Comparison: Xiaomi Pad 8 (Pro) vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 vs. OnePlus Pad 3

How are the new Xiaomi Pad 8 and Pad 8 Pro compared to the best Android tablets on the market? In this video, we compare them against the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 and OnePlus Pad 3 to see which tablet makes sense for whom, and which is the best value Android tablet you should buy. 

To find that out, we spent hours comparing the hardware, playing games and running benchmarks. And there is one very clear, but unexpected winner. 

Short Specs Breakdown

Let’s first compare the specs and performance of these tablets, and see exactly what sets them apart.

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S11 is the most expensive tablet of the bunch, and it also stands out the most. The Galaxy Tab uses Mediatek’s Dimensity 9400+ chipset while most other high-end Android tablets use Qualcomm ones. Usually that means worse performance in games because of a lack of optimisation from developers, but we’ll see if that’s still the case.

The Galaxy Tab’s RAM is 12GB, which is plenty, and the storage starts at 128GB. That’s not a lot, but you can expand your storage using a Micro-SD card if you have to. But those are usually too slow to run apps and games on and are better for file storage. 

The OnePlus Pad 3 features Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, which is last year’s flagship Qualcomm Android chip. The RAM starts at a generous 12GB and storage at 256GB. 

Xiaomi’s Pad 8 Pro has the same Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, but only 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. And the Pad 8 has the same RAM and storage but features the midrange Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset. It’s a 4nm chip, so the efficiency should be worse than the other 3 tablets here in theory. But the Xiaomi Pad 8 is also the cheapest tablet out of the 4.

Gaming

Let’s jump into the gaming performance directly. In Fortnite, the results are all over the place. 

The Xiaomi Pad 8 is, as expected, the slowest of the bunch, averaging about 60FPS in Fortnite. There’s an option to enable 120FPS with low settings, but that doesn’t work. 

But here’s the shocker. The Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro also can’t reach 120FPS in Fortnite no matter how low you drop the settings. So the average is a perfect 60FPS, but the tablet should be capable of more. This seems to be a software issue that affects all Xiaomi devices; the Poco F8 Pro we tested recently also had this limitation in Fortnite. 

The OnePlus Pad 3 has a similar, but less severe problem in Fortnite. With epic settings, there’s an option to run the game at 120FPS, but in reality it runs at 90FPS. But the gameplay still feels smoother than on the Xiaomi tablets and the resulting experience is also better.

But the fastest tablet for Fortnite is actually the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11. There’s a 120FPS option in the graphics settings even with all the settings turned as high as possible, but unlike the other 3 tablets, the Galaxy Tab actually can run the game at that framerate. We were really surprised by this result since Fortnite only ran at 60FPS when the tablet first was released. It seems like support for the Dimensity 9400+ chip is getting better.

Let’s move onto the next game: Delta Force. If you’re not familiar with it, Delta Force is a massive multiplayer warzone shooter game, a bit like Battlefield. Playing with a high refresh rate in this game is almost mandatory because of how chaotic it is. 

The Xiaomi Pad 8 is the weakest tablet here. That’s not a surprise. But even then the tablet can still play the game with a smooth, nearly constant 120FPS refresh rate at standard graphics settings. You could turn settings all the way up to “HD”, but then you’re limited to 60FPS. The better visual quality isn’t worth the lower refresh rate, in our opinion. 

The Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro is in another league compared to the Pad 8. You can use the HD preset and still select 120FPS, and the actual framerate rarely drops under 100FPS. You can even set the game to max graphics settings with the Pad 8 Pro, but then you’re stuck at 60FPS. But it does look really good. 

OnePlus’ Pad 3 performs almost the same as the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro since they have the same Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. But because of the larger size of the OnePlus Pad, it stays a bit cooler than the Xiaomi tablet. The game also feels slightly smoother because of that, but of course the framerate limit is still 120FPS. 

And once again on top is Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S11. You can run the game at a smooth 120FPS at high settings, or 60FPS at max. That’s exactly the same as the OnePlus Pad 3 and Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro. The Galaxy Tab actually gets a lot hotter than the OnePlus Pad too. But we think that the S11 offers the best experience because of its gorgeous OLED display. More on that later. First, let’s talk about benchmarks. 

3DMark Benchmarks

3DMark’s benchmarks are great for measuring the GPU performance. In the Wildlife Extreme test, the Galaxy Tab S11 is in the lead, but just by 1.5% over the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro. The OnePlus Pad 3 is basically the same speed too. Only the Xiaomi Pad 8 is significantly slower than the S11, 30% slower, in fact.

The more telling benchmark is the Wildlife Extreme stress test, which pushes the tablets to their limits for an extended period to measure the difference between the best-case performance and the worst case.

The Xiaomi Pad 8 actually turns the tide and is the most stable tablet in this test with a score of 91%. And it’s closely followed by the OnePlus Pad 3 with 83%. The Galaxy Tab S11 is 3rd place with just 48%, and it gets quite warm in the test, but the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro didn’t even manage to complete the test without shutting down from overheating. That’s a massive letdown. Thankfully it never got that warm in gaming. 

Display and Speakers 

Since the performance difference between the Galaxy Tab S11, OnePlus Pad 3 and Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro isn’t major, the deciding factor is the rest of the hardware. That’s our opinion, anyway.

