Artist Review: Redmi Pad 2 Pro with Redmi Smart Pen

This is not a sponsored review

The Redmi Pad 2 Pro is a 12.1-inch Android 15 tablet released in September 2025. This is an upgrade over the Redmi Pad Pro released in April 2024. The processor has been upgraded from the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 to Snapdragon 7s Gen 4.

And you can think of this as the better version of the 11-inch Redmi Pad 2 I've reviewed several months ago.

Here are the official retail prices of the recent Redmi tablets here in Singapore:

• Redmi Pad 2 (4 + 128) with case - SGD 219
• Redmi Pad 2 (8 + 256) with case - SGD 249, 5G cost $30 more
• Redmi Pad 2 Pro (6 + 128) with keyboard case - SGD 319
• Redmi Pad 2 Pro (8 + 258) with keyboard case - SGD 449

Redmi Pad 2 is priced really well for a tablet as good as it is. The is probably the ultimate budget tablet of 2025.

Bottom line

The Redmi Pad 2 Pro has a good display, sound, performance and battery life. Base model provides more value for money because the upgrade to get more RAM and storage is quite expensive.

Pen performance for drawing isn't ideal. Several drawing apps have problems with dots appearing at the start of the line, and some apps have "shoelace" effect with tapering strokes. IbisPaintX, Concepts (above), HiPaint work fine.

Note taking and handwriting works but experience is not as good compared to Apple or Samsung pens.

Specifications

Things included

• Tablet
• SIM ejector
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable
• 15W USB-A charger
• User manual
• Warranty info

The tablet that I purchased did not come with any flip case or pen. Redmi Smart Pen is sold separately (SGD 49 here in Singapore).

Design

This is a beautiful tablet with solid build quality. Weight of 610g is reasonable for a 12.1-inch tablet.

Bezels are quite thin and uniform on all sides. The glass actually rises above the metal frame. The thickness is 7.5mm and is noticeably thicker than the Samsung Tab S10 FE which is just 6mm. The extra thickness is probably to pack the massive 12,000 mAh battery.

There's a 8MP f/2.3 landscape camera that supports face unlock and auto-brightness and both work well.

The back is matte textured metal and there's a 8 MP f/2.0 camera and a flash that looks like another lens. Colours available are Graphite Gray, Silver, and Lavender Purple.

The tablet has four speakers and the audio quality is good. Speakers are loud, don't sound too hollow, have decent surround but bass is lacking which is to be expected. Audio quality is quite similar to the Redmi Pad 2. Audio quality is certainly not as good compared to top end premium tablets but it's very good for a budget tablet. There is even a 3.5mm audio jack.

The USB-C port has USB 2.0 transfer speed and supports 33W charging.

The tablet has a microSD card slot but does not support SIM cards. The Redmi Pad 2 has 5G support and the cellular model only cost SGD 30 more.

Display

The 12.1-inch LCD has 2560 x 1600 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate and maximum brightness up to 600 nits. The display is quite reflective though, but in certain countries there's the matte glass option with anti-glare.

There is the usual LCD glow but viewing angles are good with minimal drop in brightness and colour shift.

The auto brightness of this tablet is higher compared to the Samsung Tab S10 Lite which also has 600 nits brightness. And because of that, the the Redmi display looks so much better.

The display is laminated so there's almost no gap between the line and pen tip.

12.1-inch display is big enough for apps with UI elements that take up more space.

Performance

The Snapdragon 7s gen 4 is almost two times more powerful than the Mediatek Helio G100-Ultra in the Redmi Pad 2.

The tablet feels responsive and fast thanks to the processor and 120Hz refresh rate.

When gaming with Genshin Impact, the default graphics settings is Medium, the third setting out of five and that's considered quite good for a budget tablet. Loading Genshin Impact is also much faster compared to less powerful budget tablets. This tablet can be considered a budget gaming tablet.

The tablet I purchased only has 6GB RAM which is still sufficient for multi-tasking. Having more RAM os obviously better but the price increase is quite steep for the model with 8GB RAM and 258GB storage.

OS and software

The tablet runs on Xiaomi HyperOS v2.0.203.0 on top of Android 15 and there is official support for Google Play Store.

I'm not sure how many years of OS updates this tablet will be getting but Xiaomi has mentioned that this tablet will receive security updates until September 2029. I'm not sure if there's any mistake but Xiaomi said the Redmi Pad 2 will have security updates until June 2032.

Bloatware that I saw are Linkedin, moomoo trading, Netflix, Spotify and TikTok which all can be uninstalled.

