If you’re already invested in Android, there is a new tablet in town that can become your daily companion. Android tablets have improved significantly in recent years, and if you prefer Android to iOS, one of the best options is Xiaomi Pad 7. It offers an excellent all-around Android tablet experience, with excellent hardware and solid performance. Though behind iPads in the tablet race, Pad 7 manages to punch above its weight.
Taller, bolder
The tablet has an all-aluminium build, be it the frame or the back and the camera module is also Xiaomi 14 inspired, including the fact that there is only a single camera inside a module that looks like it has three or four cameras.
When you hold the Pad 7 in your hand, it feels more premium compared to the Pad 6.
A bigger design change involves the aspect ratio of the display. It’s taller now. Instead of 16:10, it’s 3:2 now. With a 3:2 aspect ratio, when you hold the tablet in portrait mode, the extra width helps with browsing. For that matter, any text-related stuff looks good in this aspect ratio.
Be it games or Lightroom, the machine runs smoothly under sustained workloads
The device is slightly thinner than before, down from 6.5mm to 6.18mm. The weight is also friendly — 498-ish grams.
The Type-C port at the bottom is the same Gen 3.2. Don’t expect a microSD slot, 4G/5G SIM support (it would have been a nice option), a physical fingerprint scanner (you have to use facial unlock) or 3.5mm headphone jack.
Gorgeous display
The 11.2-inch 3.2K IPS LCD display is clean and comes with 144Hz refresh rate and 800 nits of brightness (HBM). Further, there is support for P3 or display screen content in P3 colour gamut.
For those of you who need to work outdoors often, there is an anti-reflective, anti-glare coating version (nano-texture variant). It’s the most expensive variant and it’s something worth looking at.
The colour tuning is commendable, especially in the “original colour PRO” mode. If you are going to use the tablet for content creation, and want to look at colour-rich projects, the tablet does a good job.
Needless to say, there is support for Dolby Vision on Netflix and the HDR tuning has been done extremely well, to the point you may forget that this is an IPS LCD display. The blacks may not be as deep as OLED but there is nothing to complain about.
Touch response is up to 360Hz and there is “hydro touch”. When your fingers are wet, you can still operate the display. Another given for such a premium pad is quad speakers with Dolby Atmos support, so the sound will appear spatial. Be it bass or depth, it’s all there. There is an “immersive sound” option, which makes the sound a bit wider.
Performance focussed
Performance is where Xiaomi is miles ahead of several rival brands. You get something like double the performance that you would get on the Pad 6. Inside is Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3, which is one of the best chips to have. There are two variants — 8GB/12GB LPDDR5X RAM. On the ROM front — 128GB (UFS 3.1) and 256GB (UFS 4.0).
No matter the benchmark you throw at it, you won’t be disappointed. CPU stability score is top of the line.
Focus Keyboard is inspired by Apple Magic Keyboard in functionality but the trackpad is too small
The affordable tablet is also a gaming beast. Try playing Genshin Impact at a higher frame rate of 60fps and you will get an average of 59fps, which is remarkable. BGMI runs on Extreme+ graphics. Overall, animations feel fluid.
The performance also ties in with battery life, which is more than seven hours while playing some games and going through daily work routines. Eight hours would have been good but still, this is not a problem. The charging speed is fantastic for the 8850mAh battery, thanks to the 45W charger that you get inside the box. The massive battery takes one hour and 40 minutes to juice up.
When paired with Focus Keyboard, Xiaomi Pad 7 can be a workhorse that is light but versatile
There are two cameras on the tablet — 8MP on the front and 13MP on the rear. Don’t expect the cameras to be something like on a smartphone. When it comes to video calls, it’s perfect and the rear camera is good enough for taking casual snaps. The front camera has a wide angle to help with video calls.
Some new accessories
There are two new accessories. There is a Focus Keyboard and Focus Pen. The keyboard looks like Apple’s smart keyboard lookalike. It works well, there is excellent key travel and click-y keys. Further, there is backlighting. The trackpad, though small, comes with gesture support.
The Focus Pen has 8132 levels of pressure sensitivity, There are two buttons with three functions. It’s a good stylus to have but the Apple Pencil is miles ahead (and, of course, more expensive).
Software is king
Xiaomi has played it well by offering Xiaomi HyperOS 2.0 based on Android 15. It turns the pad into a workhorse. There are beautiful lock screen wallpapers, and a dock at the bottom of the screen (and it can be invoked within any app). For multitasking, you can have two apps in split screen and two more floating windows. You will not find the tablet huffing-puffing when all the windows are open.
The Workstation Mode turns the tablet into a desktop-like setting where you can have multiple windows at the same time. For AI, there is Gemini integration and more — AI Writing, AI Eraser and so on.
The Focus Pen helps with precise editing but should be made to handle more features
The tablet works seamlessly with your Xiaomi phone with the interconnectivity feature. You can share images easily or mirror your phone screen.
Make the call
This machine is easy to recommend when it comes to Android tablets. A few quibbles aside, Xiaomi Pad 7 is a very performant tablet with an excellent screen, great speakers, and a lot of power.
At a glance
Device: Xiaomi Pad 7
Price: Upwards of ₹27,999 (keyboard and stylus need to be bought separately)
High notes
Excellent, sustained performance
Good software options
Enjoyable set of speakers
Accessories look promising
Reasonably priced
Muffled notes
No 3.5mm headphone jack
No cellular option
