Artist Review: Xiaomi Pad 8 (global ROM) and Focus Pen Pro

Review unit provided by Xiaomi

Xiaomi has finally released the global version of the Xiaomi Pad 8 with Google Play Store on 28 Feb 2026, months after the China version was released in September 2025.

This tablet is obvious the update of the Xiaomi Pad 7 and I had reviewed the Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro but not the non-Pro model though.

Anyway, Xiaomi has been making tablets that provide good value for money for many years, so it's kinda difficult to go wrong with a Xiaomi tablet.

This review is from the perspective of someone who draws on a tablet, and the bottom line is the hardware is great, writing experience is good but drawing experience is not ideal as the pen tip is too slippery, difficult to control.

Shown below are the specifications for the Xiaomi Pad 8 vs Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro, and for the Xiaomi Pad 8 vs Xiaomi Pad 7.

Specifications

Main differences between the Xiaomi Pad 8 models would be the processor, main camera, charging speed, storage options and fingerprint scanner. If you do not need those extra features, I don't think you'll be able to notice any difference, and you can probably save some money by going with the non-Pro model.

Between the Xiaomi Pad 7 and Pad 8, the upgrade is slight.

Things included

• Tablet
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable
• User guide
• Warranty card

Power adapter is not included.

Accessories

Accessories such as the Xiaomi Focus Pen Pro, flip cover and keyboard cases are sold separately. Generally speaking, you can save some money by buying the accessories as a bundle rather than separately.

There are two keyboard cases and here are the differences:

Standard keyboard case
+ Good typing experience
- No touchpad
- No lights for keys

Focus keyboard case
+ Good typing experience
+ Touchpad that supports gesture shortcuts
+ Keys have lights
- Heavier than the other keyboard case

Since the tablet is only 11.2-inches, the keyboard is on the smaller side with some keys only at half width, so typing will need some time to get used to.

Design

The Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro is a good looking tablet with a clean and simple design. Corners for the body and LCD are rounded off. It's a well made tablet and build quality is good.

Bezels are quite thin. The landscape 8MP camera can be used for face unlock. Auto-brightness works quite well.

The back has a huge 13MP camera, flash, connectors for the keyboard case.

The camera bump is big so you'll definitely need the flip cover if you want to place this tablet on the table for writing or drawing.

Dimensions are 251.2 x 173.4 x 5.8 mm. Weight is 485g. Tablet is thin, compact and easy to bring around.

The USB-C port has USB 3.2 transfer speed and can output video. Audio from the 4 speakers is loud and clear.

Xiaomi has managed to increase the battery capacity from 8850 mAh to 9200 mAh. There's 45W fast charging, and 22.5W reverse cable charging.

The tablet is Wifi only so there's no cellular model, and unfortunately there's no microSD card slot too.

The power button has no fingerprint scanner but at least there's face unlock.

The pen can attach to the side of the tablet for charging and pairing. The Xiaomi Pad 8 is compatible with both the Xiaomi Focus Pen and Xiaomi Focus Pen Pro.

Display

The review unit of the Xiaomi Pad 8 has a glossy display, and this is without any anti-reflective coating.

I was told the Pad 8 Pro will have a matte surface option. Whether to get the matte surface option depends on how much you hate reflections.

The display is a 11.2-inch IPS LCD, resolution is 2136 x 3200 with 3:2 aspect ratio. Refresh rate is adaptive 144Hz. Brightness is up to 800 nits.

The display is vibrant, bright and sharp. Not having an OLED display is not a downside here.

Performance

The Xiaomi Pad 8 has the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 processor, and my review unit has 8GB RAM and 128GB storage.

Overall performance of the tablet is responsive. Apps open and load instantly.

8GB of RAM is sufficient for multi-tasking, but there are occasions when an old app will reload. To prevent an old app from reloading, you can lock the app in memory, and this is useful when you do not want to lose whatever you're typing in a web browser.

OS and software

The tablet runs on Xiaomi HyperOS 3 on top of Android 16, and there's official support for Google Play Store. The OS has many useful features and runs fine.

Let me point out some limitations that I found with the OS.

The default Xiaomi file manager is ad-supported, and does not have integration with cloud services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive. I'm using Solid Explorer as my file manager instead, which also does not have cloud integration, but has more features than the Xiaomi file manager.

When exporting artworks from apps, it's still possible to export directly to Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive.

When connected to an external display, there's only Mirror mode. The Workstation mode can give you a desktop-like workspace, but aspect ratio is still 3:2 and cannot be adjusted. And the Workstation mode does not have that many features so there isn't much advantage to using Workstation mode over the standard tablet mode.

Having official Google Play Store is a huge selling point.

For some reason, I was not able to install the Amazon app, but I could still use Amazon through the web browser so that's not a big issue.

This Xiaomi tablet provides backup services but I doubt it's a total backup as Android tablets rarely backups 100% of the tablet. So I highly recommend you backup manually, or use apps that save files directly to the cloud.

Pen

This is the new Xiaomi Focus Pen Pro that works with the Xiaomi Pad 8 series tablet. This pen supports palm rejection, tilt, 8K levels of pressure sensitivity.

