Xiaomi Mi Pad 3

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Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 Finally Goes Official And Disappoints

Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 Finally Goes Official And Disappoints

After a spate of fakes and rumours stating it would ship with a Core M3-7Y30, the Mi Pad 3 was officially announced today by Xiaomi. The 7.9″ tablet is just an internal component change around really as the screen and housing remains the same. The Atom Z8500 has been replaced by a MediaTek MT8176 Six Core CPU with a max turbo of 2.1Ghz. The GPU is an Imagination PowerVR GX6250, the same GPU used in the JDTab J01 that I reviewed recently.

It has Type-C, RAM has doubled to 4GB, and the storage is 64GB of eMMC 5 spec. The battery is now a larger 6600mAh and rear camera is now a 13MP f2.2 one. It will run MIUI 8 of course and has wireless AC. No MicroSD card support.

The Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 will sell for around $220 USD in China tomorrow. GearBest has it listed for $316 on preorder here.

While it might be a decent little retina tablet for the price with that 2048 x 1536 screen, decent speakers and premium build I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. I would have hope that if they had gone just Android they would have gone all out and used a Snapdragon 820 or 821 SoC. Even a MediaTek Helio X25 but sadly a very run of the mill hexacore CPU from MediaTek. Going ARM again also means no X86 support for Windows 10.

I’ll still review this and hope it’s not going to be a disappointment like the JDTAb J01 was. At least it should run Android games better than the Mi Pad 2.

While I’m disappointed, I’ll still get one to review as it should still be a nice 7.9 Android tablet.

Source: Xiaomi

Video tech reviewer and tech blogger. I have a huge interest in the latest tech, tablets, laptops, mobiles, drones, and even e-scooters. Active in the tech community since 2008 days of the Omnia i900 Windows phone. Samsungi8910omnia.com, Samsunggalaxysforums.com founder from way back.

27 Comments

  1. I was hoping a more beefy processor, somewhere around Snapdragon 820. I wont mind paying a bit more to have better platform. The price is also a bit on the higher side if you ask me, especially compared to older model.

    I played around Huawei M3 with Kirin 950 processor, the gaming performance is horrible. Processor speed is fine most of the time, but the touchscreen seems a bit flaky. It doesn’t register some of my touch when typing on the keyboard.

  2. Will you review the Cube Mix Plus?

  3. Awww this is sad. I was realy hoping for X7-Z8750 or M3-7Y30, that would be such a nice Windows tablet.
    This on the other hand is realy disappointing because i am not so sure, that +2GB RAM is worth the 14nm Intel to 28nm ARM … downgrade?

  4. Samsung Galaxy Book 10.6 at a glance
    261.2 x 179.1 x 8.9 mm aluminum body; 640g(Wi-Fi) / 650g(LTE)
    2-in-1 form factor with a detachable keyboard; S Pen stylus; both included
    10.6-inch TFT FHD 1920×1280 pixel display
    7th Gen Intel Core m3 processor, Dual Core 2.6GHz
    4GB RAM; 64GB/128GB eMMC
    microSD up to 256GB
    30.4W battery; up to 10hrs, Fast Charging support
    Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2X2 MIMO; LTE Cat. 6; Bluetooth® 4.1 BLE; GPS + GLONASS; USB 3.1(Type-C);
    Windows 10 OS
    5MP fixed camera

    F*** Xiaomi
    The real mi pad 3

  5. So well galaxy book 10.6 for me even though It has no back camera
    Chris pls post a review about it

  6. Here’s hoping! The final round of rumors stated there were two versions of this tablet and correctly predicted the MediaTek processor configuration:

    “The Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 is said to come with a 7.9-inch screen, 4GB of RAM, 64GB or 128GB of ROM, MediaTek MT8176 processor (2.1GHz A72x2 + 1.7GHz A53x4), and Android 7.0 Nougat. It is priced at 1299 yuan ($189) and 1599 yuan ($232).

    “The Pro version sports a 9.7-inch display, Intel Atom x7 series Z8750 quad-core processor (acceleration frequency of 2.56GHz, dual-channel 8GB LPDDR3-1600 memory support, HD Graphics GPU at frequency of 200-600MHz), 4GB +64 GB / 128GB memory combinations, and Windows 10. It’s priced at 1699 yuan ($247) and 1999 yuan ($290).”

    http://www.xiaomitoday.com/xiaomi-mi-pad-3-3-pro-come-various-color-options/

    • The Pro version could be coming later.

      • Maybe, but last years Atom Z8750? Needs to be the Apollo Lake now. And that website is know for posting fake news.

        • Not exactly. Apollo Lake really isn’t intended for tablets of this smaller form factor. You only really see Apollo Lake in the larger 2-in-1 and entry-level notebook market. Cherry Trail is still the go-to for smaller devices.

        • Besides, Apollo Lake offers no IPC advantage over Cherry Trail, anyway. It is a slightly scaled up Cherry Trail, meaning hotter temperatures and less battery life. If they could put in Apollo Lake anyway, they might as well go all out and use Core M since both consume roughly the same amount of power–only Core M is far more powerful. The X7-Z8750 isn’t exactly old, either. It was just released Q1 2016 which still makes it relevant for the budget market, especially for low-powered device. Until we get a true Atom refresh, Cherry Trail is the what most smaller tablets will continue to use.

    • If they release a dual version with Android it would be great, but I’m afraid they won’t.
      Windows 10 sucks for touch devices. Most apps are not optimized.

    • Incorrect. GearBest was basing their information on the fake rumors across the Internet. Today’s announcement is official, and, no, it is not the tablet we are looking for. It just uses a garbage, bottom-of-the-barrel ARM processor.

  7. Hi, I´m looking for a tablet and I have one doubt, what´s the difference between laminated and non laminated screen? The non laminated are more reflectable? How do you feel the difference?

    • Non laminated is more reflective as it has a visable gap between the touch glass digitizer and then the IPS. OGS / one glass solutions doesn;t have that, aka fully laminated.

  8. How MTK CPU performs at GPU level? I have currently a Teclast X98 pro and Android is terrible. Highly unstable with frequent hangs. Windows is not much better. Lot of issues with Wifi. I wanted replace my Teclast with Mi Pad 3 but a decent GPU performance is a must for me…

  9. it is very disappointing. I heard about mi pad 3 ‘pro’ version two weeks ago. (X8750 included)
    It is my last hope. But Xiaomi seems to have almost given up on the tablet market.

  10. Well, I’m disappointed too 🙁
    No fancy SoC, no Windows (so far), no double-boot, small internal storage… really deceiving…

    • I would be fine with all those specs if only it had beefier SoC in it! Not sure that GPU will handle gaming too well at that resolution. It certainly didn’t on the JTab, but that could have been software related.

    • Same here. I was really hoping that we will again have a dual boot device but maybe with SD Slot. Really like the Idea to have Windows with me everytime when on the road, sometimes its really useful.

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