[REVIEW] We exclusively tested the latest global Xiaomi Pad 5 and compared it with the Xiaomi Pad 5 Pro version

After a three-year break, Xiaomi is finally back in the tablet market. We already have the newly announced Xiaomi Pad 5 in the editorial office—and in both versions, the standard (global) one and the Pro. In this review, you’ll learn what the differences are, and we’ll also share our hands-on experience after intensive use.

Where did we buy the Xiaomi Pad 5 / Pad 5 Pro?

We purchased the Xiaomi Pad 5 Pro from our international partner TradingShenzhen, which traditionally is among the first to offer the import of Chinese versions to Europe. Delivery from this seller was— as always—smooth and without any unexpected fees.

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Xiaomi Mi Pad 5 Pro Chinese Version

6 + 128 GB, WiFi version 407,00 €Global Priority6 + 256 GB, WiFi version 457,00 €Global Priority8 + 256 GB, 5G version 537,00 €Global Priority

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Updated 15. 9. 2021 at 14:15

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The global version of the Xiaomi Pad 5 was provided by Goboo, the officially authorized seller of Xiaomi devices for Europe. You can order the tablet from them right now—even from their Spanish warehouse— with a 2-year warranty and a 14-day return period.

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Xiaomi Pad 5 Global Version

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Updated 15. 9. 2021 at 14:17

TIPExpress delivery from a Spanish warehouse without customs duties or VAT.

This product will be delivered express from the local Spanish warehouse. Shipping from Spain usually takes 7-10 days and is handled by a courier. On delivery, you don’t pay any extra fees—no customs duty or VAT.

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1. First, register or log in on the Goboo website.
2. In the product page, click the "Buy Now" button. You’ll be redirected to the shopping cart, where you first need to enter your address.
3. Next, you can apply a coupon in the right part of the cart, where the price summary is. Click the "Coupon or promo code" text and paste your coupon into the "Seller Promo Code" field. Then: Confirm the coupon by clicking "Apply".
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Thanks to our collaboration with the seller Goboo, we had the chance to test the new tablet even before its official release for Europe, which took place on 15. September. On the same day, we also publish a detailed review—one of the first reviews in Europe.

Technical specifications

Package contents

Tablets of the 5th series arrive similarly to some flagship smartphones in two versions—with a charger or without. We have Pad 5 Pro without a charger and Pad 5 in the global version, with a charger and the corresponding cable.

We received the Xiaomi Pad 5 Pro in an elegant black box with gold lettering and the Xiaomi logo. The fact that this is the no-charger version is obvious at first glance, because the box is extremely thin. Its dimensions are 28 x 19 x 3 cm. Inside, you’ll find only the tablet itself in a cardboard insert and under a film. Under it, there’s a user manual and a USB-C to 3.5 mm jack adapter.

Because of the charger, the global version box is more than twice as thick as the Pro version. Here, though, you get the standard white box with dimensions of 28 x 19 x 6.2 cm. Inside, the tablet is stored in the same way, under film, but beneath it you’ll find a small box with the charger and the cable. The adapter is included as well.

Build quality and placement of the elements

At first glance, it’s hard to tell the classic version from the higher Pro version. They look exactly the same, and the differences are only in small details, like, for example, the CE logo on the back of the global version. However, the placement of the elements is completely identical.

The front is where the large display and the selfie camera sit in the top frame. On the back, you’ll only find the camera module with an LED light. If we look at the tablet in landscape orientation, the top edge has speaker grilles, a microphone, and a button to turn the tablet on and off. On the bottom edge, there’s another pair of speaker sound openings, a charging USB-C port, and an additional microphone.

The right side has buttons for volume control and a pair of openings in which the microphones are most likely also hidden. The left edge is home to the connectors used to attach an external keyboard, which is among the accessories you can buy separately together with the stylus.

The tablet has a metal body, so it feels great in your hands. All the edges are sharp, but at least the tablet won’t easily slip out of your grip. The build quality is at a very high level, and you can feel the inspiration from an American competitor in the design.

