When asked what 7-8 inch tablets I recommend, the Mi Pad is one of the first that comes to mind. It’s slim, fits into my cargo pants’ pockets, it’s sturdy, the display is vibrant, movies look good on it, the sound is loud enough for cat video sharing even in a slightly noisy room. The UI is intuitive and it’s not that out of reach for such a good package – P10,999.00.
After all, nearly everything about this tablet was designed to get out of your way so you can enjoy your apps, your Clash of Clans, your long and simultaneous chats, your video marathons, your long nights of social media stalking, and your eBook reading pile.
Here’s a quick video of my real world usage of the Mi Pad, before we get to the list of Good and Maybe Bad, which, in turn, leads to the Wrap Up.
Get the Mi Pad on Lazada.com.ph here.
Here’s a quick unboxing – note Xiaomi’s preference for Spartan contents.
The Good
The Mi Pad can run anything – any app and game in the Play Store or any movie or video you want to watch and watch again – at least when you don’t flood it by launching one app after another without killing apps still running in the background.
The physique of the Mi Pad is designed to gain your trust – it’s sturdy, doesn’t feel cheap, it’s light and tight, there are no superfluous physical features or buttons that call attention to itself and thereby waste your time – so you can get on with loading your apps and watching your videos or staring at other people’s photos.
Great display meets favorite series on a posh and comfy tablet with a long battery life.
The display is great (that 1536×2048 resolution is really something): images are crisp, colors are punchy, viewing angles superb, videos look vibrant. You can watch the drabbest, most boring videos on YouTube and you can see exactly what they are drab and boring – because you see everything so damn clearly.
Face it, you will be doing a lot of Facebook on this.
Audio is loud enough, without sounding strained. Not to encourage watching in public with the volume cranked to max, but if you need to share a cat video people simply must watch and listen to, it can be done.
Here’s how small the Mi Pad is, that laptop is the 12.5″ ASUS Transformer Book T300 Chi.
Impressive battery life. Heavy non-stop gaming and video watching rakes in about 5 hours of use. Moderate usage – Facebook, Manga-reading, casual browsing, chats, a few YouTube videos – gets you about two days of use. We’d suggest a power bank but the Mi Pad doesn’t need one.
Sample shot from the Mi Pad’s rear camera.
Decent rear camera, with adequate lighting. This is great because once you take group pics of friends and family, they’ll want to see the pics you took. Good thing the camera is good and the display is great. As with many tablet rear cameras, the Mi Pad’s struggles in low light.
Love Fliboard? This is your tuck-me-into-bed late night reading tablet.
The Maybe Bad
Running multiple apps can slow down the Mi Pad. The 2GB of RAM is the culprit here. While we can be reminded to kill other apps before launching heavy, RAM-hogging ones, we can blame the likes of the ASUS ZenFone 2 for introducing the 4GB RAM experience, wherein you basically don’t care how many apps you load and switch between. But with an awareness of the Mi Pad’s limits, you can still get a smooth experience. Just kill apps in the background the moment you notice a slow down. If you own a Redmi 2, then you know what to do.
No GPS. If you’re OK with this, and you only need a pure entertainment tablet, then the Mi Pad it is.
The Mi Pad’s on screen keyboard is a joy to type on.
No call or text functions – no SIM card tray. You still have your phone for that, but if you were planning to make the Mi Pad the only Android you’ll bring with you, it can’t be.
4:3 aspect ratio, while comfortable to look at, leaves black bands on the top and bottom of many videos, especially those in 16:9 aspect ratio.
The Wrap Up
Thin, slim, light, and tight body. Bright, vivid display. Loud sound. Sized like a notebook so it should fit in any bag larger than a purse. Long battery life. Decently priced. It’s almost the perfect media consumption and gaming tablet – makes for a great gift, too. Just make sure you’re fine with the lack of GPS, text and call functions, and the slow down once tons of apps have been launched (it’s not a multitasker’s tablet). Otherwise, and when you remember to kill apps in the background (to speed things up), it’s a great niche device. You’ll lose hours of your life to this tablet.
Get the Mi Pad on Lazada.com.ph here.
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