Xiaomi Pad 7 Review: Our Honest Opinion After 30 Days

The Xiaomi Pad 7 was just released internationally today and we’ve had it in for review for about a month already. At $399, this tablet costs the same as the base iPad, looks like the base iPad, and feels like one too. So why shouldn’t you just go and buy an iPad instead? 

Well, after more than a month of using the Xiaomi Pad 7 for work and games like Fortnite and Minecraft, we can confidently say that the Xiaomi Pad 7 goes above and beyond what Apple’s default iPad offers for any user. Packing a Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, performance won’t be a worry for years to come. But did Xiaomi cut corners on key features for flashy benchmark scores and easy marketability? Let’s find out.

Design & Build

Xiaomi is a company known for offering flagship quality devices at a budget-friendly price. The Xiaomi Pad 7 doesn’t deviate from that rule at all. In fact, we wouldn’t blame you for mistaking this for a high-end Android tablet from the design and feel.

From the front, the Pad 7 is simple. An 11.2 inch display is surrounded by thin bezels, which gives it a clean and modern look. The Pad 7 also sports a 3:2 aspect ratio, which is great for gaming and multitasking but not so ideal for viewing videos. The front also features a single webcam that supports face unlock. There is no built-in fingerprint reader.

On the sides of the tablet, the quad speaker setup stands out. There is a power button on the left side and a volume rocker on the top left. The USB C 3.2 port for charging and file transfer sits alone on the right side of the tablet. This port can also act as an HDMI output for an external monitor.

Something that you might already notice is the minimalistic approach to exterior design on this tablet, which features neither an SD-Card slot nor a dedicated 3.5mm audio output. The Pad 7 weighs 500 grams and is 6.2mm thick, which puts it in the same playing field as the default iPad 10. 

We really like the metal finish on the entire back and sides of the Pad 7. You can get this tablet in grey, or a muted purple or green color. We have the Graphite Grey model and find it very aesthetic.

The camera module juts out of the otherwise flat back and sports a similar design to the Xiaomi 15, which we’re also reviewing, by the way. We think that this feature really catches the eye and makes the Pad 7 stand out among other tablets. The massive camera bump does unfortunately make it impossible for the tablet to lie flat on any surface without a cover. 

Aside from the camera bump, there’s a simple Xiaomi logo and 3 little metal circles that are used to magnetically connect to the keyboard cover. A pen can be attached to the topside of the tablet on the right of the volume rocker, where it is charged wirelessly. The build quality of the entire tablet is excellent.

Read: Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ Review And Comparison With Tab S9+

Display

Xiaomi packs the Pad 7 with an amazing display. At 11.2 inches, this display packs a whole 3.2k pixels, 600 nits of peak brightness in SDR, 800 nits in HDR and variable refresh rates up to 144Hz. This display really goes the whole nine yards for an IPS LCD. Pixel density is at an impressive 344 ppi. HDR 10 and Dolby Vision are supported, and the thin bezels mean a screen to body ratio of 86%. This is a great display in its price-range.

To put it into context, the Lenovo Idea Tab Pro that we recently reviewed and gave a great score to only gets two-thirds as bright as the Pad 7. The Apple iPad 10 is also dimmer at 500 nits, and the more expensive OnePlus Pad 2 has a very similar display. 

Speakers

Xiaomi smacks some seriously great speakers into the Pad 7. In our testing, it beats the more expensive Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE+ and the default iPad 10 in both audio quality and volume. The sound quality edges out the higher-end OnePlus Pad 2, however the OnePlus gets a fair bit louder.

Performance

Many of you are probably at a loss about how every mobile chipset performs relative to other ones, which is understandable. It feels like every other week there’s some new, benchmark-topping Qualcomm or Mediatek mobile processor. So it might come as a bit of a surprise to many that the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 found on the Xiaomi Pad 7 performs considerably close to the popular Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, despite being lower-end based on Qualcomm’s naming scheme. 

