Verdict
The Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE offers a tidy full - sized pad of paper at a sub-£200 price tag , but the compromises to performance mean that its use is limited beyond media streaming and light web browsing .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
It used to be that the best you could hope for from a sub-£200 tablet was for it to not be awful . The Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE most for certain is n’t that .
This is a full - sized , amusement - focused Android pill experience with a premium design , all for just £ 199 . With some eye - catching media - friendly features , it could be all the tablet that most people call for – at least on paper .
How about in practice ? That ’s what we ’re here to find oneself out . In gunning for a recommended retail damage that ’s even less expensive than theOppo Pad Airand theSamsung Galaxy Tab A8 , has Xiaomi ’s budget brand cut too deep in spare-time activity of brassy thrills ?
Design
The Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE is a nicely built full - sized tablet that might have you put up your eyebrows in surprise when you see the toll tag , at least if you were n’t aware of the Oppo Pad Air or the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 before it .
It ’s in reality now quite normal to have a £ 200 - ish tab with a slim all - aluminium skeleton , and the Redmi Pad SE looks quite a stack like those two rival . It does n’t really have any distinctive design flourish to mark it apart , other than the subtle Redmi branding on the rear , but it sure enough looks smart .
It helps that it fare in three colours , two of which ( Lavender Purple and Mint Green ) are quite interesting for a chinchy tablet . Typically , I was sent the Graphite Gray fashion model , which is much more professional ( read : boring ) looking .
The front of the lozenge looks even more generic , of course , with nothing but a consistent bezel running around an 11 - inch display . Those bezel are comparatively slight , with the Redmi Pad SE boast an 84.4 % screen - to - body ratio , which pips the Oppo by a single percentage point .
However , at 7.36 millimetre thick and weighing 478 gigabyte , it ’s not quite as slim and light as the Oppo Pad Air , which weighs in at 6.9 mm and 440 thou respectively . Even so , Redmi ’s tablet is pleasant to withstand – or rather , prop on your lick , as is more often the lawsuit with these expectant tablets .
Screen
The Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE packs an 11 - column inch IPS LCD , and it ’s a square performer .
With a resolution of 1920 x 1200 , it ’s not as pixel - dense as the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 ’s smaller screen , and even less so not the Oppo Pad Air ’s 10.36 - inch 2000 x 1200 panel . It ’s enough keen enough for Full HD video streaming and connection browsing though , which is what you ’ll be doing most of the time .
With a top light of 400 nit , it gets about as lustrous as its similarly price rivals . That is fine for indoor viewing , but you would n’t want to take it out in the garden on a sunny twenty-four hours . Do n’t expect it to smoothen with HDR content , either .
The great vantage the Redmi Pad SE display has over its rivals is a90Hzrefresh pace , which means it ’s 50 % smoother than that of the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 and the Oppo Pad Air . That ’s a big plus gunpoint , though there is an argument to be made that the limited performance of these £ 200 tablet passably negates the effect of a gamey refresh rate .
These flash full - sized tablet are very much think to be portable media players , of course , so it ’s appropriate that we contribute audio recording into the conversation here . The Redmi Pad SE gives you a firm quad - speaker solidification - up that supports Dolby Atmos output , and it provides impressively forte , punchy sound for the price .
You also get a 3.5 mm earpiece jack alongside the USB - cytosine larboard for those physical headphones connexion , though it ’s disconcertingly position right near one of the edges , which rather prompt me of those occasions where you ’d mess up and misalign with the mess punch at school or piece of work .
Performance
Just like the Oppo Pad Air , the Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE runs on Qualcomm ’s Snapdragon 680 . Just like that rival , it ’s not quite enough to ply a sufficiently fluid experience .
It ’s not that the tablet is incapable of running particular apps or tasks . If you ’re pass this small on a pad and expecting it to wager Genshin Impact swimmingly , then you need to reconfigure your expectations , or else be prepared to double your budget .
My issue with the Snapdragon 680 , at least within this context , is that it struggles to do even the BASIC swimmingly . Whether you ’re waken the tab from eternal sleep , hopping between apps , or simply scroll through vane message , there ’s a detectable lag to everything , with frequent micro - stutters breaking the gumption that you ’re dealing with a reasonably posh tablet .
Compared to the Oppo Pad Air , the Redmi Pad SE has the benefit of force a blue - declaration video display . Conversely , it boasts a much faster 90Hz refresh rate which , as suggest at earlier , it ca n’t quite make the most of .
Even so , give the Redmi Pad SE a single simple medium - based task to execute and it will do so admirably . For play a picture show on Netflix , or even a little light 2D gambling , it performs just ok .
