Artist Review: Xiaomi Pad Mini with Xiaomi Focus Pen

The Xiaomi Pad Mini is an 8.8-inch Android 15 tablet with pen support. This was released in September 2025 and has the same design and specifications as the Redmi K Pad released in China in June 2025. It's great that this tablet is getting a global release because it's a terrific mini tablet. And it's also great that there are now more mini tablets in the market, such as the Lenovo Y700, Alldocube iPlay 70 Mini Ultra, Huawei MatePad Mini and of course the Apple iPad mini.

At the time of review, I do not have the pricing information yet, but I'll update this review when I know the price.

Bottom line

The Xiaomi Pad Mini is a beautiful, well made tablet with high end specifications for demanding users.

According to benchmarks I've seen, the Dimensity 9400+ has better performance than the Snapdragon 8 gen 3 but not as good as the Snapdragon 8 Elite. That means the Dimensity 9400+ should have the longevity to last for many years. I'm saying that as someone using an old tablet with Snapdragon 8 gen 2 that still runs real fast today.

The hardware of the Xiaomi tablet is good. Display is bright, vibrant and sharp. Sound quality is quite good. Apps can launch fast and games can be played with high graphics settings without lag. There's face unlock but no fingerprint unlock. There's no support for microSD card and cellular.

The Xiaomi Focus Pen is compatible with this tablet. I find the pen to be too smooth on the glass and that affects writing and drawing. Pen accuracy is decent but not as good as Apple Pencil and Samsung S Pen. Overall, having pen support is still a bonus.

This is a tablet I can recommend easily for those looking for a portable, premium, quality tablet.

Specifications

My review unit came with 12GB RAM and 512GB internal storage.

Things included

• Tablet
• 67W USB-C charger
• USB-C to USB-C charging cable
• Warranty and quick start guide
• Case

The included case is well made, does not weigh too much and comes with a strap.

The adjustable strap allows you to hold the tablet easily in one hand without having to grip the tablet, and can also work as a stand to prop up the tablet in landscape orientation.

Design

Design of the tablet looks good. Weight is 326g. This is a tablet that can be held easily and comfortably in one hand. Typing on it feels great, and there's haptic. This is an ultra portable tablet that's easy to bring around. There's no IP rating for water resistance.

Corners for the body and LCD are rounded off. Bezels are quite thin with a screen-to-body ratio of 82.9%. There's an 8MP portrait camera that supports face unlock and auto-brightness. There's no fingerprint unlock.

The back is matte textured metal with a 13MP camera and flash.

The sides of the tablet are completely flat. The Xiaomi Focus Pen can attach magnetically to the right side for Bluetooth pairing and charging.

Note the glossy and reflective display.

The tablet has 2 stereo speaker and audio quality is good. There's good clarity, surround but lacks bass. Hands will not cover the speakers when holding the tablet in landscape orientation. The USB-C port beside the speaker is for charging and only has USB 2 transfer speed. Charging with the Xiaomi charger is up to 67W and with third party chargers it's up to 30W.

On the left side, there's a USB 3.2 type-C port that supports video output. The location of this USB-C port allows you to charge the tablet while gaming.

Display

The display is an 8.8-inch IPS LCD with 165Hz adaptive refresh rate. Resolution is 3008 x 1880 with 16:10 aspect ratio, 403 PPI. High brightness mode is up to 700 nits. There's no anti-reflective coating, and unfortunately it does not have a matte glass surface.

Not having an OLED display is not a downside. This LCD is bright, vibrant and sharp.

The beautiful display with good speakers make this tablet a wonderful multimedia device.

8.8-inch can be considered small for reading comics if the comic book is supposed to be large format.

For reading Japanese manga, the size is perfect.

Performance

You can expect responsive and smooth performance from the Dimensity 9400+ processor and 165Hz refresh rate. Apps launch fast and webpages load quickly.

The 12GB RAM allows you to store many apps in memory, and even very old apps don't need to reload when you open them.

Gaming with Genshin Impact allows to me play at high graphics settings, which is the second highest setting out of five. So yes you can consider this a gaming tablet.

OS and software

This tablet has Xiaomi HyperOS running on top of Android 15, and there's Google Play Store.

At the time of review, I do not have information for how many years of Android OS and security updates this tablet will get. FYI, Xiaomi Pad 7 has 4 years of Android OS updates and 6 years for security updates.

The few bloatware I saw are LinkedIn, Netflix, Spotify and TikTok.

Xiaomi HyperOS looks good and has a decent set of features. There's split screen, floating window, raise to wake, double tap to wake or sleep, 80% battery charging, interconnectivity with other Xiaomi devices,

UI scaling looks good so apps and webpages do not look like zoomed in phone apps.

There's Workstation (desktop) mode but it's quite simple so I'm not sure how useful it will be. PC mode will of course work better with a huge external display. When connected to external display, there's only mirror mode, and the 3:2 aspect ratio will not adjust to fit a 16:9 or 16:10 external display.

Default file manager has no integration with cloud storage services such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox.

Opening vertical apps with the tablet in landscape will cause the app to appear squarish, and rotating the tablet won't resize the app. A bug no doubt.

To backup the whole tablet, everything, you have to backup to a computer instead of using Xiaomi Cloud.

There's a shortcut to launch Google Gemini AI using swipe from corners. I can't seem to find a way to disable that shortcut which sometimes activate while I'm drawing.