Besides the chipset, the Xiaomi Pad 7 comes with 8GB of RAM for the 128GB storage base model and 12GB of RAM on the 256GB model. Realistically, 8GB will get the job done even in demanding apps and games. We threw the Pad 7 into Geekbench for a vague idea of where our tablet really stands in the performance ranking. And perform, it does.

In Geekbench single core testing, our Pad 7 sits behind the iPad 10 by 12%. It does perform within the margin of error of the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3  based Honor MagicPad 2, which costs $100 more. The gap between the Pad 7 and the iPad disappears in Geekbench CPU multi-core.

But whatever, mobile games are more often limited by the GPU instead of the CPU anyways. How does the Pad 7 do there?

In Geekbench GPU tests, the Xiaomi Pad 7 is beaten by the iPad 10 by around 20%. Fortunately, the Pad 7 does perform better against its Android competition; the similarly priced Lenovo Idea Tab Pro falls behind the Pad 7 by 12% in GPU score. These are very respectable scores that bode well for the gaming performance on this tablet.

Read: Microsoft Surface Pro 11 Review: Worth Upgrading To? 

Gaming Performance

Light gaming is no problem for the Xiaomi Pad 7.

In Genshin Impact, we are able to max out all settings and set the framerate to 60FPS with zero issue. The tablet does tend to get very warm in this title.

In Fortnite, we’re able to achieve an impressive 60FPS with the epic preset, which is also the FPS limit. The OnePlus Pad 2 with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is able to hit 60-90 FPS with the epic preset settings, for reference. 

Call of Duty: Warzone runs well enough with 60FPS at smooth settings, but turning up the graphics quality causes framerate drops and stutters with averages around 20FPS.

We also tested less demanding titles like Minecraft and Roblox. These games run buttery smooth at a stable 60FPS, and the tablet stays cool and barely loses battery during long gaming sessions. 

Overall, gaming performance on the Xiaomi Pad 7 is pretty good. Maybe because of its Snapdragon chipset, we’re able to run many games at higher graphics presets compared to the Lenovo Idea Tab Pro that we tested recently. The Idea Tab sports a similarly powerful MediaTek chipset but is locked to 30 FPS on Fortnite, for example.

Battery Life

The battery life on the Xiaomi Pad 7 is just about average. At 7.25 hours, it lands in the same area as most other tablets with an LCD IPS panel and still beats the iPad 10s battery life. The battery has a capacity of 8850mAh and charges at 45 watts, which again is pretty average.

The Honor MagicPad 2, which costs around $100 more gets a whole 80% longer battery life due to its OLED panel, making it an obvious choice for someone looking for a media tablet compared to the Xiaomi. However, availability of the MagicPad is limited in many regions. You can’t find it in the US, for example. 

Android 15 with HyperOS 2

The Xiaomi Pad 7 ships with the Android 15 based HyperOS 2. This makes it one of the few globally available tablets with the new Android version.

Xiaomi’s HyperOS has a smooth, almost iOS look to it. We don’t really mind this, but it’s clear that Xiaomi took inspiration from more than just the appearance of the OS from Apple.

The inbuilt desktop mode in HyperOS provides you with a taskbar and control over Windows or Mac style tabs for each app. Unfortunately, Xiaomi’s desktop mode takes after Apple’s Stage Manager.

Concretely, this means that it’s not possible to split the screen into 2 apps seamlessly. Either the apps don’t fill the available space properly and clip into each other awkwardly, or you only open a single application in fullscreen. It’s not even possible to resize many apps.

Compared to a more mature desktop mode like Samsung DeX or the one on Lenovo tablets, this is missing many key features. Ironically, split-screen works perfectly in the standard mode. We recommend sticking with the normal “tablet mode” instead. 

Where Xiaomi does deserve some credit is how clean of an Android install we get with HyperOS 2. There is not a trace of bloatware on the Pad 7 after setup, save for a couple baked-in Xiaomi Apps. A breath of fresh air compared to other Chinese tablets. 

