Xiaomi Pad 7 hands-on review

Display

The Xiaomi Pad 7 has a 11.2-inch IPS LCD panel with a resolution of 3200x2136. Xiaomi claims a maximum refresh rate of 144Hz with 600 nits of maximum brightness and 800 nits peak HBM brightness. The display has a 360Hz touch sampling rate and 240Hz for the stylus. The device also supports HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision.

By default, the display has a glossy finished glass. However, Xiaomi also offers a nano-textured display option on the highest end variant for an additional fee. This version significantly reduces the reflections and glare on the glass and also provides a paper-like texture, which should make using the stylus easier. As you can probably tell, our review unit does not have this optional extra.

Starting with the resolution and aspect ratio, the Xiaomi Pad 7 is a good improvement over its predecessor. While the resolution isn't significantly higher, the switch to a 3:2 aspect ratio makes the display much more pleasant to use in landscape mode, especially with the keyboard accessory.

The IPS panel on the Pad 7 has good color accuracy and viewing angles. The display also gets sufficiently bright even for use outdoors. Of course, if you intend to use the device outdoors a lot, you should definitely consider investing in the nano-textured option.

The display does have some shortcomings. First of all, the 144Hz claimed number for the maximum refresh rate could not be verified. In every single app we tried, the highest refresh rate achieved was 120Hz. We even checked some drawing apps to see if using the stylus would boost the refresh rate to its maximum but that also did not happen. In fact, in automatic refresh rate mode, using the stylus dropped the refresh rate in some apps from their usual 90Hz to 60Hz.

The screen supports multiple refresh rates, including 30Hz, 48Hz, 50Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, and 144Hz. Aside from never being able to access 144Hz, the device also often just picked 50Hz for 24Hz content instead of 48Hz. We also never actually saw the device switch to 30Hz as even at idle, the lowest the display would switch to was 50Hz.

Next is the HDR performance. Despite having wide gamut support and getting reasonably bright, HDR performance is nothing to write home about. At the end of the day, you can only get so much local contrast out of a standard edge-lit LCD with mediocre black levels so the end result is HDR content that looks no different than SDR content. As usual, do not be swayed by HDR labels on an LCD panel. If you want true HDR, look for OLED.

Accessories

As mentioned before, the Xiaomi Pad 7 has three official accessories, the Xiaomi Pad 7 Cover, the Xiaomi Pad 7 Focus Pen, and the Xiaomi Pad 7 Focus Keyboard.

The Pad 7 Cover is a magnetic double sided cover that can protect the device when closed but can also be folded in various ways to form a kickstand that allows you to position the device in both landscape and portrait orientations. This is the only accessory we didn't have actual hands-on time with but it seems fairly self explanatory. In India, it is priced at INR 1,499.

Next is the Focus Pen, which is a stylus with 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity and a claimed 3ms latency. The stylus features buttons that can be pressed to access various functionality, such as turning it into a pointer of somewhat spotty accuracy. As a stylus, it works well in our limited artistic experience but if you intend to draw a lot then the nano-texture display option should also be added to the list. The Focus Pen is priced at INR 5,999 and the nano-textured display will set you back another INR 2,000.

Finally, it's the Focus Keyboard, which is the best of the bunch. It features a floating hinge design, similar to the iPad keyboard accessories. The keys are spacious with excellent tactility and feedback that makes them a breeze to type on. The keys are also backlit, which makes them usable even in the dark. There's also a tiny trackpad provided below, which is perfectly serviceable. The Focus Keyboard is priced at INR 8,999 and is an absolute must-have if you plan on doing any work on the Pad 7.

Charging

The Xiaomi Pad 7 features a dual-cell 8850mAh battery. The device supports 45W fast charging, and a matching charger is provided in the box.

With the supplied charger, the Xiaomi Pad 7 takes about 98 minutes for a full charge, which is just over the 95 minutes claimed figure.

Out of curiosity, we also tested with the company's 90W charger. Despite claiming to support only 45W charging, the Xiaomi Pad 7 posted significantly improved results with the 90W charger, with the 1-100% times being reduced to around 76 minutes. The 30 minute charge also improved to around 49% from 35%, although the 15 minute time didn't change much.