The Xiaomi Pad 5 is an excellent all-around Android tablet with a beautiful display, a lot of processing power, and software that works well. In fact, it’s the best iPad competitor we’ve seen thus far, especially considering its comparable price. The tablet has a few issues that are common to most slates, such as the absence of a 3.5mm headphone jack and the fact that arguably necessary peripherals will cost you more money. However, this demonstrates how well-rounded this slate is.
With more than a year of working and learning from home prompting a resurgence in demand for the previously struggling technology form factor, 2021 is the year of the Android tablet. 2021 is the year of the Android tablet, just as 2020 was the year of foldable phones. The Chinese tech giant brings back its slate line with the Xiaomi Pad 5, which was last updated in 2018, though this is the first Xiaomi tablet to be released worldwide.
We are happy that the Xiaomi Pad 5 is being sold in many countries as well because it is the best Android competitor we have seen so far to Apple’s popular entry-level iPad.
Not only does the Pad 5 have a price that is comparable to that of the iPad, but it also has a display that is better, almost as much processing power, and a battery that lasts a long time. These features make it ideal for use as a slate for productivity as well as for fans of entertainment, as it handles gaming and streaming well.
Apple’s iPadOS is generally regarded as a superior tablet operating system to stock Android found on many slates, but Xiaomi has clearly been taking notes. This is the key feature that makes the Xiaomi tablet great for productivity. The company’s Android fork for the Xiaomi Pad 5, MIUI for Pad, has a few key features that make it suitable for use as a portable workstation. These features include a control center that is separate from the notification list and a lot of stylus shortcuts.
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If you buy the keyboard folio and stylus tools separately, you can get the most out of them. Xiaomi, like Apple, sells these accessories separately rather than providing them with the tablet like Samsung does with its S Pen stylus. As a result, if you want to get the most out of your tablet—which you probably will, especially if you intend to use it for productivity—you will need to spend a little bit more money.
We tested the Xiaomi Pad 5 without a keyboard or stylus by using the slate “as nature intended,” which is to say, the way it would be found right out of the box. However, we’ve generally discovered that optional accessories only enhance the tablet experience, so we’d suggest checking them out.
If the phrase “you have to buy extras instead of getting them for free” doesn’t sound like a harsh criticism of the tablet, the two other disadvantages listed above—the absence of a 3.5mm headphone jack and the location of the selfie camera on the screen’s short edge—are just as troubling. But the truth is that the slate is a great value and there isn’t much to dislike, so it was hard to write the “con” list.
If you are a working professional, a student, or someone who wants a capable entertainment machine, this is a great choice if you would consider an Android tablet. However, if you are locked to the Apple ecosystem, you probably won’t consider purchasing the Xiaomi Pad 5 (and that kind of tech fan probably hasn’t read this far into the review).
Cost and accessibility:
The Xiaomi Pad 5 went on sale in the UK on September 25; the company does not sell its products in the United States, so don’t expect to find it there. However, despite the fact that it is not currently available for purchase in Australia, Xiaomi products frequently launch there, so a release may occur in the future.
The tablet comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for £369 (roughly $500, or AU$690). A version with 256GB of storage is also available in some other countries, but it is not available in the UK.
The tablet is a close competitor for the iPad 10.2 (2021), which starts at $329, £319, or AU$499 but only comes with 64GB of storage. There is no 128GB version because 256GB costs more.
Design:
The iPad Air 4, which is a device that is thin, has a narrow bezel, and boasts a minimalist design, would be the device that we would compare the appearance of the Xiaomi Pad 5 to that of one of Apple’s lineup.
The slate has a thickness of just 6.9 millimeters and dimensions of 254.7 x 166.3 millimeters. It weighs 511 grams, making it one of the heaviest tablets we’ve tested in relation to its display size. However, the difference is only a few grams.
Round the edges of the record, you’ll find a power button on the top edge and volume rocker on the right edge (while you’re holding the record in representation direction). When holding the device in this orientation, the front-facing camera is above the screen. As a result, when viewing the display while engaged in a video call and viewing the slate landscape, you may appear to be looking away from the camera, which is not ideal. For video calls, some tablets have the front-facing camera on the long edge.
The tablet has a USB-C port, but no 3.5mm headphone jack; therefore, if you prefer wired audio, you will need an adaptor.
The tablet’s plastic back feels sturdy; we didn’t exactly “rough up” the slate, but it felt durable enough; however, you probably won’t be putting it in a case or keyboard case. The Xiaomi Pad 5 comes in green, white, or gray options.
The tablet’s slight camera bump on the back appears to be based on the oval design of the Xiaomi Mi 11 and Mi 11 Lite. We could easily set the slate face up on a table without it swaying too much because it doesn’t stand out too much.
Unlike the iPad mini, this tablet can be used with both hands or propped up in a stand or case. However, due to its size, it is not ideal for holding in one hand and navigating with the other.
Display:
The 11-inch screen of the Xiaomi Pad 5 is one of its most important features. It has a resolution of 1600 x 2560, a refresh rate of 120 Hz, and it can display more than a billion colors (that many?!).