Software Support

Xiaomi usually offers 2 Android version updates and 3 years of Google security patches for their flagship tablets, like the Xiaomi Pad 6 released in 2023, although there is no official information on the support period at the time of writing. Compared with Samsung’s 5 years of support for their tablets and Apple’s usual 5-6 year support period, Xiaomi falls a bit behind in that area. At least the tablet ships with Android 15 so we will hopefully receive an Android 17 update somewhere down the line. 

Xiaomi Focus Pen

Xiaomi’s Pad 7 and 7 Pro both support the Xiaomi Focus Pen, which will cost you another $99 from the Xiaomi official store. We actually already reviewed this pen in our Xiaomi Pad 6s Pro and 7 Pro articles. But to sum it up it’s a Pen with 8192 sensitivity levels, sleek design and makes for a great writing and drawing experience, comparable to the Samsung S Pen and the Apple Pencil Pro. 

The Focus Pen charges magnetically on the top-right side of the tablet and is connected via Bluetooth. Xiaomi claims that there’s only 3ms of input delay. This means that the pen is very responsive in general. We find that some applications have a tad bit more input lag, for example the drawing program Sketchbook, although the lag is pretty negligible and the overall experience is still good.

One small complaint we have is that compared to the Samsung S Pen, which you receive for free when buying an S Series tablet, by the way, the Xiaomi Focus Pen feels a bit clacky and loud when writing. We felt the same way about the Lenovo Pen Plus from our Idea Tab Pro review. 

Keyboard Covers

Xiaomi has two official keyboard covers available for the Pad 7. One has a trackpad and one doesn’t. In our testing, both keyboards get the job done and offer a decent typing experience. 

We do have a couple complaints about the Xiaomi “floating” keyboard, which features a trackpad and another design that screams Apple. Just like the Apple magic keyboard, the joint which the tablet “floats” on barely bends beyond 100°. 

Unlike Apple’s Magic Keyboard, the typing experience still feels relatively cheap despite the keyboard costing over $130. It’s also uncomfortably small and loud while typing. The trackpad is alright, but feels lower quality than an Apple trackpad as well. 

The cheaper, non trackpad version of the keyboard somehow feels better while being a lot quieter. It has the additional benefit of not weighing half a kilo by itself, something that kind of defeats the point of carrying around a tablet instead of a hefty laptop for work. 

Camera

While we don’t usually expect much from tablet cameras, the large camera bump on the Xiaomi Pad 7 gives the impression that it’s more serious about its photography than other tablets. The reality is somewhat disappointing.

Xiaomi went with a single 13 megapixel main camera lens on the back, begging the question  whether that huge camera bump with 3 camera rings is really necessary here. Photos have good colours and dynamic range, but are otherwise pretty average. 4K video at 30FPS is supported and videos don’t look all too terrible. The automatic image stabilisation could use some work, though.

The 8MP selfie camera on the frontside tells a different story. Selfies look clean and natural, and the portrait mode can make some actually decent photos with the right lighting. We wouldn’t expect much more from tablet cameras.

Final Verdict

Xiaomi has done a great job with the Pad 7. This tablet performs well, has a good display, decent battery life and most importantly comes at a fair price of $400. This represents a good upgrade from the Xiaomi Pad 6 released 2 years ago. The Apple iPad 10 is also just a worse deal in almost every metric. 

What impresses us the most about the Xiaomi Pad 7 is the lack of any huge flaws in our extended testing. We feel like anyone from a tech-savvy gamer to an elderly grandmother could pick up this tablet and use it with no issues.#

That being said, the performance is not the best of the best and if you want that, you should go for a flagship tablet. And the accessories, while good, are very expensive. The Pen alone will bring up the cost of the bundle to $500, where we find very strong competitors from OnePlus and Honor already.

But if you are the type of person to do everything from drawing, watching media and gaming on your tablet, the Xiaomi Pad 7 is just the thing for you. Especially because we expect prices to fall a bit quickly.

By the way, we reviewed the Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro a couple of months ago already back when it was released in China. We think that for most it won’t be worth getting, the standard Pad 7 is the much better deal.