The Xiaomi Pad 7 is an 11.2-inch Android tablet packed with impressive hardware and software. Designed to provide a near-PC user experience in a compact tablet format, the Pad 7 is a standout piece of tech. Its aluminum construction, beautiful display, powerful specs and refined operating system all work together to offer a true alternative to the iPad I’ve been waiting for.
The Pad 7 is the next evolution in Xiaomi’s Pad series, replacing the Pad 6 that came before it. As such, a host of updates have been made—most notably in the processor, RAM and display—all of which have seen notable improvements over the previous generation. Some standout features have carried over as well, such as the all-aluminum unibody design, quad-speaker layout and impressive battery capacity.
The aluminum outer shell offers a sleek and sturdy structure for the Pad 7. The rear panel is seamless and houses the rear camera assembly in the upper-left corner, along with three contacts in the upper-right corner that serve as the connection point for the Pad 7’s keyboard accessories (sold separately; more on this in a moment). Volume and power buttons are housed along the top and left side of the tablet, respectively, leaving plenty of room for the Xiaomi Focus Pen (also sold separately) to attach magnetically. A single USB-C port is located on the right side, supporting 45W turbocharging—though, unfortunately, no charger brick is included.
“The Pad 7 truly is a competitor for the iPad, both in hardware and software, but perhaps more importantly, in ecosystem implementation.”
The Pad 7 measures 251.22 mm (h) × 173.42 mm (w) × 6.18 mm (t) and weighs 500 g. It’s comparable in size and weight to the 10th-generation iPad, being slightly smaller and heavier. As a daily carry, it feels great to hold, is easy to store in a bag, and feels rugged enough to toss in my satchel without concern. It’s well-built and looks sharp.
Examining the face of the Pad 7 reveals the aforementioned beautiful 11.2-inch, 3.2K (3200 × 2136), 144 Hz display. This screen is one of the highlights of the Pad 7, offering gorgeous Pro HDR visuals with 68 billion colours. It provides a rich and crystal-clear viewing experience, with an impressive 800-nit peak brightness and adaptive refresh rate up to 360 Hz. Watching videos—and even performing daily productivity tasks—looks great and feels like a real treat.
The capacitive touchscreen is equally pleasing to use. It’s exceptionally responsive, whether you’re working with your fingers or the Xiaomi Focus Pen. While the Focus Pen is a separately sold accessory, I highly recommend picking it up. In testing, it performed exceptionally well and responded very similarly to the Apple Pencil Pro—at a fraction of the price.
Shifting focus from external to internal, Xiaomi has managed to deliver an impressively powerful tablet at a highly competitive price. The Pad 7 features a Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 Mobile processor, 12+4 GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and 256 GB of UFS 4.0 storage (other models available). Combined, the Pad 7 becomes a powerhouse for both productivity and entertainment. During testing, it was highly responsive, easily handling multitasking and dual-app work.
The latter is a treat on the Pad 7 and works seamlessly. While this feature isn’t new, I’ve found that on most Android devices, the experience tends to be a bit clunky and inconsistent. That wasn’t the case with the Pad 7, which was easy to set up, simple to use, and has become a staple in my daily productivity workflow.
On that note, Xiaomi was kind enough to send over several accessories for testing. While I’ve already touched on the excellent Xiaomi Focus Pen, the Pro Cover and Pro Keyboard are also excellent to work with. The cover functions much like the Kobo cover, providing a tilt stand thanks to engineered creases that fold to support the Pad 7 in both landscape and portrait modes. The Pro Keyboard, on the other hand, offers a folding stand and keyboard experience. Both work well and are in line with what I’d expect from premium tablet accessories.
“The quality-of-life features present in this Android OS are both impressive and user-friendly—not to mention incredibly smooth and responsive.”
The real standout in this lineup, though, is the new Pro Focus Keyboard. It features a floating design for the Pad 7, with a small backplane that magnetically secures the device while providing a sturdy base housing a backlit keyboard and touchpad. This has quickly become my go-to accessory—along with the Pen—and together they create one of the best tablet workspace experiences I’ve had to date. It’s the most PC-like experience I’ve encountered on a tablet and truly maximizes the impressive operating system that comes with the Pad 7.
