Here’s the first-ever mid-range tablet from POCO! It’s the POCO Pad M1, powered by the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 and also equipped with a 12.1-inch screen and a 12000mAh battery. Is this tablet any good? Well, you might already realize that this tablet is very similar to another tablet – the Redmi Pad 2 Pro. They’re essentially the same thing on paper, with the same specs but just a different name.
Performance
The main aspect about this tablet is obviously going to be the performance. So here’s a quick rundown on the specs. It’s powered by the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 that was released not too long ago, alongside 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM. 8GB RAM is actually sufficient, but the RAM speed is what I’m worried about. Watch our video here to know why RAM speed matters more than the RAM amount.
When we did our gaming test, the POCO Pad M1 can actually get around 30-40fps in Genshin Impact at the low graphical preset. When we are in combat, then the FPS can drop to about 20-30fps, which is definitely not ideal but we can set the graphical settings to the lowest to get even more FPS.
However, Zenless Zone Zero constantly dips below 30fps in the flower boss fight even at the lowest graphical settings, and that is due to the render resolution. It’s just way too high for the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 to handle.
The same story applies to Wuthering Waves too. Even at the lowest graphical settings, the game will be below 30fps because of the render resolution.
However, COD Mobile runs fine as it is not demanding at all, even with super resolution turned on.
The Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 is actually quite a decent chipset, but it’s just that the render resolution of these games are too high for it to handle. If we have some option to turn down the render resolution, then it should be a much better experience. However, HyperOS does not offer us that option.
Battery life
The battery life is also quite decent as it has a 12000mAh battery – not idea what’s the Wh value as there is no information about that online – and it can last for around 14 hours and 40 minutes in our standardized battery life test. Pretty much what we expect from it, so nothing surprising there.
Charging speed
What’s surprising is that the POCO Pad M1 actually does come with a charger in the box. We have a 33W proprietary charger inside, and it can charge from 15% to completion in around 1.5 hours – so I suggest you just charge it overnight.
When we used our own USB-PD PPS charger, it takes around the same time to charge to completion as well, so there’s really no major difference between the proprietary 33W charger and our USB-PD charger.
Display
The screen is a pretty massive one. We have a 12.1-inch IPS LCD screen with 2560×1600 pixels in resolution and also goes up to 120Hz refresh rate. It can go up to around 500 nits brightness and that’s actually sufficient for indoors usage.
With the default color profile, it can cover 93.81% of sRGB color gamut, and I think that’s quite a decent screen for watching videos and also playing games.
Software
As for the software, it is running on HyperOS 2 and I already know what to expect from this software. There’s nothing out of the ordinary, and I think HyperOS 2 fits this tablet well.
Design
All of these are packed into a pretty simple tablet design. We have a big POCO logo at the back, and there are also two rings at the corner there. Only one camera can be used to take pictures, and the quality I think is acceptable.
A few more things to mention
And a few more things to mention – the POCO Pad M1 does have a USB 2.0 port at the side and no display output capability, but it does have an audio jack as well – which is a great thing to see in 2025.
It also has a microSD card slot, but I’m not sure if there’s a cellular version of this tablet.
Should you buy the POCO Pad M1?
So as you might have already realize, I am speedrunning through this review. And that is actually because we have already reviewed this tablet before in the form of the Redmi Pad 2 Pro. Yes, they’re 99% identical to each other, with the exception that the POCO Pad M1 has a charger included, and also different default wallpapers. The specs on paper are identical.
I’ll just repeat the same thing again – the tablet is actually fine. The only issue is that for demanding games like Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, and Wuthering Waves, the frame rate is going to be low because of the render resolution. The Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 just can’t handle it and there is no option in the settings menu to change that.
If you’re playing less demanding titles like COD Mobile, then it’s actually not a problem. Otherwise, it’s a great tablet for the money.
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