Xiaomi is about to ditch MIUI entirely and start afresh, so hopefully it’s got something better up its sleeve. Whether cheap devices like the Redmi Pad SE will benefit from that upgrade remains to be seen, but there is the promise of two years of OS updates, so you have to hope that it will. Battery Life I think Xiaomi is actually surprisingly good with updates. The first Redmi Pad has already received major version updates and the Pad 5 and 6 are also kept up to date. Since I got the Redmi Pad SE, it has also received a few minor updates. That is great, because that was not the case for many Android tablets for a long time. I think there is no technical reason for this. Xiaomi probably just wants you to spend more money on the 4GB RAM version. After all, I have YouTube Premium and when I browse in Chrome, the picture-in-picture feature works fine. So it should run well when both are displayed the same size right next to each other. The main camera has a resolution of 8 MP and also supports video recording at up to 1080p with 30 FPS. Like the selfie camera, it shines with a good video quality under good lighting conditions, which takes a big hit in low-light situations due to significant image noise. The same holds true for pictures. However, it’s not perfect. Especially the graphics performance could be a good bit better. Therefore, I cannot recommend it as a gaming tablet. It’s also less suitable for working or studying, since there is neither an official keyboard cover nor an active pen.

Xiaomi does everything right with the design. It looks like a typical tablet with a metal case, because that’s what it is. They add their own touch with a large rectangular camera module. It feels premium built, but the transition from display to the body is not as premium as on premium devices. The display is definitely a highlight at the price, as it’s a 90Hz screen. Competitors usually only have 60Hz. So, animations and even some games can look particularly smooth. The simple Redmi Pad also has a 90 Hz screen, bit the original price is 100 Dollars more. A direct competitor from Samsung is the 2022 Edition of the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite. The S Pen is included for a similar price and the tablet has 4 GB of RAM as a standard. The graphics performance is a bit weaker in benchmarks, but you will hardly notice a difference in real-world use. In return, you get good software features like Samsung Notes and Samsung DeX.

Energy Management - Power-Efficient & Large Battery

Just like the Oppo Pad Air, the Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 680. Just like that rival, it’s not quite enough to provide a sufficiently fluid experience. There are four speaker slots punched into the sides and the sound quality is solid. The speakers sound nice and loud. However, the bass is stronger in the S6 Lite in a direct comparison. Still, for YouTube and Netflix, the sound is good. Since the tablet has a Widevine level of L1, you can watch Netflix with HD resolution. Android 12: Three years of updates In real life, the graphics performance is very solid. Games like PUBG Mobile run great when you set the graphics to HD. You cannot select higher settings. Sadly Fortnite is not supported. So, is the Redmi Pad a tablet for you? I think it’s great that for 300 dollars we get a 90Hz display that is quite bright and looks nice. The speakers are solid and the battery life is particularly long, which makes it a good entertainment tablet. What’s also really cool is that Xiaomi promises us two major Android updates. Asphalt 9 is supported, and the graphics look okay, but you have to lower the settings a bit to make it run smoothly. Otherwise, stutters can be seen every now and then. That doesn’t apply to Alto Odyssey, this game runs fantastic, very smoothly and also looks great.

Benchmarks like Geekbench 5 show that it is significantly more powerful than entry-level devices like the realme Pad and Nokia T20. The graphics performance is also better than the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite 2022, which is a direct competitor from the mid-range. However, the Xiaomi Pad 5 up to the iPad 9 and iPad 10 are stronger. The results also look the same in the 3D Mark Wild Life test, which only tests the graphics performance. Currently, Android 12 is preinstalled and the tablet supports all common Android features. Well, except for one, more on that in a moment. The Redmi Pad runs Android 12 with Xiaomi's own MIUI user interface version 13.1. The manufacturer does not include a lot in terms of extra software. Aside from the Google applications and a small collection of Xiaomi tools, only the two third-party apps WPS Office and Netflix - both of which can be removed - come preinstalled. Thanks to DRM Widevine L1 support, the tablet can be used to stream HD-quality content. The Redmi Pad is equipped with a MediaTek Helio G99 chipset, which is supported by 3GB, 4GB or 6GB of RAM. You can choose between 64GB and 128GB storage when buying it, but there is no version with 5G or LTE. I bought the cheapest version.By the way: An active stylus is not supported. And no, the pens of the Xiaomi Pad 5 and 6 do not work either. Design & Build Quality GFXBench: on screen Car Chase Onscreen | 1920x1080 Car Chase Offscreen | on screen Aztec Ruins High Tier Onscreen | 2560x1440 Aztec Ruins High Tier Offscreen | on screen Aztec Ruins Normal Tier Onscreen | 1920x1080 Aztec Ruins Normal Tier Offscreen Wild Life Extreme Unlimited | Wild Life Extreme | Wild Life Unlimited Score | Wild Life Score | 2560x1440 Sling Shot OpenGL ES 3.0 Unlimited | 2560x1440 Sling Shot OpenGL ES 3.0 Unlimited Graphics | 2560x1440 Sling Shot OpenGL ES 3.0 Unlimited Physics | 2560x1440 Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) Unlimited | 2560x1440 Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) Unlimited Graphics | 2560x1440 Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) Unlimited Physics | 2560x1440 Sling Shot Extreme (Vulkan) Unlimited | 2560x1440 Sling Shot Extreme (Vulkan) Unlimited Graphics | 2560x1440 Sling Shot Extreme (Vulkan) Unlimited Physics | 2560x1440 Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) | 2560x1440 Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) Graphics | 2560x1440 Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) Physics | 2560x1440 Sling Shot OpenGL ES 3.0 | 2560x1440 Sling Shot OpenGL ES 3.0 Graphics | 2560x1440 Sling Shot OpenGL ES 3.0 Physics The Redmi Pad SE runs Android 13 out of the box, including the Google Play Store. And MIUI version 14 sits on top of Android, which is exactly the same software that we already know from the simple Redmi Pad thanks to updates, but also roughly from the Xiaomi Pad 5 and 6. And now we get to the big weakness of the Redmi Pad. Single apps like Chrome, YouTube, Microsoft Office and even Adobe Lightroom run pretty well. However, multitasking is a disaster. In fact, you cannot even open two apps side-by-side on the 3GB RAM version. That’s right, Xiaomi has disabled the multi-window mode on this variant.