Poco has been doing well when it comes to smartphones, so naturally, it wanted to try a new segment. Enter the Poco Pad 5G. This is the first tablet from the Chinese brand and at first glance it seems like a good deal. It has a large 12.1-inch LCD display, 10,000mAh battery and Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 SoC. The tablet also offers cellular connectivity and a premium design. However, it looks very similar to the Redmi Pad Pro 5G. And when you look at the specifications, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the Poco Pad and the Redmi tablet are largely the same tablet.
Poco has priced the Pad 5G at Rs. It is priced at Rs 23,999 for the base option. Rs 1,000 less than Redmi Pad Pro 5G. So is it a better buy than the Redmi tablet? Read on to find out.
Poco Pad 5G design: Looks good, but fingerprint magnet
- Dimensions – 280 mm x 181.85 mm x 7.52 mm
- Weight – 568 grams
- Color – Cobalt Blue and Pista Green
The Poco Pad 5G has an all-metal unibody construction that feels durable and premium. It has a matte finish rear panel with a two-tone design, which is prone to fingerprints. You may want to carry a microfiber cloth with you everywhere you go. The rear panel features Poco branding and two circular modules that house a camera and an LED flash. The tablet, although large, is portable due to its weight and slim profile. It has rounded corners, flat edges and thin edges on the front glass.
You get a 3.5mm headphone jack in the tablet
The right frame of the tablet houses two microphones, the SIM card tray (supports dual 5G SIMs or a single SIM and a microSD card), and the volume rocker key. You get dual speakers on the top edge along with a power/wake button, and the bottom houses two more speakers, a USB Type-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The left frame is empty. Overall, this is a well-built tablet.
Poco Pad 5G display and sound: Great for watching content
- Size – 12.1-inch 2.5K resolution LCD
- Refresh rate – 120Hz
- Audio – Quad Stereo Speakers
Flipping the tablet over reveals a large 12.1-inch LCD display surrounded by uniform and thick bezels. The panel is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 and offers a 16:10 aspect ratio with a 2.5K (2560 x 1600 pixels) resolution. It also supports adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz and lets you choose between 60, 90, or 120Hz. There are three color profiles available onboard, including Vivid, Saturated and Standard. It’s best to leave it on Vivid, as you get good colors with decent blacks.
The 12.1-inch display offers a peak brightness of up to 600 nits
The display supports Dolby Vision and offers a maximum brightness of up to 600 nits. However, it’s not fun to use outside because the screen doesn’t get bright enough. Indoors, the panel gets quite bright.
Talking about sound, Poco Pad has a quad-speaker setup with Dolby Atmos support. You also get Hi-Res audio support via a 3.5mm headphone jack. The audio on the tablet is quite good, and has good stereo separation. It gets loud, but there is not enough bass at maximum sound. Listening to music is not a great experience, but watching movies and shows is a great experience.
Poco Pad 5G Software: Not much bloat
- OS – Android 14
- Skin – HyperOS
Poco has included HyperOS on the tablet, and it is based on Android 14. There’s also very little bloatware or pre-installed apps, which is nice. You get a Mi Canvas app that can be used to sketch using the Poco Pen. However, I didn’t get a pen or tablet, so I can’t comment on its performance and usage.
The tablet isn’t for heavy lifting, but it’s great for content consumption
Apart from the Mi Canvas app, you also get a number of HyperOS features such as Xiaomi HomeScreen+, shared clipboard, and cross-device Notes app sync with the Camera app, which lets you take a photo on the connected phone and directly insert the picture. Notes app. The HomeScreen+ feature lets you connect a phone using a Xiaomi account to receive smartphone notifications on the tablet. Meanwhile, the shared clipboard lets you easily copy and paste images and text between devices. Obviously, multi-tasking is also available on the tablet and it works as expected. You can run up to two apps on the screen at once, but you can also add two floating apps, bringing the total to four.
