Realme Pad X: Should You Buy This Tablet Instead of the Xiaomi Pad 5, or the iPad Air?

Realme Pad X was launched in India earlier this year as the company's first tablet to offer 5G connectivity. It has a 11-inch display and features a quad speaker setup. The tablet is powered by a Snapdragon 695 SoC, and packs an 8,340mAh battery. You also get support for accessories such as the Realme Smart Keyboard and the Realme Pencil. The tablet is available in Wi-Fi and cellular configurations, and the latter competes with the Xiaomi Pad 5, which has a more powerful processor and a Dolby Vision certified display.

On this week's episode of the Gadgets 360 podcast Orbital, guest host Siddharth Suvarna talks to Reviewer Pranav Hegde and Senior Reviewer Sheldon Pinto to understand what the Realme Pad X has to offer.

With Apple offering no competition in the affordable tablet segment, Android tablet makers like Xiaomi, Realme, Oppo, and Motorola offer several options across different price segments. If you're in the market for a tablet with a 11-inch display, then you can pick the Realme Pad X that starts at Rs. 19,999, or the Xiaomi Pad 5, which is currently priced at Rs. 26,999, or you can even buy the iPad Air (2022) model that is priced at Rs. 44,900.

Unlike the Xiaomi Pad 5, which is powered by a Snapdragon 870 SoC, the Realme Pad X comes with the Snapdragon 695 SoC under the hood. The former offers better performance, though both tablets pale in comparison to the iPad Air (2022), which, of course, also costs a great deal more.

The Realme Pad X features a plastic frame and a plastic rear panel, and is available in two colour options: Glacier Blue and Glowing Grey. Pranav says that the rear panel is well designed, and you'll definitely turn a few heads if you use this tablet in public.

Realme Pad X Review: An iPad Air-Inspired Android Tablet but at Half the Price 

The tablet also comes with stylus support, with the company's Realme Pencil, which Pranav and Sheldon say is a little too expensive at Rs. 5,500. It's also not very reliable, and sometimes stops working abruptly, while you're using it, Pranav says. Samsung charges a lot more for their stylus, but it works a lot better than the Realme Pencil, he adds. The keyboard accessory offers excellent key travel, on the other hand.

You get a 10.95-inch display on the Realme Pad X, with a WUXGA+ (1,200x2,000 pixels) resolution. It's an LCD display, and it isn't Dolby Vision certified, unlike the Xiaomi Pad 5. However, Pranav says that the display is good for the price you're paying. There's no HDR support and it has a refresh rate of 60Hz, but you get Widevine L1 support for Netflix HD content, which is more than enough, as Sheldon points out.

Can you play games on the Realme Pad X? Pranav played Call of Duty and Asphalt and said playing the latter is much easier, since you only have to tilt the tablet, which is quite large. You're holding a tablet that weighs around 0.5kg, Sheldon points out. It might be worth considering a game controller if you want to play games on this tablet, Pranav says.

Xiaomi Pad 5 Review: The Android Tablet Experience Done Right 

Battery life on the Realme Pad X is quite impressive, according to Pranav. Realme says you get 19 hours, but we got about 17 hours on our test. This is far better than the non-cellular variant of the iPad, which is claimed to offer 10 hours of playback.

The cameras on the Realme Pad X may disappoint you, Pranav says. The company got the placement of the front camera right, but the tuning leaves a lot to be desired. Very soft images, with a lot of noise, he says. Realme has a feature called Limelight, that focuses on the person in the video and keeps them in the centre of the frame, but the feature works only with Google Meet and Zoom. There's a bit of latency and delay, but it works, he says.

You can listen to all of that in detail and more in our episode by hitting the play button on the Spotify player embedded above.

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