Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – Multimedia Powerhouse Laptop Replacement

Aiman Maulana
By Aiman Maulana 13 Min Read
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  • Appearance - 8/10
    8/10
  • Efficiency - 8.4/10
    8.4/10
  • Features - 8/10
    8/10
  • Materials - 7.3/10
    7.3/10
  • Performance - 8.2/10
    8.2/10
  • Portability - 8/10
    8/10
  • User Experience (UX) - 8.5/10
    8.5/10
  • Value - 8/10
    8/10

Summary

The Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro is a good, flagship-level tablet is a great portable multimedia device. It definitely packs enough firepower for mobile games and it can be easily used for work, both office and creative, with the right accessories.

Overall
8.1/10
8.1/10

Pros

+ Flagship-level performance

+ Good battery life

+ Superbly fast charging speeds

+ Camera performs surprisingly well

+ Simple aluminum unibody design

+ Excellent display

+ Class-leading speakers

+ HyperOS here is clean, minimalistic, and user-friendly

+ Keyboard and pen attaches magnetically for convenience

+ Xiaomi Focus Pen works with practically no delay

Cons

– Only Wi-Fi model available, no cellular support

– No expandable storage options

– No official IP rating for dust and water resistance

Unboxing the Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – Box

Kicking off our Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro review with the unboxing, the packaging is a simple white box with the model name embossed in the center. You can also see “Dolby Vision.Atmos” embossed on the bottom part of the box cover. Apart from that, it’s minimalistic in nature so you won’t learn much about the tablet here. Inside the box, we found the following items:

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – Box content
  • USB-C cable
  • 120W charger
  • Documentations
  • The Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro itself
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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – Extra accessories

Our review unit also came with official Xiaomi accessories, which will be used for the review but will also focus on the tablet on its own to see how well it fares on its own. Those accessories are:

  • Protective cover
  • Touchpad keyboard case
  • Xiaomi Focus Pen

Specifications

CPU:Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, 4nm
1 x Cortex-X3 @ 3.2 GHz + 2 x Cortex-A715 @ 2.8 GHz + 2 x Cortex-A710 @ 2.8 GHz +3 x Cortex-A510 @ 2 GHz
GPU:Adreno 740
RAM:8GB / 12GB / 16GB LPDDR5X
Display:12.4″ 3K (3048 x 2032), IPS LCD Display, 144Hz AdaptiveSync, 3:2
HDR10, Dolby Vision, 900 nits (peak), 88.5% screen-to-body ratio
Gorilla Glass 5, 360Hz touch sampling rate
TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light (Hardware Solution) Certified
TÜV Rheinland Flicker Free Certification
TÜV Rheinland Circadian Friendly Certified
Storage:256GB / 512GB / 1TB UFS 4.0
Camera:Main Camera(s)
50MP f/1.8 wide angle camera, PDAF
2.4MP f/2.4 depth camera
Front Camera
32MP f/2.2 wide angle camera
OS:HyperOS based on Android 14
Audio:Stereo, 6 speakers total
24-bit / 192kHz Hi-Res and Hi-Res Wireless
Connectivity:Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6/7, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct
Bluetooth 5.3, A2DP, LE, AAC, LDAC, LHDC 5.0, LC3, Auracast
NFC
USB-C 3.2 Gen 1
SIM:No
Battery:10,000 mAh (non-removable)
120W Fast Charging
QuickCharge 4.0, Power Delivery 3.0
Dimensions:278.7 x 191.58 x 6.26 mm
Weight:590g
Ingress protection:No
Colors:Black, Blue, Green

Performance

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – Antutu v10

Starting off our benchmark suite with Antutu v10, the Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro, performed within the upper levels of last year’s flagship smartphones. It’s no surprise that it can’t beat the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 given that it’s a preceding chip but it’s a good start which shows this isn’t some low-quality binned chip.

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – Geekbench 6

In Geekbench 6, a similar pattern can be seen with it performing around the same levels as other flagships from last year which run the same chip.

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – 3DMark

Moving on to 3DMark, the Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro showed off its GPU strength with some promising figures across the board. While I expected it to run Solar Bay a little better, it’s still good figures nonetheless. This basically shows it shouldn’t have much trouble playing most, if not all mobile games available for it.

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – PCMark

Lastly on PCMark Work 3.0, the Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro had a stellar showing,, with its score even matching up to current generation flagships. This is a great sign that this tablet is more than capable of multitasking and handling your typical everyday tasks.

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – Battery endurance test

For battery life, the Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro last 8 hours and 22 minutes (502 minutes), which might not sound like much but considering that the large display would eat up more battery, it’s actually a remarkable figure. After all, it basically means you get over 8 hours of screen-on-time on a 12.4-inch display at 3K resolution.