Camera
tablet never have particularly great camera set - ups , andcheap tabletseven less so . That ’s fine , because no one ( and I do mean no - one ) should be using an 11 - inch , 500 deoxyguanosine monophosphate slab of glass and metallic element as their primary picture taking instrument .
Xiaomi certainly believe that , judge by the Pad SE ’s provision of a single 8MP rear photographic camera with a lilliputian 1/4 - inch sensor and no stabilisation , with an even more modest 5MP 1/5 - inch sensing element around front .
It ’s a very like set - up indeed to the Oppo Pad Air , and it produce likewise frightful results . injection submit with the 8MP main sensor battle miss any serious level of sharpness or definition , with obtrusive grain to be found even in very well - perch daylight scenarios .
The master photographic camera also fail to deal with extreme point of Christ Within and dark with any efficient form of HDR feature , noticeably muff out white-hot section even when there is n’t a great deal of vestige or swarthiness at the opposite end of the scale .
As for that 5MP front camera , do n’t have a bun in the oven it to be well for anything other than basic video phone call . Detail is a write - off , stress is rotten , and skin tones are well wide of the mark . It also default to an eery beautifying effect , which will smudge those skin tones further .
All in all , it ’s nothing but negatively charged on the camera front . However , like I said at the outset , that does n’t really matter all that much on a cheap pill . Just do everyone a favour and use your smartphone for any snap .
Software
Just like with the Oppo Pad Air , you have to mistrust that a cleaner approach to software might have aid with the Redmi Pad SE ’s performance struggle . It runs on MIUI 14 , which is the latest in a long line of famously flabby ( if reasonably working and customisable ) Android UIs from Xiaomi .
It ’s well serve for Google apps correctly out of the gate , and it does n’t make the misapprehension of trying to replace Google Feed to the left of the home screen , but then it goes and spoils thing by provide a matching World Wide Web web browser . Mercifully , there ’s only one ( opera house is often included to take the total up to three ) , and Xiaomi is far from alone in doing this . Samsung , I ’m looking at you .
Is it me , or does that Google widget on the primary family sieve front weirdly little , like there ’s been some form of cover grading glitch ? I ’ve checked , and there does n’t look to have been . It ’s just one of many UI elements that does n’t quite pose aright here .
Xiaomi is about to dump MIUI exclusively and pop out afresh , so hopefully it ’s got something well up its arm . Whether cheap devices like the Redmi Pad SE will benefit from that rising slope remains to be seen , but there is the promise of two years of OS update , so you have to hope that it will .
Battery Life
Xiaomi has throng its budget tablet with a large 8000mAh battery , which part explains that special thickness and weight compared to some of its rivals .
It pays off too , with the kind of stamina that does n’t seem to dissipate over multiple days of light usage , even with the display position to go up to 90Hz .
In term of hardheaded job , the Redmi Pad SE recede just 5 % of a mission when watching an hour of Netflix , while 30 minutes of light gaming ( Slay the Spire if you ’re wondering ) did n’t even drop the calibre below 100 % .
It ’s a honest task the staying power is so strong , because the Redmi Pad SE only hold up to 10W telegraph charging . For such a large battery , that ’s amazing , and pretty much necessitates an overnight charge .
Having guide the Redmi Pad SE right down , a 15 - minute guardianship only get it back up to 9 % . It learn 1 hr and 37 minutes to stumble 50 % , and a staggering 3 minute and 38 minute to shoot 100 % .
Of course , such sluggish charging hurrying are far more acceptable in a tablet than they are in a smartphone . But with rivals like the Oppo Pad Air giving you an 18W courser ( which is still far from rapid ) , this is undeniably below par .
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Should you buy it?
Final Thoughts
At a price of just £ 199 – and likely cheaper , given Xiaomi ’s love of a sales agreement – the Redmi Pad SE is one of the most low-cost full - sized tab on the market .
It sure as shooting looks and feel like a more expensive tab , with a tidy all - metal build . Its exhibit is big and smooth too , and together with respectable quad speakers , it ’s a comme il faut portable video streaming cock .
exceptional honorable mention , too , for the Redmi Pad SE ’s stamina , which is capable of carrying you through multiple mean solar day on a individual armorial bearing .
However , hamstrung public presentation , sluggish charging , and second-rate software keep this tablet feeling its price tag whenever you endeavor to do much beyond simple cyclosis . It ’s utilitarian , but in a very limited common sense .
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How we test
FAQs
It ’ll digest up to multiple solar day of light to moderate usage , while an minute of Netflix only drain 5 % .
It brush up at a maximum 90Hz , which is one of the smoother screens at this toll .
The Redmi Pad SE ladder on the Snapdragon 680 , which is a fairly down in the mouth - end chip .
No , and Xiaomi / Redmi does n’t come out to deal one for it either .
Test Data
Full Specs
