Portability is an important aspect for most who prefer or need to carry their work on the go. The new Xiaomi Pad Mini covers just that. With its slim frame and smooth performance, loaded with the latest innovations like AI integration, this small powerhouse can be a great accompaniment for students, professionals, and casual users alike.
Design and build
The compact and sleek design of the Xiaomi Pad Mini allows it to be easily carried around and slipped into even smaller bags. You could even carry it with a single-hand grip, and it fits inside deep pockets. This makes it so convenient that you wouldn’t have to worry about carrying a bigger bag or case, compared to when lugging a laptop. It is so thin that even the Xiaomi Focus Pen is thicker compared to it. Despite its lightweight build, it is housed in a metal body that has enough weight for it to still feel premium and secure.
The Xiaomi Pad Mini Cover adds to its portability with a built-in ergonomic grip that you can pull out and tuck back in to be flush with the cover. I found that the grip can also double as a stand when using it in landscape mode, and it was how I preferred using the device while on a desk. Whether or not this was intentionally made to be used this way, it proved to be stable and very helpful in terms of lessening possible neck strain when writing, reading, or browsing, so it was a welcome discovery.
The device is also compatible with the Xiaomi Focus Pen and has a dedicated magnetic latch on its side where the pen can rest and connect comfortably. This also allows the pen to charge and connect to the device seamlessly. The productivity enhancement this pen will give will be further elaborated later on. The Pad Mini Cover also has a cutout that allows the pen to fit, while allowing ample protection for the Xiaomi Pad Mini. To those who already own the Redmi Smart Pen, there is good news for you. This device is fully compatible with it, so you may also continue to use it for your convenience.
Display
The device has an 8.8-inch touchscreen, comfortable to be both big enough to browse and small enough to hold. This screen of the Xiaomi Pad Mini is wide enough to easily multitask without the feeling of sacrificing space, so it is also a good screen size for watching videos.
It has an ultra-sharp 3K display containing 403 pixels per inch, allowing good clarity when streaming movies, with a 165Hz ultra-high adaptive refresh rate that could be very useful not only for a smooth experience and productive workflow, but also for those who enjoy gaming. The 3008×1880 (16:10) display ratio allows the screen to fit more content which may improve productivity. However, it is important to note that certain applications or games may not be optimized to fit this specific ratio. To add to that note, as of the games and applications that I have downloaded thus far, I have yet to see one that doesn’t support this ratio, so it still handles well on its own.
Additionally, the Xiaomi Pad Mini is certified by the TÜV Rheinland for low blue light and flicker-free viewing. This means that, whether you’re studying or working for long hours, binge-watching your favorite Netflix series, playing your favorite game, or even reading a new book that has got you hooked, this display can be forgiving and gentle on the eyes, even despite those long sessions.
Multi-tasking and productivity
The interface includes a lot of options for multitasking that could easily speed up your workflow and improve your productivity. This makes it a good main workforce or a great accompaniment for your studies. During your downtime, this allows you to watch your favorite streamer while you’re browsing. The device has a few overlays that easily allow you to adjust the split-screen or picture-in-picture multi-task modes, and even gives you a brief explanation on how you could work with it the first time you use it. This is all very intuitive and user-friendly thanks to MIUI Pad OS.
You are also able to easily find what you need with the Google search bar integrated onto the device, and having the added assistance of Google Gemini can make your workflow or casual browsing much more efficient.
Xiaomi Focus Pen
This pen very easily integrates with the Xiaomi Pad Mini. Once connected, the pen just immediately works without having to reconnect it. It easily stays in place with the magnet on the side, so it is ready to be picked up and used when needed. It also has a few buttons that could help you speed up the process of your actions, so that you don’t need to let go of the pen when using it. The responsiveness of the pen is very good, and it is also pressure sensitive. This is very useful for instances like creating artwork using the Mi Canvas.
Take note, however, that using the pen does not stop your fingers or hand from interacting with the screen. The only downside I saw to this was in some minimal moments when I’d be using the pen to draw and my palm ends up resting on the screen. This sometimes triggers it to move or even make a stroke. This didn’t affect my workflow that often and is simply something you can take note of and be aware of.
Connectivity
Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 make this device even more helpful when speed matters in your productive workflow. Downloading storage-heavy games felt very fast and allowed me to play a certain game immediately after installing it, and connecting to the Xiaomi Smart Band with Bluetooth was near instant. The integrated Xiaomi Smart Hub also allows you to sync across your different Xiaomi devices, including your smart home devices. This allows for very seamless connectivity, especially if you are fully integrated in the Xiaomi ecosystem.
Camera
The camera is decent and consists of a lot of features, including filters and beauty enhancements named “Beautify” if that suits your fancy. However, it does struggle a bit with low light. Using the flash does help it in this aspect.