Focusing on productivity for a moment longer, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Xiaomi’s HyperOS 2.0. While I tend to be gun-shy about an OS layered over the stock Android experience, Xiaomi’s HyperOS 2.0 has impressed me. The quality-of-life features present in this Android OS are both impressive and user-friendly—not to mention incredibly smooth and responsive.
While many features could be highlighted, a few standouts are worth mentioning here. The first is the new Home Screen+ 2.0, which allows you to directly control your Xiaomi phone from the Pad 7 natively, without any additional software. Upon firing up the Pad 7 for the first time, my Poco phone (part of the Xiaomi brand) was immediately recognized. Clicking an icon on the dock brought up the phone’s home screen, anchored to the right side of the tablet. From there, I had full control over both the phone and Pad 7 simultaneously. More impressive still is the ability to pin phone apps to the Pad 7’s home screen.
Another standout feature is the Cross-Device Camera function. As the name suggests, when making a video call, the Pad 7 will prompt you to select either the onboard camera or your Xiaomi-compatible smartphone’s camera as the main camera for the call. In testing, it worked seamlessly, required no setup, and was integrated directly into the video call process.
These types of features are reminiscent of the Apple ecosystem, which looks for new and creative ways to integrate all of your tech into the user experience. In the case of the Xiaomi ecosystem, the company has leveraged lessons learned from Apple and improved or refined them to suit its own hardware. The result is a truly seamless user experience that raises the quality of life and usability of Xiaomi’s hardware to a level I’ve not experienced outside of Apple’s ecosystem.
On the topic of video calling, there are some other unique and impressive features to note. The first is the fill light, which uses a small portion of the outer edge of the display to act as a fill light during video calls. The software increases the white light’s brightness, providing a subtle but effective enhancement to the subject. It works well in conjunction with the 8 MP front camera, which offers smooth 1080p, 30 fps capture.
Another notable feature—one that extends beyond video calling—is the four-speaker system. It offers a loud listening experience without sacrificing quality. I was quite impressed with the audio system on the Pad 7 overall. It delivered a clean and clear audio profile with notable bass and crisp mids and highs. While it’s not competing in any meaningful way with a dedicated sound system, it offers an above-average listening experience for a tablet—and one of the better ones I’ve tested.
“If you are looking for a premium Android tablet experience, the Xiaomi Pad 7 is the tablet for you.”
Heavier application processing is just as impressive with the Pad 7, which has no issue playing titles like Diablo Immortal and Genshin Impact. It even makes it easy to connect a Bluetooth controller and enjoy a more console-like experience (in part thanks to the aforementioned display). Video and audio streaming are just as impressive. In every way, the Pad 7 provides an excellent user experience.
Battery life has been superb as well. With an 8,850 mAh battery (slightly larger than the Pad 6’s 8,840 mAh battery), the Pad 7 has no issues getting you through a few days of work as a supplementary device or a full day of work as your main productivity machine. In testing, I averaged about a day and a half of heavy usage before needing to charge the device. This included lots of notes, which in turn meant lots of pen charging, done wirelessly via the magnetic mounting point mentioned earlier, as well as editing, streaming, and productivity tasks such as emails and word processing.
For those worried about running out of battery in the middle of the workday, the 45W Turbo charging helps alleviate this fear. With a 30-minute to 40% charge capacity (tested in-house), even if you run low on battery, it’s easy to get enough juice quickly to get you through the rest of your day. While I was slightly disappointed to see no charging brick included, I was able to easily leverage my MacBook charger while working.
Both the 8 MP front camera and 13 MP rear camera support 1080p 30 FPS capture and manage autofocusing and white balance quite well. While low-light settings were a bit of a struggle for the front camera during a video call, the aforementioned fill light compensated nicely, allowing the front camera to provide a clean and clear capture. Both work well in their intended setting.
Xiaomi’s slogan for the Pad 7 is “Focus Your Flow,” and in this goal, they have more than excelled. Every aspect of the design and implementation speaks to this goal, and all are executed with intention and to a great degree of success. The Pad 7 truly is a competitor for the iPad, both in hardware and software, but perhaps more importantly, in ecosystem implementation. The Xiaomi Pad 7 offers one of the most user-friendly cross-device experiences I’ve tested to date and one that helps it easily earn its $469.99 price tag. If you are looking for a premium Android tablet experience, the Xiaomi Pad 7 is the tablet for you.
