Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 Unboxing And First Impressions

Edit: After using the Mi Pad 3 for 1 solid day, I can say wait for a stable ROM. It’s crashing loading games, full lockups, glitches. UI lag. The hardware is great, but the software is very poor. It’s clearly a beta ROM, if Android 7.0 isn’t stable under MIUI 8.2.8 then just why not give your customers a stable Android 6.0 ROM!

I’ve got my hands on the new Mi Pad 3, the slightly upgraded version of the Mi Pad 2. It no longer ships with Windows. Just Android 7.0 with a MIUI 8.2 skin. Sad to see them drop Windows support. Below is the unboxing and first look hands-on review. This one I got from Gearbest here.

So it looks exactly like the Mi Pad 2, only the internals have changed. A minor upgrade in terms of the chipset performance, it’s now got two more cores, powered by a hexacore MediaTek MT8176 with a max turbo of 2.1 Ghz. The GPU is a PowerVR Rogue GX6250 driving that 7.9″ 1536 x 2048 screen. It’s now got double the RAM, 4GB of LPDDR3. 64GB of eMMC  5.0 storage.

Other specs include wireless AC, new type-c port (Still slow 5v 2A charging) and a new 13MP f2.2 camera on the back, upgraded from 8MP. And the Battery is now 6600mAh up 400mAh.

First impressions:

• Like the Mi Pad 2, the build quality is excellent. Top notch with a perfect fit and finish.
• Fully laminated screen, it looks great. The familiar iPad Mini screen still looks great.
• 3GB free RAM on fast boot.
• 52GB free storage space on first boot. It has no MicroSD support
• My unit has a BETA like ROM, Version 8.2.8 the latest offical OTA update its unstable. Crashing loading games, glitches and random UI lag.
• It has hardware FM radio (Nice bonus!)
• First set up is fast since there is no fingerprint reader to set up
• My version has the Chinese ROM, so only English and Chinese. You’ll need the global ROM for more languages.
• The type-c port doesn’t support display out, I tried it with all my type-C to HDMI adaptors
• The charging rate using my Quick Chargers doesn’t seem to support quick charge
• The camera has next to no settings. No way to change the resolution, no way to set the focus.
• MIUI 8.2.8 was the latest OTA.
• The ROM feels a bit like a beta one to me. Full lock up off camera when I tested real racing.
• Antutu 6.2 score is about 81k, My Mi Pad 2 got about 72 or 74k.
• Geekbench scores are 1500 single and around 3900 multi. That’s faster than the Atom Z8500
• eMMC 5 used is much faster than the Mi Pad 2’s. 260 MB/s reads and 120 MB/s writes
• Google Play Installer V2 for MIUI 8 (Android 6.0) doesn’t seem to work. Use my Google Play for Mi Pad 3 here.
• No GPS hardware at all. Confirmed!
• It has plenty of sensors on board including a Gyro & Ambient light sensor for auto screen brightness.

So far it’s looking okay, just feels like Xiaomi should have given us more, something with more power? LTE support or even add fingerprint security. Seems a minor update, in fact it feels like it should have been named the Mi Pad 2S or Mi Pad 2C as it’s just a refresh of the internals. The price also needs to be lowered, $50 more and you have yourself the iPad 2017 model, which is a much, much faster tablet.

The bugs are a bit of a pain, I can’t even load Asphalt Xtreme it will flicker then crash and a full lock up trying to run Real Racing 3. Like the Mi 5C the hardware might be there, but the software certainly isn’t! Sure, sure future updates will correct this in time but for now, it’s inexcusable to release a tablet with beta-like software.

Xiaomi Mi Pad 3 images (With time codes from the above video)