Xiaomi Redmi Pad 2 reviewed: for your entertainment

We see plenty of high-end tablets, but what exists in the low-to-mid price points? Take a look at the $399 Xiaomi Redmi Pad 2 and find out.

When Xiaomi launched in Australia with Leica-equipped phones, we were surprised. Not because Xiaomi has partnered with Leica — we’ve known that for a while — but because it decided the back half of 2025 would be the time to launch locally, providing yet more competition for a phone market that seemingly was handled by only a handful of brands.

Apple and Google and Samsung and Motorola and Oppo, oh my, is what mostly consists of phones sold in Australia, with a few other brands scattered about here and there, such as Asus, Nothing, CMF, and HMD, to name a few.

There are at least five brands for phones locally, with a similar output for tablets, too.

But the official arrival of Xiaomi changes that for both categories of devices, because not only are there Xiaomi phones being sold in Australia, but also Xiaomi tablets, too.

The first of these is one focused below the $500 mark, and actually a hundred below that.

Priced from $349 in Australia, the Xiaomi Redmi Pad 2 looks to make a convincing argument that a brand you’ve probably never heard of could deliver value in the world of tablets. Does it deliver, or should you spend a little more all the same?

Design

With a design that pretty much echoes every other tablet you’ve ever seen in your life, the Redmi Pad 2 is both familiar and a little boring. That’s not a bad thing, but rather just a thing, which is exactly what the Redmi Pad 2 is.

“It’s a tablet” will be the first words you utter when you see it, the box doing its best imitation of an iPad box, but made by someone else.

None of this is bad, just different, with the look being a plastic interpretation of the iPad’s more metallic design, offering that material on the back while glass sits on the front.

It’s easy enough on the eyes and measures a relatively slim 7.36mm, adding another two millimetres on the super thin iPad Pro that costs a lot more comparatively.

Weighing 510 grams, the Redmi Pad 2 won’t hurt your luggage too much and is comfortable in the hands, because, well, it’s just a tablet.

Features

Inside, Xiaomi has equipped a MediaTek chip, the Helio G100 Ultra, matching it to either 4GB or 8GB RAM depending on the option you consider, with 128GB or 256GB storage respectively. This review is focused on the 8GB RAM and 256GB storage model.

While the tablet clearly isn’t a phone, it does sport similar features to a phone, including an 8 megapixel rear camera and a 5 megapixel front-facing camera, handy if you want to take photos using a large tablet or take part in video calls of sorts.

Four speakers fit inside this tablet covering Dolby Atmos in a virtualised kind of way, but at least it means you get semi-decent sound, plus a microphone to deal with that video call thing.

Two physical connections sit on the tablet, covering USB-C and 3.5mm audio, while wireless is covered using Bluetooth 5.3 and 802.11a/b/g/ac WiFi 5, a little lower than the expectation of WiFi 6 at a minimum, but fine for most people.

Underneath everything is a massive 9000mAh battery, the likes of which can be charged using that aforementioned USB Type C connector.

Display

Atop all of this is an 11 inch screen with a better resolution than we’d expect to find in a sub-$400 tablet, offering 2560×1600, which weirdly includes support for a pen, even though one isn’t found in the box.

The screen supports a relatively slick refresh rate of 90Hz, but the screen lacks the appeal of higher end devices. It’s nice enough and better than most budget displays, sure, but we’ve seen better. Your phone might be better.

Sadly, there’s no clever OLED or AMOLED tech found here, though, because this tablet is just a tablet focused primarily on a specific part of the market (the budget to mid-range part).

In-use

And because “it’s just a tablet”, it’s relatively easy to use.

You get Android 15 with Xiaomi’s flavour on top, and while it can take a few extra seconds to start up, it’s another variation on a theme, what with widgetised home screens, app shortcuts, and a dropdown power notification bar.

It’s relatively easy to get the hang of, and so using this tablet is rather like any other tablet.

Xiaomi does offer a pen should you choose to draw and scribble on the screen a little like a Galaxy Tab S variation, but it will cost you at least $100 for the privilege, with a browse online giving you a guide to where you’ll find that thing.

Performance

The performance is where things go a little pear-shaped, and you’ll notice it fast, even if you only plan to use the Redmi Pad 2 for the basics. Even powering the tablet on gives you a taste of the Redmi Pad 2’s speed, or lack of it.

It can be slow running an app, and it can be slow bringing it out of standby. It’s relatively slow on our benchmarks, though offers similar performance to other similarly priced tablets, too.

