Review verdict: Xiaomi finally brings a flagship-caliber tablet to the Philippines with the Pad 6s Pro, and its pricing makes it a great alternative against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S9 series in the flagship Android tablet category.
Pros
- Powerful set of internals
- HyperOS for Tablet is better than MIUI for Tablet
- Integrated trackpad for keyboard accessory
Cons
- No cellular connectivity
- No MicroSD card expansion
Flagship Android tablets is a niche category in the Philippines that has been dominated by Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S series for several years. Despite other brands offering powerful, flagship-caliber tablets in China, Xiaomi is the first brand other than Samsung to makes its flagship Android tablet available in the Philippines with the Pad 6s Pro. With powerful internals and a proper UI to boot, is the Pad 6s Pro the Galaxy Tab S9 alternative Filipinos are looking for?
Xiaomi Pad 6s Pro Review Philippines: Design
Being under the Pad 6 series, the Pad 6s Pro has the same design language as the Pad 6 that we reviewed last year. The POGO pins and the camera module remain the same, though the main camera is now a 50-megapixel ISOCELL JN1–which is arguably the highest resolution we’ve seen on a tablet.
Like the Pad 6, the button and port layout on the Pad 6s Pro is the same. That means you have a magnetic port for attaching the optional stylus on top, and you don’t get any slot for a SIM card and MicroSD. This also means that the Pad 6s Pro doesn’t have a cellular connectivity option–which is the main advantage of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S9 series of tablets, albeit with a very high price tag.
Xiaomi Pad 6s Pro Review Philippines: Display and Speakers
The Pad 6s Pro is bigger than the standard model with its 12.4-inch IPS display that also has a 144hz refresh rate. You get the same symmetrical bezels, along with a quad-speaker system that has Dolby Atmos.
Aside from having a more productivity-focused 3:2 aspect ratio, we noticed that the Pad 6s Pro has a higher maximum brightness, making it more usable for outdoor use. The Pad 6s Pro’s display also supports a wider color range, making its display better in displaying HDR content compared to the Pad 6.
Because it is physically larger than the Pad 6, Xiaomi was able to pack a six-speaker system on the Pad 6s Pro, and they sound great–typical of what you’d expect on a premium device.
Xiaomi Pad 6s Pro Review Philippines: Cameras
The Pad 6s Pro has one of the most stacked camera setups we’ve seen on a tablet: the rear cameras consists of a 50-megapixel ISOCELL JN1 main shooter and a depth sensor, while the selfie camera is a 32-megapixel OV32D. The main camera can shoot videos at up to 4K60, though we doubt if you’d actually use the Pad 6s Pro for taking photos and videos given its enormous size. Regardless of that, it’s nice to have such a powerful camera system on a tablet in case you really need to take a few snaps and a tablet is all you have.
Xiaomi Pad 6s Pro Review Philippines: Internals and Battery Life
As a flagship tablet, the Pad 6s Pro is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, and the one that’s coming to the Philippines has 8GB LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB UFS 4.0 storage. The Pad 6s Pro is one of the most powerful Android tablets available in the Philippines, next to Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S9 series.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is a potent flagship processor in 2024, and can practically run any games at the highest graphics without any hitches. This also makes the Pad 6s Pro as productivity powerhouse, making good use of how HyperOS behaves in tablet from factor–more about that in the next part.
The Pad 6s Pro’s large size also means that you are getting an equally large 10000mAh battery inside. It’s battery life of 11 hours and 40 minutes in PCMark is impressive given its large display and 144hz refresh rate, the most interesting part with the Pad 6s Pro is that it uses Xiaomi’s tried-and-tested 120w charging, making it the tablet with the fastest charging speeds.
Based on our tests, it took us around 40 minutes to top up that large 10000mAh battery–and that’s an impressive figure for a tablet. Despite the blazing fast charging speeds, the Pad 6s Pro barely became warm. This shows that Xiaomi’s 120w charging tech is getting better by every generation ever since making its debut in late 2021 with the 11T Pro.
Xiaomi Pad 6s Pro Review Philippines: User Interface
The Pad 6s Pro comes with a tablet version of HyperOS, and if feels more refined compared to our experience with the tablet version of MIUI on the Pad 6. Unlike HyperOS in Xiaomi’s phones where we barely can see the difference, the tablet version has Xiaomi giving it the proper tweaks for a full-fledged desktop experience.
During our time with the Pad 6s Pro, we felt that Xiaomi managed to address the majority of our complaints we had with the Pad 6 and MIUI for tablets. Aside from the dedicated desktop mode and better split screen functionality, the floating window feature allows you to run multiple apps with the Pad 6s Pro and make good use of its large 12.4-inch display.
With the Pad 6s Pro’s bigger size, the keyboard accessory now includes a trackpad that works very well with HyperOS, giving us that desktop-like experience that’s hard to find in the majority of Android tablets. Unlike the one for the Pad 6, the Pad 6s Pro’s keyboard accessory does have backlighting–though you need to activate it through the tablet’s settings.
Xiaomi Pad 6s Pro Review Philippines: Wrap-up and Conclusions
Even if the flagship Android tablet market in the Philippines is a niche category, the Pad 6s Pro proves to be a solid option as more affordable alternative to Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S9 series–as long as they don’t mind not having cellular connectivity.
Xiaomi Pad 6s Pro Review Philippines: Price
The Pad 6s Pro is priced at Php 33,999 for the 8GB/256GB variant and Php 39,999 for the 12GB/512GB variant.
