Xiaomi Pad 6 First Impressions: iPad Killer?

Xiaomi Pad 6 has been launched in India as a new Android tablet under Rs. 30,000. It is a successor to last year's Xiaomi Pad 5 (Review), which packed some value-for-money hardware. The Pad 6 tries to one-up its predecessor by featuring one of the most popular Qualcomm SoCs, while also sporting a slightly bigger and smoother display than before. While we work on the full review, here's our quick first impressions of the Xiaomi Pad 6.

The Xiaomi Pad 6 comes packed in a fairly big box, which includes a 33W fast charging adapter and a USB Type-A to Type-C cable. Xiaomi has also launched its second-generation smart stylus (Rs. 5,999) and a keyboard case accessory (Rs. 4,999) in India, both of which can be purchased separately. The base model of the Pad 6 with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage is priced at Rs. 26,999, whereas our review unit packs 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and is priced at Rs. 28,999.

Xiaomi Pad 6's 11-inch IPS LCD offers up to 144Hz refresh rate support

The tablet continues to rock a metal unibody design with a flat frame. We have the Graphite Grey colour option, which has a matte finish and does a fairly decent job at hiding fingerprints and smudges. If you want something a bit more vibrant, there is the Misty Blue colour as well. The Pad 6 weighs about 490g and is 6.51mm thin. The tall form factor means you generally need to hold the tablet with both your hands for a comfortable experience.

The screen is 0.5 inches larger than the Xiaomi Pad 5 and also offers a slightly higher resolution. The Xiaomi Pad 6 features an 11-inch IPS LCD with a 2.8K resolution (1,800x2,880 pixels) and support for a 144Hz adaptive refresh rate. The tablet has a quad-speaker setup, which can get fairly loud to fill a small room. To make the multimedia experience better, the Xiaomi Pad 6 is said to support HDR10+, Dolby Atmos, and Dolby Vision HDR video playback.

The tablet has sizeable bezels around the display which is necessary so that you can hold it comfortably without accidentally touching the display. When held vertically, you will find the power button on the right side, below which there is space for magnetically charging the stylus. At the top-right corner is the power button, which unfortunately does not include a fingerprint scanner.

The Xiaomi Pad 6 features a Snapdragon 870 SoC, which we have seen in several smartphones under and around Rs. 30,000 in India. The tablet also packs an 8,840mAh battery, which claims to offer up to two days worth of runtime on a single charge. There is support for 33W fast charging via a USB 3.2 Type-C port.

Xiaomi Pad 6 continues to offer a single camera sensor on the back

The Xiaomi Pad 6's rear camera module design seems to have been inspired by the company's flagship smartphone in India, the Xiaomi 13 Pro (Review). The tablet has a square-shaped module on the back for the single 13-megapixel camera sensor and an LED flash. The rear camera can record up to 4K 30fps videos. For video calls and selfies, there is an 8-megapixel front camera on the length of the bezel, which can record videos up to 1080p 30fps.

The Xiaomi Pad 6 takes on the iPad 9th-generation (Review), which is a couple of years old but still quite a good performer. While the Pad 6 looks quite promising on paper, the software experience is something which would decide if it has an edge over Apple's iPadOS. The Pad 6 boots MIUI 14 for Pad based on Android 13. The custom skin comes with a few multi-tasking, productivity-focused features, which we will talk about in detail in the full review, coming soon.