Xiaomi Pad 7 vs Pad 7 Pro: Which One Should You Get?

With the Pad 7 and Pad 7 Pro, Xiaomi released two mid-range tablets together that cost $400 and $500 respectively. We reviewed both tablets already and both got pretty good scores. But how different are they really and which one is better for who? That’s what you’ll learn in our comparison.

Read: Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE 8.7 Review: Cheap Hidden Gem?

Most things are the same

Most things are actually the same. The exterior of both tablets are practically identical, save for the 50MP and 12MP markings on the camera bumps of the tablets respectively.

They have the same excellent display and the same quad speaker setup. If you want to know everything there is to know about the screen and pen, check out our full reviews of both tablets which we published already.

You can also get the exact same pen and exact same keyboard covers for both. And they do work the same.

Let’s get into their differences and that starts with the processor.

Read: Xiaomi Redmi Pad Pro Review: Great Gaming Tablet At A Budget

Performance: SoC differences

Being both released in March of 2024, the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 and the 7+ Gen 3 chipsets found on the Xiaomi tablets share quite a bit more in common than you might think. Both chips are built on TSMC’s 4 nanometer process, and they also share the same processor cores.

These processors use the same hybrid architecture with a single large Cortex-X4 CPU core, clocked at 3 GHz on the 8s Gen 3 and 2.8 GHz on the 7+ Gen 3 respectively. The 4 smaller Cortex-A720 cores on both processors, again, have a 0.2 GHz clock speed difference. The 3 little Cortex-A520s only have a 0.1 GHz clock speed difference. What does this mean?

The 7+ Gen 3 seems to literally just be a lower clocked 8s Gen 3 with a different GPU. Only going off the clock speeds, the CPU single core and multi core benchmarks should be about 7% in the Pad 7 Pro’s favour.

At least the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 has a slightly faster GPU. The Adreno 735 found here clocks up to 1.1 GHz while the Adreno 732 on the 7+ Gen 3 only clocks up to 950MHz. Let’s see if that makes a large difference in benchmarks. 

Our benchmark results are not surprising at all; in Geekbench 6, the single core score of the Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro is just under 8% faster than the Pad 7. The multi-core score is only 4.5% faster, and the GPU score is 11% faster. It’s not nothing, but you really won’t notice these differences in normal use. 

Storage Options

Xiaomi has bumped up the default storage size on the Pad 7 Pro to 256GB, which is great news if you’re looking to install many different games or just plan on downloading lots of lossless music. This makes the $100 price difference quite a bit easier to stomach, considering the Xiaomi Pad 7 only gets 128GB of slower UFS 3.0 storage as a default, although the 256GB version of the Pad 7 uses UFS 4.0 as well. 

Upgrading to 512GB of storage is only possible on the 7 Pro, which increases the RAM from 8 to 12GB as well. This will cost another $100, bringing the total price up to $600, where other stronger competitors like the OnePlus Pad 2 and Honor MagicPad 2 offer more features like stronger performance or an OLED display. The storage is less at 256GB on both competitors, though.

Unlock options

Let’s talk about something you’d actually notice: The lack of a fingerprint reader on the Xiaomi Pad 7.

Honestly, this is one of the biggest reasons to upgrade to the Pro, in our opinion. If you’re a person who often uses their tablets lying flat on a table, the facial recognition on the Pad 7 just doesn’t quite cut it. Either you have to manually enter your password, or you need to lift the screen up so that the camera can see your face from a normal angle. The Pad 7 Pro doesn’t have these kinds of issues because it keeps the trusty fingerprint scanner as well as having facial recognition. 

Charging and battery life

Here’s another couple of differences: The 7 Pro charges at 67 Watts, and the Pad 7 at 45 Watts. This means that the 7 Pro is able to go from 0-100% in an hour while the 7 needs 1.5 hours. Battery size is the exact same at 8850mAh, however.

In our YouTube HD video playback battery test, the Pad 7 Pro is able to last a good 7.5 hours, while the default Pad 7 lasts 15 minutes less with 7.25 hours. In practice, the difference should be barely noticeable and is within the error margin of our battery test anyways.

Cameras

Don’t expect either of these tablets to blow your mind in camera tests. The 50MP shooter on the 7 Pro does take pictures with a bit more detail if you really zoom in and compare the pictures side by side, and the larger aperture means it should perform better in worse lighting. However, the differences between the photo quality is minimal and any modern phone will still take better pictures.

The Xiaomi tablet camera app is also way less intuitive than their mobile phone equivalent.

Both tablet cameras are honestly good enough to scan a document, which’ll be the most you want to do with them anyways.

The selfie cameras are decent on both tablets, but fine details like hair are a bit sharper on the 7 Pro. We wouldn’t recommend upgrading to the Pro for the minimal camera improvement, it’s not really worth it.

Connectivity

Wifi 7 is supported on the Pro, whereas the Pad 7 sticks to wifi 6E connectivity. We didn’t notice any issues with connectivity and download speed during testing. For most, this shouldn’t be a deciding factor.

Final Verdict: So, should you reach for the pro?

There’s a specific demographic of people that can really benefit from the upgrades the Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro gives you over the standard Pad 7. If you need a lot of storage space and really want a fingerprint reader, the Pad 7 Pro still offers great value as well as a couple other perks like faster charging.

Otherwise, we would advise any buyer to rather save their money and go for the $400 Pad 7, considering that the devices are pretty much identical and perform about the same as well. If the Pad 7 Pro only costs $50 more than the standard Pad 7, we think it would be a far more compelling offer.