Mini tablets are a rare breed. Some might think that a foldable phone is already a mini tablet, but I disagree. So, when I saw the Xiaomi Pad Mini, I was ecstatic. It’s a tiny one-handed tablet, yet it maintains the aspect ratio of 16:10.
What’s up with this tablet? That’s why we’re doing this video today, because I find this tablet to be one of the more interesting products of this year. Not because of the size, but because it has double USB-C ports.
Design
Now, this Xiaomi Pad Mini looks and feels pretty typical for a tablet. It’s sleek and has some flair at the back as well with this line, but otherwise very comfortable to hold with just one hand. Very comfortably too, actually.
How you grip the tablet will definitely differ, because different people have different hand sizes.
My only complaint is that the power button is waaaaaaaaay too close to the corner. I personally would want it to be somewhere lower. Why? Because I want to hold it like this and press the volume button to skip to the next page while reading books.
Screen
Of course, the most important aspect of a tablet is the screen. This tablet has an 8.8-inch IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 3008×1880 pixels – 16:10 in aspect ratio – and goes up to 165Hz refresh rate. Some might say that IPS LCD is bad – and I kinda agree. Xiaomi should’ve opted for an OLED screen for this tablet.
When we tested with our colorimeter, it reveals the shortcomings of an IPS LCD screen. The maximum brightness is only at around 680 nits only. If it’s an OLED screen, it can easily go above that, and have truly black color.
Using the default settings with the Original Colour PRO color profile, it can reach 93.56% of sRGB and has very good ΔE numbers too.
Switching it up to the Saturated color profile, we can get nearly 100% of sRGB and 95.48% of DCI-P3 color gamut coverage.
As a quick recap, having a higher DCI-P3 color gamut coverage means the colors are going to be much more saturated. However, the contrast level will not be as good since this is an IPS LCD screen after all.
Reading books on it though, looks amazing since the text is crisp and sharp thanks to the supremely high resolution. By my calculations, this screen is at around 403 PPI. The bezel is – in my opinion – is appropriately sized. It has just enough space for our thumb to grip it.
By the way, this Xiaomi Pad Mini does not have any screen protector out of the box. This is unusual as all Xiaomi phones come with a film screen protector installed from the factory.
Speakers
The speaker will also have to sound great. There is no audio jack, so we’re relying on USB-C wired earphones or Bluetooth – which I don’t prefer since there is audio delay. Either way, here’s a quick sound test. I have to say, they sound pretty good.
To have a listen to how the speakers sound, watch our video at the top of this article.
Performance
One interesting aspect of the Xiaomi Pad Mini though, is the chipset and performance. It is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9400+, which is the same one used in the new Xiaomi 15T Pro – link at the top right corner there if you want to know more about it.
You see, this tablet is really amazing for games. That MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ can handle Genshin Impact at the highest graphical settings with zero issues at all, but most modern devices with flagship chips will be able to do this anyway.
Zenless Zone Zero is much more demanding. At the highest graphical settings, it can still maintain around 50-something FPS throughout the entire gaming test. That is excellent and showed no signs of thermal throttling at all.
Now, these two games are in the standard 1080p render resolution, as shown on Vtools Scene. Wuthering Waves however, literally said “I am the heaviest game of 2025” and rendered at the native resolution. Remember, this tablet’s screen resolution is at 3008×1880 pixels.
That’s why we’re getting very low rates. I mean, I’m actually impressed that it still manages to get around like 20-30fps without drastic frame drops even though it did hit the thermal limit of 44.5°C.
Software
As for the software though, it’s nothing particularly different from the smartphone version of the HyperOS 2. It’s smooth and has a lot of fancy animations and there is also a gesture where we can swipe down and the app becomes a floating window, functionally, it’s the same as any other.
Because I had autorotate turned on while testing this tablet… I discovered this strange bug. Yeah, it’s annoying but it’s not a big deal. I personally will use it in portrait mode most of the time, except for watching videos anyway.
I do wish that Xiaomi has some automation feature to do the autorotation for us – but they don’t.
Unlock methods
Another thing that just irks me is the unlocking methods. This tablet only has the usual PIN, pattern, and also face unlock. Yeah, there is no fingerprint scanner. I really wished that Xiaomi would’ve just placed one at the power button as that would be much better.
I’m really not a fan of under-display fingerprint scanner on a tablet though. Look at Samsung, that under-display fingerprint scanner is atrocious.
At least in this case, the face unlock is actually usable.
Camera
The camera isn’t anything to shout at. There is one camera at the back which we can use to take pictures, and that’s about it. I have no idea what the heck is Gamma Antenna is, by the way. The quality is… well, we can take pictures of whiteboards or whatever, but nothing much to shout at.
To have a look at the pictures taken with the Xiaomi Pad Mini, watch our video at the top of this review.
Battery life
The battery life is a bit more different. This tablet comes with a 7,500mAh battery and with this 8.8-inch screen, it can last around 12 hours and 49 minutes in our standardized battery life test. We don’t have anything to compare with for this size of a tablet, but it’s not that good compared to some larger tablets.
Charging speed
As for the charging speed, this is where things get interesting. We do have a 67W charger in the box, but there are two USB-C ports on this tablet.
Why does it have double USB-C ports? I have no idea. I think it’s weird that they designed it this way since this tablet does not have bypass charging anyway. Well, we do have something called “slow charging” which literally just lowers down the wattage – not the same as bypass charging.
Even if we are charging and playing games at the same time, I’ll use the bottom port anyway. I don’t see myself using the bottom port unless I’m in a tight space like in a plane or whatever, but I’ll have to use the tablet in the inverted orientation instead. Kinda weird, but that’s the way it is made.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter if you charge the tablet with the bottom or the side port. They both will result in more or less the same charging speed – within the margin of error. Both will take around 50-ish minutes to complete.
Using our USB-PD PPS charger though, the Xiaomi Pad Mini can only take in around 27W at its peak and it takes about 70 minutes to charge completely on both the bottom and the side port.
So once again, it doesn’t matter which port we use to charge the tablet.
Also… I found out that the Xiaomi Pad Mini can essentially charge itself.
A few more things to mention
By the way, the two USB-C ports have one major difference. When I plugged the bottom port of the tablet to my computer to transfer stuff, it didn’t work. Nothing happened. I thought my cable was broken so I swapped it to another cable and nothing works. Then I switched over to the side port and ah – it worked instantly.
