Balancing work and play 2025

Tablets cross the no-man’s land between phones and laptops, aiming to provide a mix of entertainment, productivity and creativity while remaining portable. This statement makes slates the think they are, and the promise of a device that can do all that, continues to attract me to these gadgets in a way that’s hard to put down in words. These sleek slabs of metal and glass play well with an assortment of different accessories that not only enhance the user experience, but also add functionality. Some brands have tried this approach of introducing accessories such as keyboards and pens with their tablet offerings, especially in the mid-range and premium segments. On that note, I have the new Xiaomi Pad 7, which is the latest contender in this space. Coming as the successor to the Xiaomi Pad 6 (Review) that launched back in 2023, the latest slate brings upgraded specs, tons of improvements, and a tagline that says “do it all”. Let’s see if it can live up to that.

Design and performance

The tablet sports premium metal construction and comes in Graphite Grey, Mirage Purple and Sage Green. I have the Mirage Purple for review and I must say it looks more silver than purple, although there are hints of the latter at some angles. The device is quite substantial, measuring just 6.18mm thick. Tipping the scales at 500 grams, I wouldn’t call it featherweight, but it’s not heavy either… considering its screen size. Held in landscape mode, the front camera is placed in the middle of the long edge at the top, and the bezels around the screen are quite thin.

The power key is placed near the top on the left edge, while the Type-C port is in the middle of the right edge. The tablet comes with quad speakers, with a pair placed on either side. Hi-Res audio is supported for both wired and wireless. You won’t find a 3.5mm headphone jack though, which is par for the course for mid-to-premium segment tablets these days. On the top edge, you’ll see the volume rocker on the left and a small, almost invisible bar on the right that serves as a dock for the Xiaomi Focus Pen. The pen attaches there magnetically and draws juice to charge its battery.

At the back of the slate, the most prominent aspect is the black camera deco, with the squirrel bump placed on the right side. It also has a rear camera, a flash, and even an IR blaster that converts the tablet into a universal remote. The inclusion of an IR blaster is quite unexpected for a tablet, I must say. But it’s there, adds functionality, and I’m certainly not one to complain. I can’t say whether its inclusion adds significantly to the cost of the tablet, but if it does, I think I can live without this feature on my tablet.

On the left side of the back panel, you’ll see the Xiaomi branding and three pogo pins that interface with the keyboard cover when it’s attached to the tablet. More on that in a bit.

Moving on to the display, the 11.2-inch panel is of the LCD variety. The 3,200 x 2,136 resolution results in sharp visuals, while the 3:2 aspect ratio works well for working on documents and browsing the web. The 144Hz adaptive refresh rate makes usage quite smooth and responsive as well. Featuring Gorilla Glass 3 protection, TUV Rhineland certification for blue light, flicker and circadian friendly, and support for Dolby Vision, it’s a lovely display at your disposal for everything you’d want on a tablet.

Interestingly, Xiaomi is offering a Pad 7 variant that comes with a Nano texture display. This is on the top-end model and promises to eliminate 99 percent of light, i.e. glare and reflections that disrupt the use of the tablet. It also promises to reduce eye fatigue, and cut down on glare without affecting the vibrancy of colors. While I don’t have this version for review, I saw it in action during a demo session, and I must say that the Nano Texture display is quite impressive. Glare and reflections are real problems affecting tablet usage and the Nano Texture display handles this issue quite well. What’s more, the Nano Texture performance is said to be better for writing and drawing on the tablet. The only niggle is that the existence of the Nano Texture variant helps highlight the glossy nature of the screen over the regular variant.

software

The software experience offered by the Xiaomi PAD 7 has to be one of its strong points. Running HyperOS 2 running Android 15, the UI is quite clean overall, with not much bloatware. In fact, the only third-party apps that come preinstalled are WPS Office and Netflix. Xiaomi has also added some tablet-specific features. Workstation mode, for example, helps move the UI closer to that of a regular laptop, allowing you to run multiple apps simultaneously as floating windows. Even outside of Workstation mode, you can use split screen and floating windows to multitask. A horizontal swipe on the screen enables split screen, and pairs of apps that open together in split screen can be saved as shortcuts for easy access, letting you open them directly with a tap when needed. .

Then there are ecosystem features, found under interconnectivity. These allow you to use certain features if you have a Xiaomi phone that is signed into the same Xiaomi account as the tablet. These features include sharing wardrobe and notifications between tablet and phone, transferring data and continuing to use certain apps between the two. An option called Home Screen+ allows you to view your Xiaomi phone’s home screen on the tablet, and even interact with it to launch apps, view messages, etc. I also like that the tablet can be used as an extended display. Your Windows or Mac laptop…is a handy feature.