Xiaomi HyperOS runs fine. It has split screen, no PC mode, raise to wake, double tap to wake or sleep, circle to search and auto-brightness.

Default Xiaomi file manager is ad supported and does not have integration with Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive.

I'm not sure whether the backup options can backup the whole tablet. I highly recommend you find out where you files are saved and back them up manually, or go with cloud storage whenever possible.

There are many capable drawing apps available from the Google Play Store.

Pen

The tablet supports Redmi Smart Pen.

This pen supports tilt, 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity, and palm rejection. Latency is 10 ms. Initial activation force is 10g, considered quite high when compared to drawing tablets. Battery life is rated for 12 hours. Touch sampling rate for the pen is 240Hz.

Battery life of the pen can only be seen in the pen setting's page. When the pen's battery life drops to 10%, an alert will appear on the display.

The pen uses Bluetooth and has a 240 mAh internal battery. The pen does not support magnetic charging so charging is through the USB-C port.

Important: Do not let pens with internal batteries to remain in discharged state for long periods of time (months) because that will damage the battery. If you do not use the pen regularly, you should charge the pen at least once a month (with the help of your calendar alarm).

The pen has two side buttons but no eraser at the back. You can press and hold the buttons for pre-programmed shortcuts:

• Button closer to pen tip: Opens up the Mi Notes app
• The other button: Opens up the screenshot interface

It's possible to set additional shortcuts to those buttons with your drawing or note taking app. But because the Redmi shortcuts cannot be disable, it is possible to launch the Mi Notes and screenshot UI with accidental button presses.

Replacement pen tips are affordable and can be purchased from AliExpress.

Line tests

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

Note the little dot at the start of the lines. This problem affects Medibang Paint, Infinite Painter and CSP. This usually happens when drawing with a very light touch. It may be possible to choose a brush that does not have this effect. This problem does not affect IbisPaintX, Concepts, HiPaint. Sketchbook and Krita have other problem mentioned below

2. Lines are able to taper smoothly but could be sharper.

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.

5. Dots can be drawn easily.

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

Sketchbook shows obvious "shoelace" effect with tapered strokes.

Krita also has the problem with "shoelace" effect with tapered strokes. Tilt kinda works as in the brush can follow the direction of the pen, but for some reason I cannot reverse the direction of the tilt under Drawing angle under Rotation in the brush settings.

Tilt does not work with Concepts app.

Latency performance is good, but latency will vary depending on the app used.

Note taking and handwriting works but experience is not the best as pen performance isn't that good. Having said that, the pen and tablet are still very usable for note taking.

Drawing experience

Drawing experience is not ideal due to pen performance issues mentioned above. You have to find an drawing app that does not have the "shoelace" tapered stroke and does not draw dots at the start of a line.

The remaining apps that don't have major issues are HiPaint, IbisPaintX and Concepts.

Sketches below were drawn with Concepts.

I didn't really have many problems sketching with Concepts.

Occasionally, palm rejection would cause unintentional undoes but it's not to the extent that it's frustrating. But palm rejection performance can vary depending on the apps used.

Battery life

Battery life is incredible with the 12,000 mAh battery capacity.

Conclusion

The Redmi Pad 2 Pro is a midrange budget that provides a lot of value for money. The display looks good, sound is decent, performance is fast and responsive and battery life is insanely long.

The main downside to me is actually the steep price increase to get 8GB RAM instead of 6GB RAM. The base model provides more value than the upgraded model simply because of the lower price point.

Between the Redmi Pad 2 Pro and Redmi Pad 2, the main differences would the display size and processing power. If you're not gonna play games, for the same amount of money, you can get the Redmi Pad 2 with more RAM and storage, and performance is still decent.

The tablet and pen should work fine for casual sketching, but I won't recommend this for creating professional art due to pen accuracy issues.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Clean simple design
+ Excellent build quality
+ Bright, vibrant, sharp display
+ 120Hz refresh rate
+ Laminated display
+ MicroSD card slot
+ 4-speaker audio quality is good
+ 3.5mm audio jack
+ Portrait apps are automatically rotated in landscape orientation
+ Some bloatware
+ Xiaomi HyperOS is stable
+ 15 hour battery life easily
+ No cellular model
- No PC mode
- Slow diagonal lines have wobble or jitter
- Xiaomi file manager has no integration with Google Drive, OneDrive
- No sure if backup options will backup 100% of the tablet

Availability

Here in Singapore, the Redmi Pad 2 Pro is available from Shopee SG (6GB + 128GB | 8GB + 256GB).

Replacement pen tips can be purchased from AliExpress.