Compare the Xiaomi Redmi Pad 2 against an Oppo equivalent plus the Tab Plus from Lenovo, two models that use similar MediaTek chips and offer almost identical speed. Granted, both Oppo and Lenovo seem to have a hint more speed on Xiaomi’s effort, but the difference isn’t staggering.

Samsung, on the other hand, appear leaps and bounds ahead, even for one of its mid-range tablets.

We opted to compare Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S10 FE variant, a range that comes in well under the high-end Tab S model, and while it is more expensive, it also offers a lot more power and better usability, thanks to that power.

The real problem comes during the apple and oranges comparison, also known as the obligatory Android vs iPad benchmark. It’s a test that isn’t fair because the hardware and software are both very different, but still matters as consumers will inevitably compare Apple’s iPad versus whatever else they’re considering.

Truth be told, it’s been some time since we reviewed Apple’s standard iPad, and the models have changed since we last looked at the 10th-gen iPad.

If you can believe it, we’re actually in the 11th generation, with that newer model having launched earlier this year offering a more recent processor and more memory, too.

Yet comparing the Redmi Pad 2 against 2022’s iPad, the 10th-gen model, we see Xiaomi’s offering doesn’t quite match up to even the older variation from Apple.

In the apples vs oranges test, the Redmi Pad 2 doesn’t really stack up.

Battery

Because the performance isn’t crash hot, the battery life has the ability to soar and deliver a decent amount to work with.

Officially, that means up to 17 hours of overall use from the 9000mAh battery, though you may find you can stretch the battery life simply due to infrequent use of the tablet.

The Redmi Pad 2’s mediocre performance is a key factor here, and can feel in parts that it prevents you from really getting the most out of the tablet.

On the one hand, that’s not great because you might want a tablet with performance, and this ain’t it.

Yet on the other hand, it does keep on keepin’ on, which is better than a tablet that runs flat in no time.

Value

The price is one area, however, where it seems like Xiaomi is on the right track.

Available for $399 in Australia, the Redmi Pad 2 is fairly inexpensive for what looks like a more polished tablet than you’d typically find in the mid-range. If this didn’t the name “Redmi” on the back or the larger camera section, you might be convinced you were looking at a Samsung Galaxy Tab. The style is very familiar.

But the price is also very different, offering a $349 starting price for the 4GB RAM and 128GB edition of the tablet, or an extra $50 for the 8GB RAM and 256GB edition of the Redmi Pad 2, the variant we reviewed.

That price is a good $50 to $100 lower than other similarly spec’d Android tablets, and well below where the base model iPad sits, giving you an idea what type of buyer Xiaomi is targeting: the one that wants to save money.

What needs work?

We probably wouldn’t even consider the 4GB RAM version for $50 less, though, because the performance on the 8GB RAM model is already pretty trying.

Cutting 4GB isn’t going to help Xiaomi in the slightest, and if the 8GB Redmi Pad 2 we reviewed struggled at times, the less expensive 4GB variant will likely be much, much worse. There’s only so much you can get Android or any other operating system to do with only a little memory.

This is probably Xiaomi’s only major flaw, and it’s one that seemingly affects its take on Android, which runs on Android 15, rather than the most recent version, Android 16.

You’ll see it when it starts up and even after you’ve just finishing setting everything up. Xiaomi’s flavour of Android, Xiaomi HyperOS, doesn’t feel quite as slick as the stock Android you can find on Google’s Pixel phones, nor does it feel as solid as Samsung’s One UI.

But you can get past it, even if you need to wait for the performance of the tablet to catch up.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

The problem with quibbling about performance in a sub-$400 tablet is it’s to be expected. Middling performance and slow-downs are just part of life when you spend less than $400 or $500 on a tablet.

You might think that spending more than $100 on anything should grant you a strong performance across the board, and while that’s a nice theory, we’ve learned in recent years that there are points where when you spend less, you really end up getting what you pay for. And in tablets, it’s typically below the $300 to $400 mark.

Budget tablets priced below $200 tend to be the worst of the bunch, struggling on both performance and screen quality, while new models below $400 only scale back one of them, usually the former.

That’s certainly where the Xiaomi Redmi Pad 2 is, offering a mediocre performance under an otherwise decent tablet and screen. If you simply need a screen to browse the web and watch content, movies and shows, it’s not a bad value.

The Xiaomi Redmi Pad 2 is for your entertainment, and really nothing else. For $400, it’s not bad value provided entertainment is all you plan on using it for.

And if you need a tablet for more, there are plenty of other models that do a much better job.

But for entertainment purposes under $400 mark, Xiaomi’s first official tablet offering in Australia drives a bargain.