Xiaomi Focus Keyboard and Focus Pen

The new Focus keyboard is an optional accessory and is priced at Rs 8,999. The combination with your Xiaomi Pad 7 takes things closer to a full laptop experience, as it adds not only a backlit keyboard but also a touchpad…. Not to mention safety for performance. What’s more, the touchpad even supports multi-finger gestures. That said, the touchpad is small and can take a bit of getting used to since gestures and taps are a bit tricky. The keyboard is compact too, with smaller keys than a regular one. It can feel a little tight, coming from a regular keyboard. On the positive side, the keys offer ample travel, and once you get used to it, you can type reasonably fast. Xiaomi has also provided some customization options for the keyboard – you can create shortcuts for tasks like capturing a screenshot, viewing recent apps, jumping to the home screen, bringing down the notification shade and Control Center, adding shortcuts to favourites, etc. Can customize. apps, choose pointer style, switch scroll direction, tweak pointer speed, etc. It’s worth mentioning that when attached to a keyboard, the tablet becomes rather thick and heavy, which takes away from the portability aspect. If you’re considering this combo from a travel use perspective, there are a few things you should keep in mind.

Next is the focus pen. Priced at Rs 5,999, the white stylus attaches magnetically to the top of the tablet for juicing and allows you to draw and write on the screen. The pen has a flat surface on one side that attaches to the tablet, and also sports three buttons—a screenshot button, a writing button, and a so-called Spotlight button. Pressing and holding the writing button, and then touching the screen with the top of the pen opens the Mi Canvas app, while the screenshot button does exactly what it says. The Spotlight button is multifunctional and works as a pointer, a highlighter, and a remote shutter for the camera. Thanks to low 3ms latency and 8,192 levels of pressure sensitivity, the Focus Pen serves as a handy tool if you’re the creative type, or simply want to annotate, doodle or jot down handwritten notes. The writing experience is quite smooth and intuitive.

Display and battery

From a performance perspective, things are pretty smooth overall. Powered by Qualcomm’s tried and tested 4nm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 SoC, up to 12 gigs of LPDDR5X RAM, and up to 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage, the slate delivers a smooth, fluid experience for most tasks, without any lag. Provides a smooth, fluid experience for tasks with little to no lag or lag. Stammer. While gaming may not be the primary use case, the tablet can also be used for some gaming, providing stable and playable frame rates at medium to high settings.

The 8,850mAh battery is good for a day of intensive use, although this will vary significantly depending on usage. With intermittent use to include a few hours of streaming, a few games, and productivity-focused tasks like typing and editing articles, the battery lasted 4 days in my case before I needed to juice it up. 45W of charging juice tops it up completely in about 1 hour 50 minutes, which is quite impressive. Additionally, Xiaomi bundled a 45W charging brick with the tablet.

The 13MP rear and 8MP front cameras do their job as expected without any red flags. Of course, a tablet can’t really be used for serious photography, so the rear camera’s job involves more document scanning than shooting holiday snaps. The quad speakers get quite loud and work well for video calls too.

decision

It’s a good difficulty drawing a competitive landscape for a tablet I think. I say that because unlike smartphones, pure performance or raw specs can’t really be the primary deciding factor when buying a tablet… given that the main use cases for slates are streaming, reading, drawing, and regular productivity-based Are of works. Unless you are a power user or your main use case for buying a tablet is gaming. And thanks to their beefy batteries, most tablets are capable of delivering respectable battery life too. In my opinion, the most important factors to consider when choosing a tablet are aspects like screen quality, audio, software experience, ecosystem features, and accessories (like keyboards and pens). Of course, depending on your specific needs, other factors like front camera quality (for video calls), and 4G/5G connectivity may also be important factors. The Xiaomi Pad 7 does not have a 4G/5G variant, and that seems like a miss to me.

The OnePlus Pad 2 is a strong contender, and a powerful one too, thanks to its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor. However, its price is quite high at Rs 37,999 onwards, and adding the keyboard and pen makes the cost even higher. Moving down the price ladder, you’ll find options like the Honor Pad 9 (Rs 19,999, Snapdragon 6 Gen 1, free keyboard), and the previous generation Xiaomi PAD 6 (Rs 20,999, Snapdragon 870). If you want built-in cellular connectivity, the OnePlus Pad Go (Rs 19,999, MediaTek Helio G99) and Redmi Pad Pro (Rs 26,999, Snapdragon 7s Gen 2) are also compelling options in their price segments. For multimedia use, the Lenovo Tab Plus (Rs 17,999, Helio G99) is a decent option, thanks to its capable speaker setup and built-in kickstand. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Fe (RS 27,999, Exynos 1380) comes with an S Pen and could be a worthy buy for creative people. So as you can see, the options in the tablet segment are quite diverse. It may not be perfect, but as far as I’m concerned, the Xiaomi Pad 7 offers a solid mix of performance and software features, which comes across as good value for money for its asking price, and An all-rounder for both work and play. Talking about the price, you can have the base variant for Rs 27,999 (8+128GB), while the higher model will set you back by Rs 30,999 (12+256GB). And if you’re going for the latter, you can spend another 2K and get one with a nano-textured display.

Editor’s Rating: 8/10

Pros:

• Good performance and battery life
• lovely screen
• Useful software and ecosystem features
• Optional nano-texture display

Shortcoming:

• Fiddly Touchpad
• tablet keyboard combo is heavy

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