Let’s start with the Xiaomi tablets. These have the same 800 nits bright, 11.2’’ LCD display with 144HZ refresh rate. They’re vibrant and sharp displays with good colours. These have a 3:2 aspect ratio, which is great for gaming but not so much for movies.

The OnePlus Pad 3’s display is massive. It’s a 13.2’’ LCD panel with a slightly bizarre, 7:5 aspect ratio. That shape is really good for working with splitscreen or gaming, since there’s just so much vertical space, but watching videos leaves big black bars on the top and bottom. The refresh rate is a smooth 144HZ, and the brightness tops out at 900 nits. 

By the way, you probably don’t want to use the OnePlus Pad 3 for gaming without a controller. The massive tablet is genuinely tiring to hold after 30 minutes. 

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 is the smallest tablet here with just an 11’’ display. But the size isn’t the full story; the S11 is the only one with an OLED display. That means it has better contrast, better black levels and in general more vibrant colours compared to the OnePlus Pad 3 and Xiaomi Pad 8s. And that’s not the end of the story. The S11’s display gets up to 1000 nits of standard brightness, which is almost blinding on an OLED panel. Watching Netflix or just streaming YouTube on the S11 simply looks amazing. 

Besides looking the best, the Samsung’s 16:10 aspect ratio also makes it the best suited for video-streaming, but games scale well too. It’s objectively the nicest display among the 4. Also, the Galaxy S11 is a bit lighter than the others at just 469 grams. 

And that’s not where it ends; The S11’s speakers are also a notch above the competition. The device has 4 stereo speakers that are some of the best among any tablet. They even beat the OnePlus Pad 3 for bass and quality. And the OnePlus Pad has 8 total speakers!

But the biggest letdown has to be the Xiaomi Tablets’ speakers. Both the Pad 8 and 8 Pro have a quad-speaker setup, and last year, we actually praised the Xiaomi Pad 7 series for their great speakers. But Xiaomi quietly used cheaper speakers in the new generation, and we can’t recommend them for their sound anymore. 

Battery Life 

On to the battery. Surprisingly, the win goes to Samsung for this segment as well. In our YouTube HD video playback test, the S11 streams video for 12 hours and 45 minutes before running out of juice. That’s thanks to its OLED display, which can turn individual pixels off entirely in dark scenes and save power. The OnePlus Pad 3 is second place, lasting 9 hours and 40 minutes, which isn’t bad either.

The Xiaomi Tablets are lagging behind again. The Pad 8 lasts 6 hours and 55 minutes and the 8 Pro lasts 7 and a half hours.  

Charging speed also differs massively between the tablets. The Galaxy Tab S11 and Xiaomi Pad 8 both charge at a mundane 45 Watts, while the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro charges at 65 Watts and the OnePlus goes all the way up to 80 Watts. That means that even though the OnePlus Pad 3 has the biggest battery, it still charges very quickly. 

Productivity, Keyboard and Stylus 

Of course, playing games and watching videos isn’t everything that a tablet does. Some people buy them just as a laptop alternative, and students love to use them for taking notes. So how are these 4 tablets in this category? 

Immediately, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S11 is looking very appealing with its included S-Pen out of the box. It’s a very high-quality stylus, and it’s nice that you don’t have to pay extra for it. You’ll have to spend about $100 for the Xiaomi Focus Pen Pro or the OnePlus Stylo 2. And in the case of the OnePlus, the stylus just doesn’t feel as nice to take notes with compared to the other options.

OnePlus turns it around with the excellent Smart Keyboard cover. It’s a very nice keyboard to type on, and the trackpad feels good to use too. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S11 also has a keyboard cover, but so far there’s no version with a trackpad yet, which makes it a bit less ideal for working. 

Xiaomi actually sells 2 keyboard options for the Pad 8 and 8 Pro. There’s a standard keyboard cover without a trackpad that lets you prop the tablet up in a fixed angle, which is fine to type with, and there’s the magnetic floating keyboard cover. That one is just like an Apple iPad Magic keyboard. It’s heavy, you can’t adjust the viewing angle by much but the keyboard and trackpad are high quality. 

If you’re going to be primarily using the tablet with a keyboard, we think the OnePlus Pad 3 makes a lot of sense. For taking notes, you should go for the Galaxy Tab S11. 

Conclusion: Complete Win for Samsung 

We’re a bit surprised ourselves, but the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 wins the comparison in nearly every category, despite having a mediatek chip. It outperforms the others in games, the AMOLED display is superb and the speakers sound the best. If you just want the most well-rounded Android tablet and don’t mind spending a bit more, we can recommend it. And we think it’s the best 11’’ Android tablet for streaming movies and TV by far.

The only time another tablet is better is if you want to emulate older games; tablets with Snapdragon chips have better driver support for things like emulating PS2 or the Nintendo DS if you want to play older games but don’t own the consoles.

If you’re budget conscious but still want a nearly flagship experience, the Xiaomi Pad 8 is a better pick. It’s just as fast as the flagships for most games and is much cheaper than the rest on this list. And if you want to play games using a controller on a massive screen, the OnePlus Pad 3 is the clear choice. 

Make sure to check out our detailed reviews of the Xiaomi Pad 8 and 8 Pro if you want to find out more about them. There, we talk about all the differences between them, and compare them in a wide range of tasks.