Unoriginal Looks, But A Great iPad Alternative

Xiaomi has been making affordable tablets that perform great for a while, and its latest tablets, the Xiaomi Pad 7 series, are the company’s best slates yet.

The Pad 7 and Pad 7 Pro are identical in looks, size, weight, software, battery capacity, and display resolution. There are only two differences: the more premium Pro device runs on a more powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 compared to the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 used in the standard model.

Thing is, the latter silicon is already more than powerful enough for 99% of consumers, so unless you do intensive video editing or gaming, I’m willing to bet you wouldn’t be able to tell any difference in performance either. The second difference is more noticeable: the Pro model has a variant with an antireflective matte screen.

The matte display, achieved using coating at a nanotexture and surface level, does indeed reduce glare and reflections without sacrificing color reproduction or display sharpness. It’s obviously nice to have, but I suppose more of a luxury than a must-have. The standard glossy panels on the tablets still look great, as long as you don’t have a light shining directly at it.

Basically, the two tablets are very, very similar. I started this review process a month ago using the standard model before Xiaomi provided a Pro with matte glass version three weeks later, and other than the matte screen looking better when I work out at cafes, I can’t say I notice any other differences in performance. So even though this review is titled for the Pro, it could double as a review for the standard model too.

Design

There’s not too much to talk about here: the Pad 7 Pro looks like every other tablet on earth, which also means it looks like the most mainstream tablet — the iPad. It’s an aluminum casing wrapping around a screen surrounded by bezels that are thin by tablet standards. The 11.2-inch display is an IPS LCD panel (not an OLED), but its refresh rate gets up to 144Hz and looks very good. Of course an OLED display from a flagship phone looks better, but this tablet is priced less than half of what those phones cost.

Four Dolby Atmos-tuned speakers, either 8 or 12GB of RAM and a 8850 mAh battery sits inside a body that measures 6.2mm thick and weighs 500g (about 1.1lbs). There is a fingerprint scanner that doubles as a power button, and the usual volume rocker.

The 32-megapixel front-facing camera is located at the center top of the tablet when in landscape mode, as it should.

Not much more to report here in terms of hardware: it’s a tablet. And with modern day tablets, you’ll likely want to pair this with a keyboard and stylus too, and Xiaomi has them.

The stylus is named Focus Pen that works like the last few Xiaomi styli, with a dedicated clicky button positioned where the index finger usually sits. The stylus is fine and performs well for the price.

What performs even better, but gives me a weird feeling, is the new premium keyboard named Pro Focus Keyboard. Without sugarcoating it, this is essentially a clone of Apple’s Magic Keyboard. From the way the keyboard elevates the tablet slightly off the table surface to the design of the hinge to the colors, it looks nearly identical to Apple’s.

This is great news from a practicality level, because I have loved Apple’s Magic Keyboard since it first made its debut five years ago, but I also feel a bit uneasy because this is Xiaomi reverting back to its old habits of copying Apple designs.

The latter narrative (Xiaomi’s just copying Apple) is something many Xiaomi detractors often turn to when dismissing Xiaomi products, and it’s a narrative I’ve pushed back against because I often find the accusations unfair. But this time, I can’t defend it. I wish Xiaomi had made even some superficial changes to give the keyboard a slightly different look.

If you don’t mind the lack of design originality, the keyboard is absolutely awesome to use: with evenly spaced keys with key travel of over 1mm and a full row of function keys. The trackpad isn’t quite as excellent as Apple’s — the mouse cursor can be a bit slippery — but I prefer it over the trackpad in keyboards offered by Samsung or OnePlus.

Performance

The Pro model with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chip is a tip top performer in the Android tablet space, and through the past week-plus of use I have been doing writing work (including writing this article) and editing a six minute 4K YouTube video on CapCut fine. I did notice the video editing process wasn’t as smooth as if I was editing on a recent iPad with Final Cut Pro — there were subtle framerate drops or stutters if I scrub through the timeline quickly — but I’m not sure if this is a silicon issue, Xiaomi software issue, or a CapCut issue. Since Android’s app ecosystem just lacks something as seamlessly integrated with hardware like Apple’s Final Cut Pro is, it’s unlikely any Android tablet could ever perform 100% as smoothly as Apple’s tablet anyway.

But the minor lag wasn’t a deal breaker. Of course, I own multiple iPads and have the privilege to turn to those for video editing, but if I was not — if I was a budget conscious consumer who needs to save some money, then the Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro is definitely capable enough to edit and produce videos.

If you don’t edit videos, then there’s almost no area in which this Pro tablet falls short on power. In fact, as mentioned earlier, I think most consumers can opt for the non-Pro model with the slightly less powerful Qualcomm chip and get the same performance. If your tablet usage consists of scrolling through social media, watching videos, typing words, and so on, the Pad 7 tablets Pro or not gets the job done.

Battery life is excellent too. It’s hard to gauge how long the tablet can run on a single charge of continuous use, but I had this tablet on a table on standby mode for four days straight, using it about 1-2 hours per day for video calls and emails, and after four days the tablet still had 67% battery left.

When I edited that YouTube video on CapCut, it took roughly 90 minutes of continuous editing, and the Pad 7 Pro drained about 30% battery including exporting the video.

Software

The tablet runs Android 15 with Xiaomi’s HyperOS on top. HyperOS is fast, smooth and does not get into the way of core Android features. This tablet has full Google Gemini integration, including the very useful circle to search. HyperOS’s multitasking system is also good, but not as amazing as OnePlus/Oppo’s more dynamic implantation. Still, you can easily juggle two to three apps on this tablet at least.

There’s also a new desktop mode that allows all the app windows to open in a resizable floating window as if you were using a laptop. I find the 11-inch screen a bit cramped to do more than two apps at once though. But if you output to a larger external monitor or AR glasses, then I can see the benefits of being able to run three apps at once.

Conclusion

The Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro and standard Pad 7 are excellent Android tablets that can do it all. I like it better than other brands’ offerings due to the superior but unoriginal keyboard, Xiaomi’s fast UI, great speakers, and on the Pro model, the antireflective display. I also find the 11-inch size ideal for my workflow, because it’s more portable than 13 or 14-inch tablets. In my opinion, if I need the most lightweight machine that can still get most of my work done, the Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro fits the bill. If I need a bit more power for more intensive video work, then I can bring my 13-inch MacBook Air or Pro. It doesn’t make sense for a mid-range tablet to be as big and heavy as a laptop. I like the Pad 7 Pro’s relatively petite size.

The price for this tablet varies depending on region, as usual. In Europe, it can be considered just decently priced at about €550 for just the tablet, with the keyboard and stylus adding another €250 or so. In Hong Kong and other Asian regions, however, the Pad 7 Pro is a much better deal, priced at about equivalent of $430 for the tablet, and the keyboard and stylus slightly cheaper than European counterpart too.

This means in Asia, you can get the whole set for under $650, while in Europe, you’re looking at close to $850. This is still a better price than the iPad, but I think once you get to above $700, people will just go for the iPad.

Now I am a champion of Android flagship phones and I scoff at the notion that the best Xiaomi or Vivo phones needs to be cheaper than the iPhone. In my opinion, the best Xiaomi or Vivo phones have noticeable superior cameras than the iPhone, and therefore, earns its high price status. But on the tablet front, no matter how great the Android tablets get, the iPad’s lead in app ecosystem and silicon is noticeable. So in the tablet space, I do think the Android tablet needs to be cheaper. The Pad 7 Pro in Asia is an excellent purchase. In Europe, it depends.