Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE Review: specs and features, camera quality test, gaming benchmark, user opinions and photos

Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE - moving backwards

The global economic crisis is affecting the cost of many components for mobile electronics, making it much more difficult for manufacturers to maintain the same cost. The hero of today's review is essentially a continuation of the successful mid-price tablet, but in a number of ways the device from the Chinese company Xiaomi is now worse.

The appearance of the new product is quite attractive. The beautiful metal back panel is beautiful in all three colors (silver, green, purple), stylish camera lens, excellent ergonomics, cutouts for four speakers look far from budget. Perhaps the only downside is the wide display frames. The 11-inch IPS screen itself turned out to be decent. If a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels is no longer something surprising, then a 90-Hz image refresh rate, a good amount of brightness and natural color reproduction are not so often found in the value segment.

The performance specifications are frustrating. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 CPU (4GB/6GB/8GB RAM, Adreno 610 video core) is noticeably inferior to the previously used MediaTek Helio G99 both in synthetic tests and in real applications. Thus, resource-intensive projects like Honkai: Star Rail or Genshin Impact cannot be played comfortably even with minimal graphics settings, and the Android 13 interface (MIUI proprietary shell) is sometimes upsetting due to thoughtfulness and stuttering. However, the chipset is better in terms of energy efficiency, so the autonomy provided by the 8000 mAh battery reaches 10+ hours of active screen time. There is only one volume of permanent memory (128GB), but it can be expanded with MicroSD cards. But there is no version of the gadget with support for SIM cards; the buyer will have to forget about calls and 4G Internet.

Both the main 8-megapixel and the front 5-megapixel photo module are designed more for video communication than for creating high-quality photographs. Even in excellent daylight, the frames turn out either overexposed or blurry. The issue of stereo sound was partially addressed in the design section. It is loud, rich, voluminous, watching movies or listening to music will evoke positive emotions. However, the overall impression of the device is still mixed due to unpleasant simplifications compared to its predecessor with a similar price.