Beautiful IPS display with high resolution

Many fans were disappointed when they learned during the unveiling of the new tablets that the new series won’t get AMOLED displays. Instead, the manufacturer went with IPS panels that are the same across all tablet versions. But don’t expect a bad display—your worries are totally unfounded.

The IPS display is 11″ in size and, compared to other tablets, it has fairly thin black bezels. It offers up to 2.5K resolution of 2560 x 1600 px and a high refresh rate of 120 Hz. At first glance, we wouldn’t even guess that this is an IPS display.

The colors are warm, the viewing angles are perfect, and the display responds excellently. Thanks to the high refresh rate, it’s extremely smooth. On closer inspection, of course, you can see that black isn’t as black as on AMOLED displays, but it’s very close.

Overall, we’re completely satisfied with the large display, and in this case, it also holds true that a high-quality IPS panel is a good choice.

It has more than enough performance

One of the differences between the available tablet versions is the processor. The standard Xiaomi Pad 5 comes with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 860, while the Pro version uses a higher Snapdragon 870 series. Both processors are manufactured using a 7 nm process, and the tested units had 6 GB of RAM with 128 GB of storage.

The standard version is also available in a 256 GB memory configuration, while the Pro version can be purchased in the top configuration with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, and this variant also includes 5G connectivity.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 860 is an octa-core processor with a maximum clock speed of 2.96 GHz. It consists of Qualcomm Kryo 485 cores and has a 64-bit architecture. It’s paired with the Adreno 640 graphics chip.

On the other hand, we have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 in the Pad 5 Pro. It has a maximum clock speed of 3.2 GHz as well, and it’s also an octa-core processor with a 64-bit architecture. It consists of Qualcomm Kryo 585 cores and has the Adreno 650 graphics chip.

Both processors support 5G networks, but Xiaomi offers this feature only in a single tablet version – Pro 5G, which is the top model in the series.

Based on the specs, the Pro version is of course more powerful, but in real life, the differences aren’t very noticeable. Some apps may open about a second faster on the Pro version, but the gap isn’t big.

What’s interesting, however, is the result from the popular AnTuTu benchmark. With the global version of the Xiaomi Pad 5, we achieved a score of 580 315 points, which placed us at 50. in the ranking—just behind the Poco X3 GT smartphone, ahead of Honor 30 Pro+.

The Pro model scored 715 460 points in AnTuTu and landed—surprisingly—in 17. place, behind the Redmi K30s Ultra, while also beating the Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G and the Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G.

Both tablets offer plenty of performance, so you can also comfortably play more demanding games. Thanks to the large display with thin bezels, gaming feels really great. For example, we tried the racing game Rebel Racing or the popular action shooter Call of Duty: Mobile – Elite of the Elite.

Excellent sound of the Pro version

Even though at first glance you can’t see a difference in the speakers—because both tablets have the same number of speaker holes and the same layout—there are differences. The base Pad 5 version has 4 speakers, while the Pro version hides as many as 8 speakers inside.

The sound from the base version of the tablet is really nice, clear, and the highs are especially prominent. The volume is sufficient and even at the highest level you won’t hear any distortion or unpleasant sounds. However, the bass range is missing—it’s very subtle. The Xiaomi Pad 5 Pro, though, sounds incomparably better. With 8 speakers, it delivers great sound enriched with very pleasant basses that the standard version lacks.

Xiaomi pleasantly surprised us with the audio output of the Pro version. The sound is truly excellently balanced, and with the top-tier 8 Dolby Atmos speakers, you can enjoy every movie, video, or track.

Battery and charging

Since tablets are several times larger than smartphones, there’s much more room for a larger battery. Xiaomi took advantage of this opportunity and offers up to a 8720 mAh battery in the standard version, while the Pro model has surprisingly lower capacity, 8600 mAh—probably due to the double number of speakers.

The Pro version, however, has the edge in charging speed. It supports up to 67 W fast charging, while the standard version supports only 33 W charging. As we mentioned above, unfortunately, for the Pro version we didn’t find a charger in the box.

