Xiaomi Mi Pad 5 review: pros and cons of the new tablet

Hey folks, this is Xiaomi’s first global tablet and trust me, you’ll love it. First, because it is inexpensive. Secondly, because it offers everything you need for comfortable everyday use. And thirdly, you can separately buy both a stylus and a branded keyboard case. Well, the last argument, because the Android tablet market is now frankly stagnating and a new player will breathe a second life into it. Nobody has been able to do this before.

I spent about a week with the Pad 5 and I can say with full confidence that the game was worth the candle. If you need a good tablet and you are not afraid of the amount of 36,000 rubles, then you definitely buy it and you will not lose. This time I am more confident in my words than ever.

The first impression of the product were as follows. Xiaomi tried to create a competitor in no case Apple, but Samsung. Pad 5 reminded me of the top Galaxy Tab both on the materials of the case and on the sensations in general. Only with a price tag lower in two or even three times.

Appearance Xiaomi Pad 5

The frame of the tablet is made of metal, but the lid is made of plastic with a matte finish. But if they told me that it was glass, I would believe it. Honestly, before I picked up a clerical knife, I thought it was glass. What confused me was the lack of a fingerprint scanner. All the media without exception wrote that he is here and is on the lateral edge, but his friends are not here. The only way to protect it is in the face. In any case, this is how things are in the global version. There is no separate slot for memory cards, so when choosing, carefully read the options offered by the manufacturer. Namely 6/128 or 6/256. There is no slot for SIM cards either, that is, this is a wi-fi option, no 4G or 5G for you. The display diagonal is 11 inches with an aspect ratio of 16 to 10. The frames are very narrow,

Screen

The weight of the tablet is 511 grams, which is not much if you look at potential competitors with plus or minus the same diagonal. Here for comparison iPad Pro with a diagonal of 11 inches weighs 471 grams. Galaxy Tab S7 FE 608 grams. In general, everything is fine. This is not a brick, but rather a thin, stylish and pleasant to the touch product. The only thing that bothered me is that the back cover is very easily soiled. Yes, it is matte plastic, but it collects prints instantly. The stylus is attached to the right side with a magnet.

If you are going to draw something or even fully use the tablet for work, then you should consider purchasing a stylus. The official price in Europe is 99 euros for the stylus and 55 euros for the keyboard case.

Display

One of the main features of this tablet is the display. Name me at least one model on the market with a price tag of $ 450 and an image refresh rate of 120 Hertz, there simply are none. And the matrix here is not deshmanskaya. Yes, IPS, and for many this is only a plus, because the eyes will not get tired. The resolution is 2.5K, if accurate, 1600 by 2560 pixels. Declared support for 1 billion colors and True Tone functions, maximum brightness of 500 nits. It sounds good, but the maximum brightness of this tablet is lower than that of the same iPad Pro or Galaxy Tab S7 Plus, but I did not experience any discomfort while being outdoors. True Tone is a good thing and it works here as it should. All iPad owners will understand what I’m talking about. I even tried to read a book, the image becomes much warmer, but for the eyes this is only a plus. If you want to see the real colors of the photo,

I have no complaints about the display, for my money it’s just cannonball, well, 120 hertz work to its fullest. The processor pulls everything, the animations are smooth, the scrolling too. In general, a pleasure and I repeat, no one offers anything like this for the money. It’s priced at $600 and up. And this despite the fact that the processor of these models is worse than that of the Pad 5.

CPU

Snapdragon 860 is also installed here, which takes out everything, even the heaviest applications, without problems. The fact that the system itself flies, I think, is understandable. Occasionally there are microfreezes, but in 99% of cases everything works well.

Xiaomi Pad 5 Performance

Let me tell you how it handles demanding games at maximum speeds and video editing. In Shadowgun Legends on ultra graphics settings, we average 60fps. Excellent result. In Genshin Impact 48fps, this is also an excellent result. You know that almost all smartphones with the top-end snapdragon 888 chip do much worse due to excessive heat. And here the body is just warm and the result is excellent. In short, there will definitely be no problems with games, and playing on such a diagonal is a real thrill. Add four more speakers here and we get a cannon in general.

Sound

Yes, the sound quality and loud, I’m sure you’ll like it. So from memory it’s definitely no worse than on the same Galaxy Tab S7 Plus. Watching movies is also a pleasure. In any case, the sound from the multimedia speakers here is simply amazing.

Video editing

Honestly, I don’t know who will do this on Android. After all, we all know that iPad OS is much stronger for these tasks, and yet I tried. Firstly, I was never able to add video examples in 4K, in which case either a black screen or an error pops up. But Full HD is no problem, and rendering is fast enough. In short, if your projects are not of the Badcomedian level, then you can get confused and mount. The truth is only in Full HD, iron allows. And so, I think this thing is more suitable for content consumption. Well, if you have a typing keyboard, I could easily write the same scripts using it. You can also work with Excel tables without any problems, without any discomfort.

Operating system

Also, Xiaomi worked hard on their MiUi. Standard applications were adapted to the tablet format and stuff like that. I’ve taken a deep dive into this issue and will say that it really isn’t as bad as it used to be. And so, I have no complaints at all about the stability of the work, and this surprised me. It can be seen that Xiaomi did a great job on their tablet.

And yes, I want to return to the issue of the lack of a fingerprint scanner, in general, you can unlock your face and I’m used to it. But it’s annoying that you can’t quickly confirm purchases in banking applications. This requires a fingerprint scanner, so you constantly have to enter the password manually. And it’s inconvenient.

 

Xiaomi Pad 5 cameras

Xiaomi Pad 5 has two cameras front and rear. I do not know what to say. Who takes pictures on a tablet anyway? I see only one real use case. Scanned the document, signed it and sent it. Well, or something like that. In general, during the day it turns out just normal pictures. The front camera is stupidly needed here for video communication, because it will not work for something else. And again, who will take a selfie on a tablet. The video quality is average here, but the microphone is good. I think this is more important. As a result, you will hear the interlocutor well because of the loud and high-quality speakers. And you will also be heard well.

Battery

Let’s take a look at battery life. I don’t know how to do an objective tablet battery test, because the scenarios here are completely different and our proprietary test does not fit here. I can say that the charge holds for a long time and there will definitely not be any problems with this. The manufacturer claims more than 16 hours of video viewing and 10 hours of games. I don’t know if this is true, but I believe it willingly. Let’s say I charged it twice in a week, not that I didn’t let it go right out of my hands, but I used it. But my son tortured him pretty much, because Brawl Stars is our everything. With a standard power supply, the battery is charged up to 100% in about 2 hours, which is quite fast considering the capacity of almost 9000 mAh.

Results

pros

• Display
• Sound
• CPU
• Price

Minuses

• Lack of 4G
• No audio jack
• No memory card slot

You look like this, it turns out four by three, but it seems to me that the pluses that I voiced clearly outweigh the minuses. And once again, I really really liked this tablet. Of all the latest products they have shown, this is the most suitable product. Here I tell it like it is, without guile. And in general, look at what Samsung sells for this money. It’s a real shame.

It is a pity that the Pad 5 Pro version will not be sold on our market, there is 4G and a stronger processor.