Poco Pad 5G Review: Deja Vu

Name: Poco Pad 5G Review: Deja Vu
Item: Poco Pad 5G

Poco Pad 5G tablet starts at Rs. 23,999 in India.

Written by Siddharth Suvarna, Edited by Ketan Pratap | Updated: 28 August 2024 13:02 IST

You get an all-metal design with the Poco logo at the back

Highlights

Poco Pad 5G is equipped with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 SoC
It packs a 10,000mAH battery with 33W fast charging support
The Poco Pad 5G gets a 12.1-inch 2.5K LCD panel with 120Hz refresh rate

Poco has been doing well when it comes to smartphones, so naturally, it wanted to try out a new segment. Enter the Poco Pad 5G. It's the first tablet from the Chinese brand, and at first glance, it appears to be a good deal. It offers a large 12.1-inch LCD display, a 10,000mAh battery, and a Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 SoC. The tablet also offers cellular connectivity and a premium design. However, it looks awfully similar to the Redmi Pad Pro 5G. And when you look at the specifications, it's hard to ignore the fact that the Poco Pad and Redmi tablet are pretty much the same tablet.

Poco has priced the Pad 5G at Rs. 23,999 for the base option, which is Rs. 1,000 lower than the Redmi Pad Pro 5G. Is this then a better buy than the Redmi tablet? Read on to find out.

Poco Pad 5G Design: Looks good, but a fingerprint magnet

Dimensions - 280mm x 181.85mm x 7.52mm
Weight - 568g
Colours - Cobalt Blue and Pistachio Green

The Poco Pad 5G has an all-metal unibody construction that feels durable and premium. It has a matte finish rear panel with a two-tone design, which loves fingerprints. You may want to carry a microfibre cloth with you everywhere. The rear panel has the Poco branding and two circular modules housing a camera and an LED flash. The tablet, although large, is portable thanks to its weight and slim profile. It has rounded corners, flat sides, and tapered edges on the front glass.

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You get a 3.5mm headphone jack on the tablet

The right frame of the tablet houses two microphones, the SIM card tray (supports dual 5G SIMs or a SIM and a microSD card), and the volume rocker key. You get dual speakers on the top edge along with the power/wake button, and the bottom houses another two speakers, a USB Type-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The left frame is bare. Overall, it's a well-built tablet.

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Poco Pad 5G Display and Sound: Great for watching content

Size - 12.1-inch 2.5K resolution LCD
Refresh rate - 120Hz
Audio - Quad stereo speakers

Flipping the tablet over reveals the large 12.1-inch LCD display surrounded by uniform and rather thick bezels. The panel is protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass 3 and offers a 16:10 aspect ratio with 2.5K (2560 x 1600 pixels) resolution. It also supports up to 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and lets you choose between 60, 90, or 120Hz. There are three colour profiles available onboard, including Vivid, Saturated, and Standard. It's best to leave it at Vivid, as you get good colours with decent blacks.

The 12.1-inch display offers up to 600 nits of peak brightness

The display supports Dolby Vision and offers a peak brightness of up to 600 nits. However, using it outdoors is not fun as the screen doesn't get bright enough. Indoors, the panel gets plenty bright.

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Coming to the sound, the Poco Pad has a quad-speaker setup with support for Dolby Atmos. You also get Hi-Res Audio support via the 3.5mm headphone jack. The audio is quite good on the tablet, and there is nice stereo separation. It does get loud, but there's not enough bass at max volume. Listening to music isn't a great experience, but watching movies and shows is.

Poco Pad 5G Software: Not a lot of bloat

OS - Android 14
Skin - HyperOS

Poco has included HyperOS on the tablet, and it's based on Android 14. There's also very little bloatware or pre-installed apps, which is nice. You get a Mi Canvas app that can be used to sketch using the Poco Pen. However, I did not receive the pen or tablet, so I cannot comment on its performance and usage.

The tablet isn't meant for heavy lifting but is great for content consumption

Apart from the Mi Canvas app, you also get several HyperOS features such as Xiaomi HomeScreen+, Shared Clipboard, and cross-device Notes app sync with the Camera app, which allows you to take a photo on a connected phone and insert the picture directly onto the Notes app. The HomeScreen+ feature lets you connect a phone using a Xiaomi account to receive smartphone notifications on the tablet. Meanwhile, the shared clipboard lets you easily copy and paste images and text between devices. Multi-tasking is also available on the tablet, obviously, and it works as expected. You can have up to two apps running simultaneously on the screen, but you can also add two floating apps, bringing the total to four.

Poco has promised two years of Android OS updates and three years of security patches on the tablet, which is nice.

Poco Pad 5G Performance: Could've been better

Chipset - Snapdragon 7s Gen 2
RAM - 8GB (LPDDR4X)
Storage - Up to 256GB (UFS 2.2) inbuilt, expandable

Poco has equipped its first tablet with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 SoC, which performs well. The UI experience is mostly smooth when navigating around, but I did notice lag when multitasking, scrolling through the Settings app, and launching certain apps such as the Camera.

The Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 SoC is good enough for regular tasks and some gaming

I ran some synthetic benchmarks on the Poco Pad to get an idea of its performance compared to the Redmi Pad Pro.

Benchmark	Poco Pad 5G	Redmi Pad Pro 5G
Geekbench 6 Single	1025	1034
Geekbench 6 Multi	2893	2994
PCMark Work 3.0	12682	12518
3DM Slingshot Extreme	4583	5177
3DM Slingshot	5979	6690
3DM Wild Life	2976	2970
3DM Wild Life Unlimited	3065	3072
AnTuTu v10	548927	602839
GFX Bench T-Rex	79	81
GFX Bench Manhattan 3.1	29	30
GFX Bench Car Chase	15	15

As you can see, the Poco Pad performed similarly to the Redmi Pad Pro, which shouldn't be surprising since both are essentially the same tablet.

I did not typically face heating issues when using the tablet, and even when playing games such as BGMI, the tablet only got slightly warm around the camera. I could play BGMI in ultra-high graphics settings, and it ran smoothly without any lag. However, playing the game on a big tablet like the Poco Pad isn't super comfortable.

Since the tablet also supports 5G connectivity, I tested 5G speeds using Speedtest, and the Poco Pad delivered download speeds of around 474 Mbps and uploads of 63 Mbps. Video calls worked well on Airtel's 5G network.

Poco Pad 5G Cameras: Decent

Rear - 8-megapixel with LED flash
Front - 8-megapixel

The only camera that should matter on a tablet is the front-facing one, and the 8-megapixel sensor on the Poco Pad isn't that great.

The rear camera can take decent photos in daylight conditions

It works fine in daylight conditions, and you can make video calls, but I wouldn't recommend using the tablet to take selfies as photos lack details. It's the same with the rear camera, where photos are usable in daylight conditions, but there's plenty of noise and loss of detail when there isn't enough light.

Poco Pad 5G Battery: Enough to binge a limited series on Netflix

Capacity - 10,000mAh
Fast charging - 33W

Battery life on the Poco Pad was a mixed experience for me. I expected the 10,000mAh battery to last just as long as the Redmi Pad Pro in our HD video loop test. However, the Poco tablet only lasted about 11 hours and 50 minutes, whereas the Redmi Pad Pro survived for 28 hours and 30 minutes.

The tablet doesn't heat up when charging

The result was also surprising because with regular usage that involved several hours of YouTube streaming, half an hour of gaming, watching Netflix, and browsing the web, the tablet went about two days without needing a charge.

Talking about charging, the Poco Pad supports 33W fast charging and the charger is provided in the box. Using the adapter, it takes about 2 hours to fully charge the massive 10,000mAh cell.

Poco Pad 5G Verdict

Alright, so should you buy the Poco Pad 5G tablet? Well, in short, yes, because it is a pretty good mid-range tablet. It's got a good high-resolution display with good indoor brightness, it's well built, the performance is not bad, the battery life is pretty good, and you can even play games on the tablet if you like. It offers good value for money.

One of its main competitors is the Redmi Pad Pro 5G (Review), but it's priced slightly higher while not offering anything different. The Poco Pad is a better deal here. Then you have the Xiaomi Pad 6 (Review), which is cheaper and offers better performance and cameras but has a smaller display and battery.

Poco Pad 5G

REVIEW
KEY SPECS
NEWS

Design
Display
Software
Performance
Battery Life
Camera
Value for Money

Good
Large high-resolution display
Good battery life
Well built
No bloatware

Bad
Fingerprint magnet
Display isn?t bright outdoors
Slow charging

Read detailed Poco Pad 5G review

Display 12.10-inch

Processor Snapdragon 7s Gen 2

Front Camera 8-megapixel

Resolution 2560x1600 pixels

RAM 8GB

OS Android 14

Storage 128GB

Rear Camera 8-megapixel

Battery Capacity 10000mAh

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Further reading: Poco Pad 5G, Poco Pad 5G design, Poco Pad 5G display, Poco Pad 5G performance, Poco Pad 5G software, Poco Pad 5G gaming, Poco Pad 5G battery, Poco Pad 5G price in India

Siddharth Suvarna Email Siddharth Suvarna

Siddharth Suvarna is the Deputy News Editor at Gadgets 360. He’s been an avid tech junkie for more than two decades now, and started his career as a tech writer almost 12 years ago. He has covered tech news, how-tos, guides, reviews, and almost everything related to gadgets or technology. At Gadgets 360, he can be found tracking news, editing articles, and sometimes sending random tech related memes to his colleagues. You can contact him at siddharths@ndtv.com or use Jason Bourne to hunt ...More