Where this device makes up for it, though, is its integrated AI editing features in your gallery. It includes Enhance, Expand, Erase, Remove Reflections, and Sky. Erase works pretty well, easily removing unwanted clutter from the backgrounds of your photos, but I did notice a few stutters in more complicated objects. The Expand feature is very flexible and helpful for those photos where you’d want to add more of a background or even change the aspect ratio from a portrait to a square.
I tried using this Expand feature for a shot I took at a coffee shop, testing its limits with all the multiple objects in the background. It did pleasantly surprise me. The AI managed to do well in continuing a lot of the cut-out objects, although a barely visible line is seen at the point where it expands. Still, it did relatively well, and this line is nonexistent when I tried the feature in images where the background is not as messy.
Battery and storage
The battery of the Xiaomi Pad Mini feels long enough for the time you may need it for productivity, browsing, AI usage, and gaming. I’ve tried spending most of the day watching YouTube videos, browsing the internet, and playing quite a few games on this device, and the battery still had more than a third of power left, so I didn’t feel the need to charge it when nighttime came.
When looking at the battery tab after charging it fully, it showed me that I still had 39 1/2 hours more worth of use, and even 48 1/2 more hours if I put the device on battery saver more. This is all already after around 3 hours of active usage. This backs up the 7500mAh battery claims that ensure all-day use.
For those who like switching between landscape and portrait mode, it has dual USB-C charging ports available on two different sides, which is a welcome and very interesting feature that I have not seen before. This allows you to charge the device where convenient, depending on the orientation you are using it, or what is closer to the socket.
The 67W HyperCharge power brick allows you to get quick charging capabilities. Xiaomi claims to get you back to full in just 45 minutes. Although, upon testing, this didn’t happen when I drained the battery to zero. Still, the charge was fast enough that it reached half full from zero after an hour. Keep in mind that this was done with the battery completely drained, which took me quite a while to do. This means that when using it with the recommended and regular usage, if you charge your Xiaomi Pad Mini before the battery depletes to around 20%, you’ll still be able get your device to the recommended level (80%) in an hour or less. These short charging times allowing you nearly 50 hours worth of use could make this device worth it for students and professionals alike. It means that you won’t have to worry too much about your device dying on you when you’re in the middle of working at a coffee shop and forgot to bring a charger.
Another cool feature that the Xiaomi Pad Mini has is its 18W Wired Reverse Charging. This means that if you find yourself outdoors with your phone low in power and you need to book yourself a ride home, or if your earbuds need a bit of a top-up to make your next commute more bearable, you could easily share the power and give yourself that boost in reassurance.
There is also battery protection and smart charging in this device. The battery tab includes an indicator of temperature, number of charges for the day, and usage of battery per application, which can help you keep the battery of your Xiaomi Pad Mini as healthy for as long as possible.
The device I tested had 512GB of storage, which is more than enough for what this device’s usage may need. There is also a 256GB variant if that suits you more, and you don’t need more storage space. There is also a cleaner where you can clear your cache in the storage settings, and deep clean tools in the event you may need the extra space, or would just like to get rid of unnecessarily used up storage space.
Performance
Doubling down on the performance of this device with its fast refresh rate is the 3nm MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ flagship chip. This allows for smooth visuals, very little input lag, and seamless multitasking for productivity, which is a huge bonus not only for professionals but also for gaming enthusiasts. The specific device I tested has 16GB of RAM, but an 8GB version is also available.
The whole time I used it, I didn’t experience any stutters or lags. The screen moved when I wanted to, and the interface was very responsive, even when using the Xiaomi Focus Pen. None of the games I tried also lagged or crashed, which shows that this chip is capable of handling even heavy GPU loads.
Gaming
As mentioned, the 165Hz refresh rate and flagship chip makes gaming on this device very satisfying, as it allows for very smooth visuals. I’ve used it to play games ranging from simple ones like Pokemon TCG Pocket to heavier ones like EA Sports FC Mobile Soccer, and I didn’t feel any struggle with the device’s performance. The Xiaomi Pad Mini also easily handled FPS games like Call of Duty: Mobile, and it felt very responsive to the on-screen controls.
The Xiaomi Pad Mini also has Game Turbo — a feature that could enhance your gaming experience even more. I was amazed when it showed as a sleek shortcut that you could easily pull out and hide while I was in the middle of playing Call of Duty. Thanks to the shortcut, I was able to change the gaming mode from Balanced to Wild Boost without having to exit the game.
There is also a dedicated application if you would like to set this up outside of your game. This allows you to adjust the GPU settings depending on the look and performance you want for each and every game that you have on your device. There are different presets where you could have your game set to modes like Balanced, High Quality, or Save Power, or fully customize settings to your liking, depending on the game. These include the frame rate, resolution, texture, etc. This shows that gaming on this small powerhouse can be fully customizable for a gaming enthusiast’s needs.