As for charging speeds, this is what we managed to get with its own 120W charger starting from 2%:

  • 15 minutes = 51%
  • 30 minutes = 84%
  • 41 minutes = 100%

If you’re looking for the ideal companion to go with this tablet, check out our Xiaomi 14 review by clicking right here.

Camera

Main Camera

Selfies

Normally, we would skip the camera section for tablets since most of them are designed for just video calls as picture quality tends to be far more inferior compared to its smartphone counterparts. To my surprise, it actually performs quite well in this area. In bright environments come out quite pleasing, akin to upper midrange smartphones of recent years. It’s not as detailed as flagships, which is apparent when zoomed in, and the color saturation can be a bit of a hit or miss, but it’s definitely usable.

It will have trouble getting smaller objects in focus so macro shots will be difficult. The selfie camera is not bad but more dependent on light. You can see a big difference between the 3 selfies, with natural light giving the best result.

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – Rear cameras

It’s a similar situation with the front-facing camera, albeit with details leaning towards the softer side. It’s still good for selfies but its primary use would be for video calls, and it will look a lot better than most tablets and a good chunk of laptops out there. One thing’s for sure, do not use them in low-light scenarios as it will suffer immensely.

The Good

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – Rear

There are a number of good reasons to consider getting the Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro. For starters, I’m a fan of its design. It has an aluminum unibody which gives it a more simplified look while the camera housing gives it a more premium look. In fact, the latter would make a lot of consumers believe that the cameras would be at least half decent and above average compared to most tablets out there.

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – 12.4″ 3K IPS LCD display

The Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro features a 12.4-inch 3K IPS LCD display with 12-bit color depth, 144Hz refresh rate, HDR10, and Dolby Vision streaming, protected by Gorilla Glass 5. The screen reaches up to 900 nits peak brightness and according to our luxmeter, that’s pretty accurate since we recorded 859 nits at most. The refresh rate itself can be dynamically adjusted, allowing it to be more energy-efficient while being a treat for the eyes. It also supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision, compatible with all major streaming platforms. Color reproduction is more than satisfactory, and it’s a display worthy of a flagship product.

Further adding to its multimedia capabilities is its built-in 6-speaker setup (four grills but two of them hold two speakers each). This is easily the loudest tablet we’ve ever had the pleasure of using, and the sound that gets produced from them is surprisingly whole and rich with a smidgen of bass. The only reason you wouldn’t use them is if you want a more private listening experience as this, together with the display, makes it quite a multimedia beast in tablet form.

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – With Xiaomi Focus Pen magnetically attached

Lastly, the Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro operates on Xiaomi HyperOS based on Android 14, offering a clean, user friendly UI with minimal bloatware. It supports multitasking with up to two floating windows and split screen, allowing up to four applications to run simultaneously, though some lag may occur depending on the apps used. It also supports stylus input via the Xiaomi Focus Pen, enabling writing and drawing without delays. The stylus and keyboard connect instantly to the Pad 6S Pro using built-in magnets, making it convenient to use.

The Bad

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – Home screen

Of course, it does have its share of drawbacks. For starters, the Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro only comes in Wi-Fi form. In other words, if you wanted a cellular-supported model so you can install a SIM card and use it with mobile internet directly, that will not be possible. There’s no word on whether such a variant will get launched but for now, this is the only option you have.

Furthermore, the storage is not expandable as it doesn’t have a microSD slot. This makes it even more important to pick the right variant from the start so if you know you’re going to use this over the long term, you might as well go for the 12GB RAM / 512GB storage variant. Worst case scenario, you can rely on portable SSD storage or purchasing a cloud storage solution but other than that, you’re out of luck.

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review

Lastly, there is no ingress protection for the Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro. Granted, it’s a tablet and not a smartphone so it might be as vital to have but having any form of dust or water resistance would give people that added peace of mind when using it. After all, there’s always a chance one might accidentally spill their cup of coffee / tea when using it for work. Do be extra careful when using it, just in case.

Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Verdict

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Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro Review – With touchpad keyboard case attached

The Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro is a good, flagship-level tablet is a great portable multimedia device. It definitely packs enough firepower for mobile games and it can be easily used for work, both office and creative, with the right accessories. With its retail price of RM2,799 for the 8GB RAM / 256GB storage and RM3,099 for the 12GB RAM / 512GB storage variant, it’s pretty good value for money provided you actually want a tablet and not a laptop or a larger smartphone.

At the end of our Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro review, I award this tablet with our coveted Gold Pokdeward.

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Big thanks to Xiaomi Malaysia for sending us this tablet for the purpose of this review. We’re likely going deeper with this tablet to see how to make full use of it as a laptop replacement so stay tuned for that.

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