Poco Pad review

Camera

The Poco Pad has two 8MP imagers - one at the back that is complemented with an LED flash, and one at the front for video call purposes. The rear one supports autofocus, while the front one does not.

The camera app has been optimized for tablet use, of course, and the Pad Pro has Night Mode support.

The 8MP photos from the rear camera are alright. The resolved detail enough, the noise is low, the dynamic range - wide. The colors are a bit muted.

Rear camera

The 1080p videos from the rear camera are average in everything - detail, contrast, color presentation.

The photos and videos from the front camera are good - they have good amount of resolved detail, very well rendered faces, good colors and wide dynamic range. This camera will do well for video calls and selfies.

Front camera

And here is a snapshot from a selfie video.

Front camera - video snapshot

Our verdict

The Poco Pad has been launched in a couple of markets so far - the Philippines, Turkey, Japan, Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia to name a few. It costs $330, comes with 256GB storage and the 33W charger ships inside the box. These are enough reasons to choose it over the Redmi Pad Pro, which sells at the same price but in 128GB and without a bundled powered adapter. Unless, of course, you need a tablet with cellular connectivity/GPS as only the Redmi Pad Pro offers that.

We do hope Xiaomi decides on expanding the Poco Pad availability, because it is an incredibly good tablet for a price that is hard to turn down. It has a large LCD screen with high resolution, high refresh rate, 68B colors and Dolby Vision support. The four Dolby Atmos speakers are a superb addition, too.

Redmi Pad Pro (left) • Poco Pad (right)

Even better, the Poco Pad is a powerful tablet with an advanced operating system and launcher, which will come in handy to those who need performance and/or power user features. It can be used for work, for entertainment, for gaming, or as a laptop replacement if you opt for its Keyboard and/or Smart Pen.

Sure, a trackpad would have made this accessory's high price more easily palatable. You can connect a regular Bluetooth keyboard with the same productivity benefits for a fraction of the price.

And the cameras are not the tablet's forte, but let's face it - it's a tablet so noone expects great camera quality, right?

Those minor things aside, the Poco Pad is one of the best tablets you can buy for around $350/€350 (as long as you can find a retailer near you that stocks it).

Pros

• Beautiful and comfortable aluminum unibody.
• Excellent display, Dolby Vision.
• Loud Dolby Atmos speaker quartet.
• Great performance and stability for this class.
• Clean and powerful OS.
• Memory card slot and audio jack.

Cons

• Not very fast to charge.
• The camera quality is mediocre.
• The Keyboard cover is expensive and lacks a trackpad.
• No version with cellular data/GPS available.