Some games are created with a different aspect ratio. However, that doesn’t make this device fully incompatible. An example is with Call of Duty: Mobile. It allows you to choose between the original wider interface with the inclusion of having black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, or to fill up the whole screen but sacrifice seeing more of the peripherals of the game.
Both could work, depending on your preference, but one could consider the fact that a zoomed screen can be a setback, as it isn’t wide enough for you to see enemies earlier in your peripherals in games like Call of Duty. In other games, it may not matter as much. With that, this may still be adjusted as per one’s preference.
AI for enhanced productivity and creativity
I tried out a lot of the AI features on this device, and I could see how this could easily be one of the fun, exciting, and useful things this device has to offer for you. The Xiaomi Pad Mini is packed with AI that you could easily make the most out of when doing a wide range of tasks. Whether you’re in the camera or gallery app, the notes app, browsing the internet, or drawing in Mi Canvas, Xiaomi Hyper AI could do so much to elevate your experience, making your Xiaomi Pad Mini experience simpler, more convenient, and more efficient. It is also important to note that, even with Xiaomi Hyper AI off, the device still lets you use a lot of the AI features and capabilities of the Xiaomi Pad Mini.
You could easily use AI features as they can show up in different applications that you are using. Just like how I found out about the AI feature in the gallery app when I was in the middle of editing a photo as I mentioned earlier.
For productivity, an example where you could get assistance for this is with AI writing. It helps you draft, summarize, brainstorm, or list things you need. On the Notes app, I tried letting it give me a packing list for a trip, and it very quickly gave a list and fixed the formatting within a couple of seconds. You see this being made in real time, and you could make it stop when you’d like. This could be very helpful when you want help to get started on certain things, and then adjust it to fit your needs and preferences even more.
Another very impressive feature in the Notes app that I really enjoyed using and showing to different people was the AI Calculator. You can write out a calculation with your Xiaomi Focus Pen, and after writing the equals sign, the AI will write out the answer for you. It goes as far as copying your handwriting. This makes the whole equation look even more seamless. You are also able to edit and add more to the equation, or make it even more complex — which I had a lot of fun trying out — and the answer would update accordingly.
Impressively, I thought that the AI feature would only be usable when there is an internet connection involved. But when I tried using it to show the feature to someone, it worked without the device being connected to any Wi-Fi. This could be very helpful if you find yourself in those specific situations where your device isn’t connected to the internet. At the same time, I also did not try extremely complex equations and all AI features, so I am unable to fully disclose which AI features could work offline, or if all do.
With AI Speech Recognition, you are also able to transcribe effortlessly. With the Recorder app, I tried speaking in a different language, and it easily and very quickly transcribed and even translated the transcript. You are also able to let it generate a summary of the recording for you, which can be very useful.
Elaborating on the translation features, AI Interpreter is also able to translate for you in real time, whether it is a conversation you are having with a person in front of you, a phone call, or even an online meeting. This makes communicating that much easier and convenient for both parties involved.
For the creatives, or even non-creatives who want to create something, AI Art within the Mi Canvas can be very fun to use. You can draw even something as simple as a line-art drawing and have AI create a more finished artwork for you. It will follow the orientation you made for your drawing, and you could even fix the prompt to be more specific with how you want the outcome to look. You are also easily able to switch between art styles. This can be very helpful for those who would like to add more art or drawings to certain presentations or graphics, without needing to spend too much time on it, allowing you to focus on other things. It can also just be something one could use when they’d like to draw or create something for fun.
However, take note that despite there being a range to choose from, the art styles are still very limited, and I felt the enhancements can also still feel a bit confined. There were some moments I wasn’t fully satisfied with the result, or I felt that I didn’t fully understand the dimensions of the simple drawings I made, but that could improve even more in the future. Despite that, you may put a bit more time into it and tweak more with the prompt until it results in something that works for you.
For browsing, you can use Circle to Search to help you immediately find what you need, and Google Gemini to assist you instantaneously. A simple example is circling a dog photo to find out which breed they are, or circling something on your browser that you would like to know more about, or even highlighting or tapping something that you are curious about, without having to leave the app that you are on and type it all in a new search bar. Plus, having Google’s AI assistant makes writing and learning that much quicker and accessible.
Verdict
The main thing I noticed with the Xiaomi Pad Mini is how easy it is to bring around, and I think that’s where this can excel and fill one’s need and preference for portability. It is so easy to pack into smaller bags or even wide jacket pockets, while still being bigger than a phone. This fills the gap between phones needing more screen estate in order to multitask, study, or work more productively, and laptops possibly being too big or heavy for your needs.
The Xiaomi Pad Mini is ideal for those instances where portability matters a lot. It does really well integrating artificial intelligence into your daily tasks, and really allows for a great balance between work and play, giving you enough features that would make both aspects very enjoyable. Starting at PHP 25,999, this can be suitable and more affordable to students and young professionals alike who want to step up their productivity and workflow, all graspable within the palm of their hand.
