good despite having a hardware that is more than a year old already. Again, when it comes to games, the tablet wouldn’t have a problem.

Camera

The Xiaomi Mi Pad comes with an 8-Megapixel Rear camera. Tablets aren’t really made for shooting but the Xiaomi Mi Pad performs really well in the camera deparment. I was able to get satisfying images even at lowlight. Most images that I took using the Xiaomi Mi Pad got the right colors and the contrasts were pretty good for a tablet.

The Xiaomi Mi Pad may not be the best camera shooter out there but it definitely has one of the best camera on an Android tablet.  Check out the images that I took using the Xiaomi Mi Pad.

Verdict 

Xiaomi Mi Pad is definitely one of the best Android tablet out there. It might be a year old already but it still performs really well and it can trump most Android tablets out there. However, this tablet packs an Nvidia processor which isn’t common on most Android devices and some apps and games might not work properly (But you wouldn’t probably experience that)

Again, the Xiaomi Mi Pad is a year old but it is still good. If you’re looking for a tablet that packs some power then you might want to consider this tablet. The Xiaomi Mi Pad is now available nationwide and at Lazada for only P10,999.