Latency is advertised as 3ms but latency will depend on the app used.

Design of the pen is almost cylindrical except for the flat side that attaches magnetically to the tablet for Bluetooth pairing and charging. I do not know the battery life of the pen. Just store the pen by the side of the tablet each time after use and the next time you use the pen, battery will always be at 100%.

The main difference between the previous Xiaomi Focus Pen is the new Focus Pen Pro has no physical side buttons. The new pen now supports the pinch (squeeze) and double tap for shortcuts, and unfortunately those shortcuts only work with the Xiaomi Notes and Mi Canvas drawing app.

I've disabled both pinch and double tap shortcuts because I would activate them unintentionally too often, even when I set pinch to hardest setting.

There's the Scribble feature where you can write into text boxes.

The pen tip is made of plastic and it's tapered. There's one extra pen tip included in the box. Pen tip replacements are affordable and can be found on AliExpress easily.

Line tests

These are line tests created with Medibang Paint Pro.

1. Initial activation force is low so thin lines can be drawn easily even with a thick brush. In my video review, I showed some issues with line width consistency when drawing with minimal pressure, so that can happen even though it's not appearing in the line tests above.

There's slight wobble or jitter with diagonal lines drawn slowly but it's not that noticeable.

2. Lines are able to taper smoothly and sharply.

3. Line transition from thin to thick to thin is smooth. Thin lines can be drawn after the thick lines. This is also a diagonal line and diagonal line wobble is not obvious here.

4. Consistent line width can be maintained by maintaining consistent pressure.

5. Dots sometimes would not appear. Workaround is to tap and drag the pen slightly.

6. There are no issues with cursor misalignment. Cursor is always directly beneath the pen tip.

Tilt works and cursor is able to follow the direction of the pen.

Tilt transition can be too abrupt and not easy to control. When you tilt the pen, the stroke can be too broad instantly. I use tilt brushes with my main drawing app Concepts and I would disable tilt.

Drawing experience

Display is laminated so there's almost no gap between the line and pen tip. The 3ms latency is not possible with third party drawing apps but latency isn't really an issue when drawing. Latency performance is acceptable and satisfactory.

The tablet is light enough for use as a digital sketchpad or writing pad. It's small and easy to pull out of a bag.

All the sketches below were drawn with Concepts app.

This was a sketch drawn on the train while I was commuting to work. I could stand and sketch with the tablet in hand.

The main thing that affects drawing experience is actually how smooth or slippery the pen tip is on the glass. It is quite difficult to control the pen when the pen tip glides so easily on the glossy glass surface. Even when you press down harder, there's no friction to resist the pen tip. This makes drawing straight lines difficult as the pen tip can glide away.

This was a sketch drawn at a cafe and when I first put pen on glass my reaction was "wow, this pen tip is too smooth for drawing". It may be better to just use the auto-shape tool to draw straight lines.

Here's another sketch drawn at the cafe. The 3:2 aspect ratio is good for a mid-sized tablet.

It's easier to draw organic subjects where there are fewer straight lines.

There's definitely no lack of good drawing apps from the Google Play Store. The ones that work best on an 11.2-inch tablet are those with minimal UI design. So apps such as Krita and Clip Studio Paint (desktop mode) would not work as well as there are too many tools and palettes taking up space on the screen, leaving a much smaller drawing area.

When drawing with the tablet in portrait mode, I would disable auto-brightness as my right hand would block the brightness sensor.

Writing performance

Writing performance is fantastic. The app and tablet are able to capture my handwriting style quite accurately.

A smooth pen tip is an advantage for writing because you want to write fast.

Battery life

Battery life is around 10-12 hours with auto-brightness.

Charging speed of 45W is quite fast.

Conclusion

The Xiaomi Pad 8 is a beautiful well made tablet with good hardware. Display looks good, audio sounds good, and performance is responsive. Handwriting performance is good. Drawing experience is not ideal though as the pen tip is just too smooth.

The Xiaomi Pad 8 already has good specifications so you may not need to get the Pro model unless you really need the better specifications. Which one provides more value of course will depend on the pricing.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Clean simple design with solid build quality
+ Fast responsive performance
+ Bright, vibrant, sharp 144Hz display
+ Has different case options
+ Display has matte option
+ Laminated display
+ Fantastic audio quality
+ USB-C port can output video
+ No bloatware
+ Has Google Play Store
- Workstation mode has minimal features
- No audio selection when connected to external display
- No cellular mode
- Xiaomi file manager has no integration with Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox
- Data transfer from another tablet is not 100%
- No sure if backup options will backup 100% of the tablet
- Hover height is too close to display
- Pen is too smooth on the glass for drawing
- Only 128gb og internal storage without microSD card slot
- Keyboard case can be too low due to 16:10 aspect ratio

Availability

You can find the tablets on Shopee SG:
Pad 8 (8GB 128GB) | Pad 8 (8GB 256GB) | Pad 8 Pro (8GB 256GB) | Pad 8 Pro (12GB 512GB)

Lazada SG:
Pad 8 (8GB 128GB) | Pad 8 (8GB 256GB) | Pad 8 Pro (8GB 256GB) | Pad 8 Pro (12GB 512GB)