Pen

The Xiaomi Focus Pen is sold separately for SGD 89. It's a well made pen with good build quality. The matte textured surface is comfortable to hold.

Design of the pen is almost cylindrical except for the flat side that attaches magnetically to the tablet for charging and pairing. I'm not sure what's the battery life of the pen but you don't really have to worry about battery life when you can just attach the pen by the tablet for charging.

The pen supports tilt, 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity and palm rejection.

The pen has three side buttons which are shortcuts for the OS. Unfortunately, these buttons cannot be customised with shortcuts from drawing apps.

The standalone button is called the Spotlight button and here's what it does:

• Press and hold and you'll get a red pointer on the display. This is useful when tablet is connected to an external display for presentation
• Press once and you can draw on the display to mark out areas you want people to look at
• When using the camera app, this can work as a shutter button

The middle button is a screenshot button. Press once to get into screenshot mode, and you can draw a selection to create a screenshot, or make a full screenshot.

The first button (closest to pen tip) is the writing button. Press once on the home screen to open the Mi Notes app. Press once when you're using some other app to open a small notepad by the side.

Line tests

1. Initial activation force is very low. Thin lines can be drawn easily even with a thick brush selected. There's wobble and jitter when drawing slow diagonal lines.

2. Lines are able to taper smoothly and sharply.

3. Line transition from thin to thick and back to thin is smooth. This is also a diagonal line and there's diagonal line wobble and jitter.

4. Consistent line width can be drawn easily by maintaining consistent pressure. Here you can see diagonal line wobble too.

5. Some dots may not appear so you have to tap and drag slightly.

6. Lines can join without leaving gaps or lines overshooting regardless of the angle of the pen.

Issues with tilt sensitivity

The pen supports tilt sensitivity but tilt does not work consistently and performance varies depending on the app used. For the test above created in Concepts app, the pen was tilted all the way but tilt is not in effect all the way.

Drawing experience

The drawing experience is mostly affected by how smooth the pen tip is on the glossy glass which makes it more difficult to control the pen precisely. I have actually tried install those silicone covers over the pen tip to get more resistance, but sometimes the pen will draw without the pen tip touching the surface. So I guess to get more resistance on the surface, you'll have to use a matte screen protector. Replacement pen tips can be found easily on AliExpress.

Another thing that affects drawing experience is there's no way to disable or customise the pen button shortcuts. While drawing, sometimes I would press the buttons and activate unwanted shortcuts.

Palm rejection works well most of the time, but there may still be unintentional undo occasionally.

This was drawn with Concepts. This app supports shortcuts for 2, 3 and 4-finger tap shortcuts. 2 and 3-finger tap shortcuts work fine but 4-finger tap does not work consistently.

This was drawn with Concepts.

Diagonal line wobble or jitter isn't too much of an issue as you can increase the smoothness of brushes to smooth out the lines. Concepts, Infinite Painter and Clip Studio Paint are able work with 15% smoothness without significant increase in latency. Sketchbook and Medibang Paint need more than 15% smoothness to get straight lines, and there will be more latency.

This was also drawn with Concepts.

This was drawn with Medibang Paint Pro.

Drawing subjects without straight lines is alright. The slight diagonal line wobble or jitter isn't much of an issue.

This was drawn with Medibang Paint Pro. Drawing subjects with straight lines is more challenging due to the very smooth glass surface, and less of the diagonal line wobble and jitter. For this app, line smoothness has to be increased and noticeable latency can be seen while drawing.

Writing performance is also affected even though writing usually benefits from a smooth surface.

The extra smoothness of the glass affects accuracy.

Two other things that affect user experience while drawing are the gesture shortcuts for Google Gemini, and app switching. Google Gemini activates when you swipe up from either bottom corners, and app switch activates when you swipe up from bottom to either sides.

Battery life

Battery capacity is 7,500 mAh. Battery life with the display at maximum brightness is 8hr. Battery life without auto-brightness is 15 hours. Android tablets having more than 12hr of battery life easily nowadays is no longer surprising.

The advertised charging speed with the Xiaomi charger is up to 67W, and can charge the tablet fully in an hour. Charging speed with third party GaN charger is around 30W.

Conclusion

The Xiaomi Pad Mini is a well made and capable tablet. It's a portable tablet that looks good and feels good. Hardware is great and the only downsides to me are limitations, namely there's no microSD card slot and no cellular support.

Drawing and writing experience is alright, affected mostly by how smooth the glass is.

The Xiaomi Pad Mini is definitely the premium portable tablet of 2025 that I can recommend easily. The hardware seriously makes the iPad mini feel ancient, and that's supposed to be a so called premium tablet from Apple. The iPad mini's advantage is pen performance is better. I don't think iPadOS is better because each OS has its pros and cons.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Beautiful design
+ Excellent build quality
+ Bright (700 nits), sharp, vibrant display
+ 165Hz refresh rate
+ Laminated display
+ Fast performance
+ Audio quality is good
+ Two USB-C ports, one can output video
+ 67W and 30W charging with Xiaomi and third party charger respectively
+ Battery life is great
- No fingerprint unlock
- Workstation mode is not useful
- Glass display too smooth for drawing
- No anti-reflective coating, no matte glass option
- Slow diagonal lines have wobble or jitter
- No SD card slot
- No cellular model
- Xiaomi file manager has no integration with Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox
- Data transfer from another tablet is not 100%
- 100% backup option only possible to computer, not Xiaomi Cloud

Availability

Unknown yet at time of review