Charging the Xiaomi Pad 5 Global from 20 % to 50 % takes almost an hour; from 90 % it’s about 2 hours, and from 100 % to approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes. Since the Pro version supports up to 67 W charging, the charging time here is significantly shorter: about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

When it comes to battery life, thanks to the high-capacity battery you can enjoy multi-day usage. 30 minutes of playing Call of Duty only took 6 % of the battery. During normal internet browsing, the battery drains very slowly, which is a huge positive for these tablets.

This is how the Pad series tablets take photos 5

One of the main differences between the tablets in the new series is the cameras. Both tablets we tested have a primary 13 MPx camera, which in the Pro version is additionally paired with a 5 MPx depth-of-field sensor.

Despite the low megapixel count, the daytime photos are surprisingly good. Few people use a tablet for taking photos, but you wouldn’t have to be ashamed of this camera even with a mid-range smartphone. Both tablets take very similar photos, and the differences are hard to spot. A careful eye will notice a slightly higher proportion of yellow in photos from the global version, as well as a slightly higher contrast.

Photos from the Xiaomi Pad 5 tablet (Global)

Photos from the Xiaomi Pad 5 Pro tablet

The tablets also have the familiar night mode, which does a good job as well. Photos without night mode have few details, are often not very sharp, and light sources cause an unpleasant glow. Night mode brings sharpness to the photos, and for everyday use the quality is completely sufficient.

The selfie camera on both tablets is 8 MPx, but the output is also decent. Here you can notice a more noticeable difference in color rendering. The Xiaomi Pad 5 offers a more natural skin tone, while the version photos have an overly strong yellow component in the color spectrum.

MIUI environment for tablets

The tablets in the fifth series run on Android 11 with MIUI, version 12.5. The interface is slightly different from what we’re used to from smartphones. However, it’s only minor design differences.

At the bottom of the main screen, there’s a small bar where you can place up to 7 apps. MIUI for tablets doesn’t have a home screen in that style like we know from smartphones. The home screen is the same as the other screens from the app menu. You can place apps or widgets on any of these screens. The mentioned bottom bar appears on each of these screens.

The system is set up for efficient multitasking and productivity. At its core, it offers the option to split the screen, or open two different apps side by side. There’s also direct integration with a Xiaomi smart stylus, which we unfortunately didn’t have the chance to try out during the review. The accessories are on the way though, and once they arrive, we’ll also publish a test of the stylus, keyboard, and magnetic case.

One of the biggest differences between the Chinese and global versions of Xiaomi Pad 5 tablets is language localization. The Chinese version includes only Chinese and English, while the global version has all European languages, including Czech and Slovak. The global version also includes complete Google services integration, and even a pre-installed Netflix.

However, none of these services is a problem to install on the Chinese version either. The seller TradingShenzhen even installed all Google services into the Mi Pad 5 Pro.

The settings menu is also slightly different—it’s divided vertically into 2 sections. The control center, which you call up by swiping from top to bottom, shows up only on the right side of the screen, making it easier to control with one hand. Overall, the environment is very well-tuned, and we didn’t run into any issues.

Final verdict

After a three-year break, Xiaomi Pad 5 tablets come with very interesting specs. You get high performance, a beautiful and large display with very fine resolution—likely the highest-quality IPS display we’ve seen so far. Honestly, the displays on the new Mi Pads reach the quality of OLED panels. We also appreciate the exceptionally high-quality build quality of the construction.

Xiaomi Pad 5 Pro will delight you with a perfect sound thanks to its eight Dolby Atmos speakers and fast 67W charging. But the standard version won’t be any less impressive either—the advantage here is a lower price. Personally, though, what’s missing most in these tablets is mobile network support, which is offered only by the top version, Xiaomi Pad 5 Pro 5G.

If we sum it up, the three-year wait for Xiaomi’s tablet successor was worth it. These are excellent multimedia devices that, with the added accessories, can replace even more expensive and heavier laptops in certain tasks. If you’re looking for a new hub for entertainment, relaxation, and even work, Xiaomi Pad 5 and Xiaomi Pad 5 Pro definitely won’t disappoint—and we can only recommend them to you.