The display looks great, with bright colors and good contrast, and the high resolution definitely helps games and streaming from different services look crisp. We were impressed by what we saw as we played games and watched a few movies.
The slate’s 1.6:1 screen aspect ratio makes it suitable for work, allowing you to split-screen two distinct documents while ensuring that each receives roughly an A4-sized slice of display.
You can change the color temperature, blue light, and ambient light of the screen in a variety of modes, just like you can do with Xiaomi’s phones and many other tablets. Some of these can be used to just make the screen look better, while others make it easier for people with vision problems to see.
The camera, performance, and specs:
The Snapdragon 860 chipset that the Xiaomi Pad 5 uses isn’t quite as powerful as the M1 in the iPad Pro (2021) range or the Snapdragon 865 Plus in the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 series, but it still offers a lot of processing power and is superior to many other tablets.
The tablet passed the Geekbench 5 benchmark test with a multi-core score of 2631, which is a high but not top-end score compared to phones and tablets with scores of 4,000 or higher. Its score is slightly lower than that of the Galaxy Tab S7 Plus, which received 2,846, but most users won’t notice a difference of 200 points in daily use.
6 GB of RAM and 128 GB or 256 GB of storage, depending on where you live, join the chipset. If you have the option, we would recommend the 256GB version for students or business users because it ensures that you can download numerous games, movies, or songs while still having room for all of your files and work.
The Xiaomi Pad 5 does not come in an LTE model, unlike some other tablets on the market; instead, you will need to use it with Wi-Fi or a hotspot.
We tested a number of mid-range and high-end games on the Pad 5, including Tropico, Northgard, and Call of Duty: mobile and found that they worked well. In games that had them, we could turn the graphics to their highest settings and rarely encountered any stuttering or lag that had any effect on the gameplay. In short, the low-end chipset had little impact.
Exploring the tablet’s menus was additionally genuinely smart, however we did periodically see stammers when we were bouncing between applications or rapidly steaming through menus. When the tablet was held in portrait orientation, this was more obvious. landscape, the tablet floated like a cloud through menus. However, any lag is made up for in smoothness by the 120Hz refresh rate.
The quad speakers on the Xiaomi Pad 5 were adequate for streaming music and watching movies, but they lacked bass, making them not the best tablet speakers we’ve heard. Having said that, the volume increased to an impressive level, which is great for using the slate as a portable speaker but might not please your neighbors.
Since this is a tablet, you shouldn’t anticipate smartphone-level imaging from the 8MP front-facing and 13MP rear cameras. Having said that, it is evident that some of Xiaomi’s image post-processing is involved: Although some selfies may appear overexposed, others were fairly bright with colors that were bold for tablet photography.
Software:
MIUI for Pad, the software that Xiaomi uses, is the key to making its Pad 5 a useful work device. This is a fork of Xiaomi’s MIUI software, which is a fork of Google’s Android in and of itself.
MIUI for Pad brings a lot of tweaks and changes to the formula to make it much more useful on the 11-inch screen of the Pad 5, whereas stock Android is not quite a perfect match for the large form factor of a tablet.
Like iPadOS, MIUI separates shortcuts and quick toggles from notifications. This means that you can see your notifications by swiping down from the left side of the screen, but you can also see settings for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi by swiping down from the right side.
Other changes include the ease with which multiple apps can be opened simultaneously, either side-by-side or in a bubble over one another. In addition, Xiaomi is said to be optimizing top apps for the larger screen, and the user interface has been redesigned to look better on a larger screen.
On phones, MIUI can be quite sluggish, but the Pad 5 didn’t give us a single problem, which is great news. It’s true that you use your smartphone a lot more than your tablet, so it’s possible that we didn’t have enough time to notice this issue, but it still felt like a smooth experience.
The Xiaomi Pad 5 is the best Android iPad competitor because of its optimized software, but creative types should think about a few things before purchasing this slate. Being the best isn’t always enough, and iOS still has a lot of creative apps like Lumafusion, Final Draft Mobile, and Affinity Photo that Android doesn’t.
However, the primary reason we recommend the Xiaomi Pad 5 over the Huawei MatePad 11 is its app supply. Although the two devices share similar features and appearances, the Huawei MatePad 11 is unable to access the Google Play Store and must rely on alternative, less dependable methods to install apps. On the other hand, the Xiaomi wins points for its ease of use.
Battery capacity:
The Xiaomi Pad 5’s 8,720 mAh battery may sound average for a tablet of this size, but during our time with the device, we learned to appreciate its actual longevity.
According to Xiaomi, the slate will allow you to listen to music for five days, watch 16 hours of video, or play 10 hours of games; These are actually underestimations based on our experience, and when streaming audio or movies or playing games like Tropico or Northgard, we found that the slate could last a little longer.
We were consistently impressed by the iPad’s battery life, and those estimates are already somewhat higher than Apple’s equivalents. A student who needs to bring it to a lot of different lectures in a day and then watch a movie in bed will love this battery.
It takes about an hour and a half to power up to full capacity at 33W, which is fast for a tablet, but Xiaomi phones can go up to 120W. It’s important to note that the in-box cable only supports 22.5W charging, so if you want faster speeds, you’ll need to use a different lead.
