Xiaomi Mi Pad: The tablet that succeeds at making a mockery of its peers

Last year they came, they saw, then proceeded to systematically vanquish the smartphone market. Xiaomi has effectively rewritten public perception of what a ‘Chinese’ product should look, feel and perform like. With their flash sale approach to driving up anticipation and buzz around upcoming products--much like Apple did, albeit using a different platform--their numbers over the last several months have spoken for itself: five years into founding the company and they are valued at $45 billion, rising to the third largest global smartphone company by sales volume.

So obviously, when news broke of their releasing their tablet into our markets, there was bound to be buzz surrounding it. And it isn’t without justification--here is a 7.9-inch tablet that packs some of the most bleeding-edge hardware at a price that makes the whole deal nothing short of head-scratching.

Pop open the box and like many of their products the contents are Spartan with only the bare minimum of accompanying bundled bits: the wall charger with detachable USB cable and the token quick start guide and warranty card. But stealing that first eyeful is the tablet itself--unabashedly reminiscent of an iPad Mini in size, shape heft and form factor. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Xiaomi has been unquestionably sincere to Cupertino, almost to a fault.

This device pushes several boundaries both in specification and price. Let’s take a closer look: first there’s the IPS screen with a resolution of 1536 x 2048 pixels (that’s a pixel density of about 324 per inch). This translates into laser sharp visuals that do well for everything from taking in TV shows in hi-def, to reading ebooks with absolute ease. Also, the aspect ratio of the screen is 4:3, as opposed to the more conventional 16:9, which means when held like a book, it actually feels a lot like a book. The only downside is that watching any widescreen content will result in black bars above and below the picture. Not a biggie though, in my view.

Then there’s the hardware at the heart of the device: a 2 GHz Quad Core Cortex-A15 with a Kepler GPU (based on the Nvidia Tegra K1 platform) with 2 GB RAM. These components make for a very robust gaming and graphics device; these kinds of specifications generally find their way only into devices of far higher price bands. Whatever apps we threw at it--from watching full HD movies in Kodi to playing games like Dead Space and Asphalt 8: Airborne, the tablet sailed through it all. The device has 16 GB of onboard storage with microSD expansion that can add on another 128 GB; space enough for all your multimedia indulgences.

This is a pure WiFi device--no cellular capabilities--but it does have Bluetooth 4.0. Surprisingly there is no GPS support, so don’t factor it as a device to help you navigate en route on your road trip.

As with many tablets, you may not generally use this as your primary photo device, but this tablet does pack an 8 MP back camera and 5 MP front camera. That said, photos were of average quality with a particularly visible amount of grain when viewed at full size. This was exacerbated by the lack of built-in flash, making it all but unusable in low-light situations.

So the tablet clearly isn’t made for navigation or for the photo buff. But when it comes to applications and use cases that need processing with grunt, the Mi Pad shines. If you need to keep abreast of your videos, take in eBooks and game your heart out, there’s nothing else on the market that can quite match this tablet’s bang for its buck. Until their next tablet perhaps.

What we liked: Very fast processor, expandable memory, hi-res screen, comfortable form factor

What we didn’t: No GPS, mediocre camera