realme Pad Mini is the second tablet released in the country under the company's realme TechLife lineup. It's a compact slate that offers almost all the stuff you love from its big brother, bringing portability, productivity, and entertainment at the same time. It's also powered by a new chipset, and it flashes a premium design on the get-go.
realme Pad Mini Review
If you are using multiple devices under the realme TechLife, this tablet is pegged to complement those devices. On top of that, the Pad Mini is posing to be a good entertainment machine with its stereo speakers and large display. So, is the realme Pad Mini for you? Join us in this review and find out.
Pros
- Premium-looking build
- Stereo speakers
- Expandable memory
- Attractive price
Cons
- Mediocre display
- Software could not accommodate other streaming platforms
What's in the Box?
The realme Pad Mini is packaged in a white box which features the tablet on the face of the box, while the realme and the realme Pad Mini brandings are on the sides. Key features are printed at the back like the 7.59mm thickness, 8.7-inch large display, 6400 mAh battery, Unisoc T616 processor, 18W quick charge, and realme UI for Pad.
Moreover, the box contains the main unit, documentations, power adapter, USB-C cable, and SIM eject tool.
Design
The realme Pad Mini is essentially an aluminum slab with a svelte form factor. For its size, it's sporting a large display at 8.7-inch. But it's surprisingly thin, at 7.6-mm depth, with its footprint allowing you to hold it in one hand.
Its construction is similar to older smartphones with the display panel and the body press-fitted together to form one single slab of a device. The frame also seamlessly joins the back panel with its unibody design. In turn, the swiping experience around the edges is quite rough. Don't get me wrong, I still love the premium feel of the chassis; but for a 2022 tablet, there are some elements I found to be a bit antiquated.
The realme Pad Mini is very generous when it comes to ports and buttons. In portrait mode, you'll see the power button right above the volume rocker on the right side. The left side houses the SIM tray which accommodates one SIM slot and one SD card slot.
The bottom is a home to the microphone, USB-C port, and the speaker grille. The top also has another speaker grille and the oddly-placed 3.5-mm audio jack. The latter could've been placed further to the right to facilitate balance of placements, but for some reason it's weirdly situated near the middle.
The back panel has a metallic finish. Our Grey review unit does not easily attract fingerprints which is a breath of fresh air. In portrait mode, there's also an 8MP rear camera on the top left and the realme branding on the lower left.
Overall, the realme Pad Mini offers great aesthetics in terms of design. Though the construction is quite outdated, we still love its handling and ease of use.
Display
As mentioned earlier, the realme Pad Mini frames an 8.7-inch display. In terms of quality, the display is a trimmed-down version of the full blown realme Pad - it only has 1340 x 800p standard HD resolution. Though you could spot individual pixels once in a while, I can still say that it's a pretty enjoyable tablet due to its sheer large display.
The tablet is great for consuming content such as streaming in YouTube or reading e-books. With its stereo speakers, you're going to have a fun time watching your favorite titles in HBO Go or Discovery +. For some reason, we can't install Netflix in this device; maybe it's because of the forked version of the realme UI used in this tablet.
Performance
The realme Pad Mini is powered by a Unisoc T616 chipset coupled with up to 4GB of RAM (our review unit has the 4GB + 64GB configuration). The unit also supports memory expansion of up to 1TB via microSD. Meanwhile, the SoC is an entry-level chip developed in 12nm process with six cores of Cortex-A55 and two cores of Cortex-A75.
In real-time performance, we can definitely tell that the realme Pad Min is a modest worker. Though it may not be the best tablet in running graphic-demanding apps, it's good enough to run basic apps, like Gmail, Facebook, and other social media apps.
If you want to do gaming sessions with the Pad Mini, make sure that you'd stretch your patience when playing competitive games. My favorite MOBA game, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, is very playable in the Pad Mini. Casual games like Candy Crush and Clash of Clans run smoothly with this slate.
The realme Pad Mini has dual stereo speakers which makes it a welcome feature in content consumption. Though I love the sound quality of the speakers, I noticed that the bass lacks some punch. Overall, soundstage is quite balanced and voice registers clear.
Camera
The realme Pad Mini packs an 8MP rear camera with no LED flash, and a 5MP selfie camera. In terms of photo quality, the rear camera shoots decent photos that are modest enough to be shared in social media. Details come out soft and dynamic range is not well-defined. However, colors are accurate; but in some cases, it can be washed out. I would not hold this against the Pad Mini since cameras are not the primary feature of tablets.
The front camera is also a convenient feature to have especially if you like sharing selfies or doing video calls. Here are some of the photos we took with the realme Pad Mini:
Software and Battery Life
The realme Pad Mini runs with a forked version of realme UI - realme UI R Edition. One good thing about this interface is that it has minimal bloatwares. It still looks and feels like the original OS with features like gesture-based navigation, Notification Shade, App Drawer, Google Cards, and more.
The R Edition also comes with kid-friendly gems like the Kids Space wherein contents like apps, books, and videos are age-appropriate. On top of that, it has parental controls linked to Google's Family Link app.
The realme Pad Mini packs a 6400 mAh battery that supports 18-watt quick charge capability. In our charging test, the Pad Mini charges from 0% to a hundred in about 190 minutes.
Verdict: Should You Buy The realme Pad Mini?
The realme Pad Mini is a device positioned for someone who loves to consume content but won't settle for the screen real estate that a smartphone could give. Its appealing large screen and stereo speakers make it a dependable companion of entertainment. It's also a kid-friendly device that could excel in both homeschooling and occasional gaming.
On top of that, its premium design makes it even more attractive. With the starting price of Php 9,990 for the 3GB + 32GB configuration with LTE, I think it's good enough if you're looking for a decent slate that you could carry around at home or in the office.
If you're keen on buying this one, I would suggest to get the 4GB + 64GB version (Php 11,990) which packs a beefier storage and RAM. realme also stressed that a 3GB + 32GB Wi-Fi-only variant will be released later this month.
realme Pad Mini Specs
- 8.7-inch IPS LCD display, 800 x 1340p, 179 PPI, 5:3 ratio
- Unisoc Tiger T616 (12 nm)
- 2.0GHz Octa-core
- Mali-G57 MP1 GPU
- 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM, 4GB + 64GB, UFS 2.1
- microSD support (uses shared SIM slot)
- 8MP ultrawide rear camera, 1080p@30fps video
- 5MP selfie camera
- Loudspeaker with Dual Stereo Speakers
- 3.5mm audio jack
- Nano-SIM (WiFi-only, coming soon)
- 4G/LTE
- Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
- Bluetooth v5.0, A2DP, LE
- GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
- USB Type-C 2.0, USB OTG
- realme UI R Edition, based on Android 11
- 211.8 x 124.5 x 7.59 mm, 372 grams
- Li-Po 6400 mAh battery
- 18W Fast charging with Reverse charging
- Gray, Blue colors
