Mi Pad 5, The 300$ iPad Pro Killer?
After seven long years, the Xiaomi pad is finally back in 2015. This is android’s one of the best tablets against the iPads because two reasons:
1. This is not crazy expensive!
2. This is good.
Before I start, let’s get one thing clear, where are android tablets lacking? Tablet,
specific software, features, good accessory support, and good specs, right?
But the Xiaomi pad 5 gets all of those points right mostly.
About MIUI Features
I’ll talk about the design and everything else. First, let me talk about the tablet experience because that’s an essential factor. The Xiaomi pad 5 comes with MIUI-13 based on Android 11. Xiaomi has optimized a few things for the
tablet experience. First, like on MIUI on phones, the notification center opens up from the left, and the control center opens up from the right side. Second, most Xiaomi apps have been optimized for the bigger screen. The settings,
the file manager, and the notes app all have this dual-plane UI that makes better use of the bigger screen in the Mi Pad 5 pad also has this dock. Where have I seen this before? Yes, iPad OS! I mean, Xiaomi’s, it’s kind of expected.
The dock shows you the apps you have pinned on the pier. The right offers you the most recent apps you have opened on the left. Now, this dock is available in all apps, so if I’m in chrome, I can swipe up from the left side to the right side to open this dock. I can press hold and app and open it in a floating window. Or I can just drag an app and drop it to open it in a floating window. This is very cool, and I know very iPad OS-like.
What’s remarkable is that I can open up another app in a floating window where you can have two apps at max in the floating window. I can resize these floating windows and move them around or hold an app and bring it to the side to open it on the split-screen. With chrome, yeah, this is awesome. I also noticed that the multitasking screen has been optimized for the bigger screen, apart from these multitasking features. You can also press hold on an app here to open it on a split-screen, or you can open it in a floating window. Now, these features are excellent, but if there’s one area where Xiaomi needs to work on, that’s the ecosystem features. Because apart from Mi share, there are no connected features between the Xiaomi pad 5 and other Xiaomi phones and other Xiaomi laptops. Also, another exciting thing about MIUI on this tablet is bloatware. Actually, there’s absolutely no bloatware. Only NetFlix pre-installed. I mean, this is a tablet fresh after setup, and there are only a few new apps, some google apps, and that’s all. This is good. I also did not notice any ads or even the infamous MIUI glass lock screen feature. This is a clean experience that is a pleasant surprise for me.
Basically, the software experience here is good, and when Xiaomi hasn’t revealed the software update schedule for this device. They have confirmed that they are working on the android 12 updates for this definitely suitable device.
Pen and keyboard
The tablet has this magnetic connector to wirelessly charge the Xiaomi smartpen. There’s a pogo pin connector on the opposite side to connect accessories like the keyboard.
Xiaomi sells a pen and a keyboard with the Xiaomi pad 5 separately, and I have used them. They’re pretty cool accessories.
Formfactor
The Xiaomi pack design is inspired by the modern pads with square edges, aluminum frames, and narrow bezels. On the front, the back has this glass-like polished finish, which is actually plastic for the in-hand feel. This looks and feels like a premium tablet, but this is an 11-inch tablet, so you have to use it with two hands. This tab is thin at 6.9 millimeters but slightly heavy at 511 grams. The USB-C port at the bottom and a power button on the top volume locker on the right top.
Now there’s no headphone jack or micro sd slot. There’s no fingerprint scanner, just a face unlock method, and there’s no LTE variant for the Xiaomi pad 5, so there’s no sim slot. Apart from the Xiaomi pad 5, the design of the accessories is hyped up because it brings good specs for the price.
Display and Audio
The display is a 10-bit IPS LCD 120-hertz panel with high resolution. And to be clear, this display is not the best I’ve ever seen on a tablet, but in this price range, this is an absolute beauty. The colors are really excellent. There’s a good contrast. It’s a sharp high, resolution display. The typical brightness is 500nits, similar to the iPad 9 gen, iPad air. But it can go up to 650 nits in the high brightness mode. This big higher refresh rate screen just looks so fluid and pleasant. One thing to note is that the Xiaomi pad 5 does not have haptic feedback. There are no vibration settings, which is fine because even iPads don’t have haptic feedback. Although some Samsung tablets do have this, so yeah, something you should know is the screen also supports hdr10 and Dolby vision, and it shows in apps like Netflix. This is the playback specification page in Netflix, not just this. You can see the Dolby vision tag in shows and movies, which is fine. But what really matters is that watching shows and movies is a fantastic experience on the screen.
Complementing this beautiful display are the quad speakers with Dolby Atmos support. There are two speakers on each side. The Xiaomi pad 5 uses the gyroscope to ensure that it detects the two speakers on the left as the left channel when you are using the tablet in landscape. Using the tablet in portrait changes the top left and bottom left speakers as the left channel.
It’s a simple feature, but it’s pretty cool if you ask me. As for the speakers, they are good. Xiaomi hasn’t made any compromises here; I mean, the base is not very punchy, but other than that, these are loud and crisp speakers.
Performance
Another area where the Xiaomi pad 5 feels good is on the performance front. A snapdragon 860 lpddr4x ram UFS 3.1 storage and special mentioned that Xiaomi pad 5 has a base variant with 128 GB storage, unlike many pads and Samsung tablets. And what’s good is that this feels like a fast and smooth tab. Everything is super snappy to use. all the MIUI gestures multitasking features work without any stutter or lag, and I think you relate to this.
Many Android tablets show lag when you switch from portrait to landscape. You know who these tablets are, and there’s no such issue here. Gaming is top-notch to the asphalt on this tablet. It looks great and plays excellent you can see that there’s no lag. It’s an outstanding experience, and it’s the same with PUBGm. I suppose the highest graphic settings are ultra HD and ultra. Even in this intensive setting, the game was very smooth and pleasant. I’m not used to playing on a tablet, but the experience is down the line.
Battery
The battery is an 8720 mah battery, and there’s a 22.5-watt charger in the box, although this tablet supports 33 watts charging. Now I’m here to test the battery performance, but the battery size is pretty standard for 10 and 11-inch tablets, so it should be good. The Xiaomi pad 5 has an 8-megapixel camera capable of 1080p 30fps video on the front. There’s a 13-megapixel camera on the rear capable of 4k 30fps video. The rear camera is obviously superior, but I found the front camera to
be pretty good, too there are four mics on the tablet.
Connectivity
Lastly, on the connectivity front, there’s dual-band wi-fi five Bluetooth 5.0, and one thing to know is the tablet does not have GPS. See, apps like google maps do work showing you your location using wi-fi, but when I ran a couple of GPS test apps, they came up blank again. Even on the wi-fi only variant of the pads, there’s no GPS. Only the cellular versions do, so maybe GPS is only available with devices with cellular connectivity.
Pricing
Coming to the pricing, the Xiaomi pad 5 started at 300$. Now, this is excellent pricing. The nearest iPad is the iPad 9th Gen (329$) at this price. Compared to the iPad 9 gen, the Xiaomi The pad has a more modern design with slimmer bezels and a slimmer frame. It also has a better higher refresh rate screen, and the performance is good in the Xiaomi pad 5. Still, the A13 bionic in the iPad is even more powerful now. Both of these support styluses and keyboard accessories, and as for the software MIUI for the pad is good. Still, the iPad os is more mature in apps and features. Also, the iPad 9 gen has an LTE variant.
The Xiaomi pad 5 is probably android’s best bet against the iPads. Still, if you’re in the Android ecosystem, this is perhaps the best iPad alternative you have.
