Redmi Pad 2 9.7 Review: Smooth 120Hz, But There’s a Catch…

Let’s be honest: shopping for an affordable Android tablet is usually an exercise in managing disappointment. Most options under 11 inches leave you drowning in buyers’ remorse, thanks to laggy processors, fuzzy screens, and builds that feel like cheap toys. Enter the Redmi Pad 2 9.7. Priced at 189 Euros, it still offers premium features like a high-refresh display. 

Over the last 3 weeks, we used this tablet for reading, browsing, for work and even for gaming to find out exactly where its limits lie. And we are really impressed. Let’s talk about it. 

Display and Speakers

The FHD+ LCD display here is 9,7’’ diagonally, which is a nowadays pretty unique size that feels like the right mix between portability and having a large enough screen for reading and watching videos. It also gets quite bright, 500 nits in the standard mode and up to 600 nits outdoors with automatic brightness and daylight mode activated. It’s bright enough most of the time, just don’t expect to be reading under direct sunlight comfortably.

This display is very sharp for a budget tablet, and another outstanding feature is the up to 120Hz refresh rate. That makes animations, scrolling and browsing the web feel a lot smoother than you’d expect on a weaker device. I spent a lot of time reading PDFs and EBooks on the Redmi Pad and I found it perfect for it. Much better than the Samsung Galaxy Tab A11 just because the display is sharper.

The viewing angles are a huge weak point though. The tablet rapidly gets dimmer starting from beyond a 30° angle, and from beyond 45° almost nothing is visible. That means you’ll always have to be looking directly at it, otherwise there’s significant brightness and colour loss. 

Widevine L1 is supported, so Netflix HD and HDR playback work properly out of the box. But YouTube playback resolution seems to be capped at FHD for some reason. 

The speakers are pretty weak in comparison. There’s 2 of them for a stereo sound, but they aren’t very clear, don’t have much audible bass and sound distorted and shouty at max volume. The one saving grace is that they get quite loud. On the plus side, you do get a good quality 3.5mm audio jack which lets you connect wired headphones. 

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Xiaomi went with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 6s 4G Gen 2 chipset alongside 4GB of RAM for this tablet. It’s a 6nm chip, which is long outdated at this point, and yeah, 4GB of RAM is really pushing it in 2026. The base storage also starts at a laughable 64GB, though it’s upgradable to 128GB for a premium. Overall, those aren’t very inspiring specs. Fortunately, there’s a MicroSD card slot here that lets you slot in a card with up to 2TB capacity. 

There is an optional LTE model of the tablet with a SIM card slot, although availability will depend on your region. Our model is limited to Wifi. 

As expected, performance is a weak point of the Redmi Pad. But maybe not as weak as you’d expect. When we first set up the tablet, it felt unbearably slow. The entire OS would randomly lock up and apps took ages to install and launch. But after all system apps were installed and updated, the performance settled to an acceptable level. In fact, the 120Hz display and smooth animations feel like a tablet in an entirely different league. There are very few hard lockups. For browsing the web, reading and watching videos, you don’t need much more than this. 

Benchmarks are pretty disappointing overall. The Pad 2 9.7 is in the same performance league as most other 6nm chip tablets like the original Redmi Pad SE 8.7. It’s just 19% faster in single-core, and 7,6% faster in CPU multi-core. So it’s practically the same speed. Samsung’s similarly priced Galaxy Tab A11 is actually a lot faster in benchmarks, offering a whopping 45% better single-core speed. The GPU is also 2.5x faster here. That’s a pretty massive difference considering that the Samsung tablet is actually cheaper. However, the Galaxy Tab A11 has big downsides of its own. 

Gaming

Naturally, this Redmi isn’t meant for serious E-Sports gaming. I mean, just look at the benchmarks. But there’s a surprising advantage compared to the Galaxy Tab A11 in lighter titles. Because this tablet has a 120Hz display, the touch sampling rate is also high. That means that you have a much better and more responsive experience when aiming in PUBG, for example.

Performance wise, you’re looking at about 50FPS averages in PUBG Mobile using low settings. So it’s playable for sure.

Clash Royale works perfectly fine, but the tablet stays glued to 60FPS even if you enable high-refresh mode in the settings. 

Minecraft is even more challenging for the Redmi Pad. With Fancy graphics and maxed out render distance, the FPS average is just 45. You have to compromise on graphics in this game. At the end of the day, you should probably consider increasing your budget if you want a really capable gaming tablet. 

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Design

The build quality is quite good, much better than its peers at this price range. It’s a unibody aluminium construct that feels nice in the hand. At 406g, it’s also fine to hold for long periods. The front features uniform bezels all around, which gives it an iPad Mini-esque look. It’s just a bit larger. You can get this tablet in silver or grey colours. 

The front webcam is housed neatly in the middle of the tablet. It’s only centered in landscape orientation, which is fine since you’re likely to be videoconferencing in that mode anyways. It’s a 5MP module that looks good enough for selfies. The rear camera steps it up to 8 megapixels. The photos are OK. There’s no LED flash either. Both cameras can record in FHD with 30FPS, and the video quality is acceptable in well-lit environments. 

Sadly, there’s no fingerprint reader on the power button, and the face unlock is very basic, and doesn’t offer the best security. You should stick to a password PIN for unlocking the tablet if you are storing sensitive data on it. 

The tablet charges via the bottom in portrait orientation using the USB-C port. It’s a USB 2.0 speed port, so wired data transfer isn’t the fastest, and there’s no display output capabilities, but that’s usually a premium feature. 

Battery Life 

Xiaomi packs a 7600mAh battery in the Redmi Pad which charges at a slow 18W. A full charge takes quite a while because of that. Although the capacity is small, the Redmi Pad lasts 7 hours and 55 minutes streaming an HD YouTube video at maximum brightness. That’s a decent score. For reference, the Galaxy Tab A11 lasts 8 hours and the iPad Mini just 5 hours and 30 minutes in the same test. 

Software 

One potential drawback is Xiaomi’s lackluster commitment to software support. There’s currently no official confirmation from Xiaomi about how long the Redmi Pad 2 lineup will receive security and Android updates. Maybe there won’t be any at all, it’s not impossible. Samsung’s Galaxy A series tablets are much better in that regard; they are expected to receive 7 years of OS and security patches. 

However, Xiaomi’s Android 16 based HyperOS 3 seems to be much better optimised for low-end devices like the Redmi Pad compared to Samsung’s OneUI. Although the Galaxy Tab A11 is faster in benchmarks, it’s much, much laggier in real life. 

Bloatware is an unfortunate given for practically every cheaper tablet. Upon setup, the tablet will automatically install 12 different sponsored 3rd party apps. That’s not a nice thing to see when you receive a new tablet. There are also system-wide ads from Xiaomi’s default apps that you’ll have to disable individually. Of course, these aren’t deal breakers. 

Conclusion 

There are considerable downsides to the Redmi Pad. It’s not going to receive long-term support like Samsung or Apple tablets, and the speakers could be a lot better. There’s also no official stylus for drawing, or keyboard cover for writing. 

But it’s still a very easy tablet to recommend, just because the alternatives have massive tradeoffs. The iPad Mini and Lenovo Legion tabs cost magnitudes more than the Redmi. And the Samsung Galaxy Tab A11 has a much worse display and feels very slow. For basic tasks like browsing, reading and messaging, the Redmi is really great, as long as you recognise that it has its limits. 

If you’re hunting for an affordable but powerful tablet, make sure to check out our Redmi Pad 2 Pro review. It’s a larger and significantly faster tablet that we think is a great deal.