Poco has promised two years of Android OS updates and three years of security patches on the tablet, which is good.
Poco Pad 5G performance: Could have been better
- Chipset – Snapdragon 7S Gen 2
- RAM – 8 GB (LPDDR4X)
- Storage – Up to 256 GB (UFS 2.2) inbuilt, expandable
Poco has equipped its first tablet with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 SoC, which performs well. The UI experience is mostly smooth when navigating around, but I noticed lag when multitasking, scrolling through the Settings app, and launching certain apps like Camera.
The Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 SoC is good enough for regular tasks and some gaming
I ran some synthetic benchmarks on the Poco Pad to get an idea of its performance compared to the Redmi Pad Pro.
| benchmark | poco pad 5g | Redmi Pad Pro 5G |
|---|---|---|
| geekbench 6 single | 1025 | 1034 |
| geekbench 6 multi | 2893 | 2994 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 | 12682 | 12518 |
| 3dm slingshot extreme | 4583 | 5177 |
| 3dm slingshot | 5979 | 6690 |
| 3dm wildlife | 2976 | 2970 |
| 3DM Wildlife Unlimited | 3065 | 3072 |
| AnTuTu v10 | 548927 | 602839 |
| gfx bench t-rex | 79 | 81 |
| gfx bench manhattan 3.1 | 29 | 30 |
| gfx bench car chase | 15 | 15 |
As you can see, the Poco Pad performed similarly to the Redmi Pad Pro, which shouldn’t be surprising since both are essentially the same tablet.
I generally didn’t face heating issues while using the tablet, and even while playing games like BGMI, the tablet did get a little warm around the camera. I could play BGMI at ultra-high graphics settings, and it ran smoothly with no lag. However, playing games on a large tablet like the Poco Pad is not very comfortable.
Since the tablet also supports 5G connectivity, I tested 5G speeds using Speedtest, and the Poco Pad delivered download speeds of around 474 Mbps and upload speeds of 63 Mbps. Video calling worked well on Airtel’s 5G network.
Poco Pad 5G cameras: great
- Rear – 8 Megapixel with LED flash
- Front – 8 Megapixel
The only camera that matters on the tablet is the front-facing camera, and the 8-megapixel sensor on the Poco Pad isn’t that good.
Rear camera can take good pictures in daylight
It works fine in daylight, and you can make video calls, but I wouldn’t recommend using the tablet to take selfies as the photos lack detail. Same is the case with the rear camera, where photos can be taken in daylight, but there is a lot of noise and loss of detail when there is not enough light.
Poco Pad 5G battery: enough to promote a limited series on Netflix
- Capacity- 10,000mAh
- Fast Charging – 33W
Battery life on the Poco Pad was a mixed experience for me. I expected the 10,000mAh battery to last as long as the Redmi Pad Pro in our HD video loop test. However, the Poco tablet lasted only 11 hours and 50 minutes, while the Redmi Pad Pro lasted 28 hours and 30 minutes.
Tablet does not heat up when charging
The result was also surprising as with regular usage which included several hours of YouTube streaming, half an hour of gaming, watching Netflix and browsing the web, the tablet lasted for almost two days without a charge.
Talking about charging, Poco Pad supports 33W fast charging and the charger is provided in the box. Using the adapter, it takes about 2 hours to fully charge the massive 10,000mAh cell.
Decision on Poco Pad 5G
OK, so should you buy the Poco Pad 5G tablet? Well, in short, yes, because it is a very good mid-range tablet. It has a nice high-resolution display with good indoor brightness, it’s well built, performance isn’t bad, battery life is great, and you can even play games on the tablet if you want. It offers good value for money.
One of its main competitors is the Redmi Pad Pro 5G (Review), but it costs a little more while it doesn’t have anything different. The Poco Pad is a better deal here. Then you have the Xiaomi Pad 6 (Review), which is cheaper and offers better performance and cameras but has a smaller display and battery.
