Xiaomi Pad 5| Qualcomm Snapdragon 860| 120Hz Refresh Rate| 6GB, 128GB| 2.5K+ Display (10.95-inch/27.81cm)|1 Billion Colours| Dolby Vision Atmos|…

first i would like to comment on the tab market of India. the most peculiar thing I have seen in India is, when a particular product is aimed towards students or education suddenly corporations go out of their way to milk money and under deliver as much as possible. it is exactly opposite to how students are given access to technology in the USA. you watch the prices of chromebooks, tablets, back to school offers in the US and compare them to India and it feels extremely unbalanced. after the pandemic there was a huge surge in the tab market and tier 1 brands started delivering garbage for 20000 rupees. snapdragon 400, old mediatek, 4gb ram, abysmal non ips screen for 20k just to mint money and take advantage of pandemic scenario and the circumstances of students. THIS TABLET BRINGS THE REVOLUTION.

I am no student, but bought this for day to day use and I am an user of the normal big bezel 7th gen iPad, so my review will be comparative in nature. also i bought this at 23000 rupees so my judgements will be in accordance to the price I paid.

1. if you are planning to buy an iPad, just buy it considering 64gb is enough for you and you use it for normie scenarios. you do day to day stuff you will be satisfied with your ipad with its everlasting updates.
this tablet if compared spec vs spec give a good challenge to the ipad FOR 23K RUPEES. even for 27k it is fine.
2. build is fine although I put a tempered glass on the 1st day itself. back is plastic but sides are metal and the back gets quite smudgy.
3. the IPS screen is really good, there is no backlight bleeding, no dead pixels as you can see in the picture with the dark background. I am used to OLED screens on phones so at first blacks may disappoint but OLED is impossible at this price. the screen is better than my 7th gen iPad’s display. it is brighter, has more punchy colours, blacks are darker. on top of that 120hz panel, hdr certification, dolby vision support makes it great for content consumption. it would be a great device for xbox cloud gaming with the xbox controller attached to it. display is the part of the device with which you interact the most and display is the highest point of this tablet.
4. snapdragon 860 is fine in a market where older mediateks and lower midrange snapdragons are dumped into the market. hence I say if you don’t want this just buy an iPad but don’t buy any other android tablet at 20-30k price point. all are trash. 860 was fine with all those games which rule the market today. it has less pixels to push than in a phone and the bigger surface area helps in better heat dissipation so gaming is effortless.
5. i can’t comment on how the battery will serve me in the long run but for now i don’t see any drain or backup issues with content consumption or gaming. it has a 22.5 watt charger in the box although it does support 33 watt charging. the bigger battery takes some time to charge with the inbox charger but my iPad takes even longer with its trash charger and it has a bigger battery and apple devices are extremely picky with chargers.
6. the camera is okayish, just like most tablet cameras. the iPad has even worse cameras. for document scanning it should be fine but other than that it is not much useful. it is still better than what samsung and lenovo gives in 25k range tablets.
7. the second highest point of this tablet is its quad speakers. they are loud, have depth, are not sibilant and have brilliant stereo separation and soundstage. they are louder and punchier than those normal non ultrabook thiccc laptops which cost 40-50k. they will hit you as a massive surprise. i did not at all expect such good speakers. they seriously outmatch those cheapo 700Rs boat, goat, mivi generic speakers in terms of distortion at max volumes, separation and low end. of course those cheap speakers would be louder and more shrill but it is about quality vs quantity.

coming to the cons-
1. was it courage or something else that xiaomi couldn’t find a place for a 3.5mm jack. not even a dongle in the box. they should seriously stop copying apple’s wrong habits and instead copy their good habits like long device support via updates. although I mitigated the issue by using portable dongle DACs like shanling ua1, ibasso dc03…..etc which i generally use with even my phones and my PC coz they are way better than on board audio of most devices except some devices like some LG phones with quad dac. i am an audio enthusiast so i spend money on such products and you need not. although it works with my old MI A2 dongle just fine.
2. for 23000 rupees I don’t expect the pen and people who are expecting a pen with 23k tablet should really open their eyes and look the disaster also know as Indian tablet market and its offerings but for 27k they could just offer a bundle where you pay 1k-2k rupees more and get the pen as an add on.
3. the accessory market might not be that vibrant. already there are no unofficial cases available from good brands. there is one from nillkin here on amazon and the seller has the audacity to price it at 5000 rupees LOL. the official xiaomi folio case is magnetic slap on at the back and i don’t trust those type of cases.

one more issue that I would like to point out is that xiaomi lately has a tendency to creep up prices by 500-1000 rupees within a month or two by doing the good old “GST BRO”. so if it ever reaches 28-29k for the 128gb version just close your eyes and buy an iPad with card discounts.
so, in a nut shell for 23K it is was no brainer, but even for 27K it is a really good deal considering what its competitors are.
hope this was helpful.

Very basic Android tablet with premium construction materials and a solid display
My biggest grime with it is the rather obstructive software giving me unnecessary warnings and forcing me to turn the volume during playing music(what the actual hell… Why would anyone want this)
It’s not bare bones stock Android , it’s got some good flavour of theming, tasteful display color options with adaptive display screen temperature and the so called HDR.
Display does go bright enough but HDR content playback is a hit and miss but that’s an Android problem more.
It can play most modern games, gacha like Honkai and traditional slack and slash fruit ninja very well thanks to that nifty game boost trick.
In app video filters are a Plus, hate the Dolby sound gimmick it’s awful and with the lack of the headphone jack the audio department is lacking.
It’s got 4 speakers with decent volume and low end but it’s still barely serviceable.

Oh no SIM card option so wifi only.
Which works well no reception issues
Hate that I can’t buy any accessories for this at all
And I also hate there was no included scratch protector or a case.
And an only 22watt charger
But seriously a tablet with no headphone jack… Really Xiaomi?

Software updates are lacking with the latest having security patch from May..
Again seriously Xiaomi?

Just get the Mi pad 6 I should have done the same.