It would perhaps be too much to declare that Android tablets are having a moment, but I do think they're in a better place than ever before. Partly because of efforts to support folding phones, the last few versions of Android have come with UI tweaks that target larger screens. Google also put out the Pixel Tablet, an unambitious but refreshingly simple device that reinforces the idea of Android as a thoughtful tablet experience.
This has made tablets a more attractive prospect for Android OEMs. Samsung's Galaxy Tabs have been getting better as work devices of late, for example. Xiaomi, meanwhile, stopped making them altogether for years but returned in 2021 with the Pad 5, which was a good mid-range tablet with an optional keyboard case.
A few models later, we have the torturously named Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro 12.4. The pitch is a lot simpler than the name; while the Pad 5 and Pad 6 were mostly for media consumption, the Pad 6S Pro (as I'll call it from now) is basically Xiaomi's first real attempt to take on the iPad Pro. It has a big screen, a keyboard case with a trackpad, and system-level software designed for productivity.
I'm a heavy iPad Pro user myself, and I didn't expect the Pad 6S Pro to change my mind. (Spoiler alert: it hasn’t.) But I have been a little surprised at just how close it gets.
That starts, of course, with the industrial design. While Xiaomi's phone division has done admirable work to set itself apart from the rest of the Android world, I can't say the same of its tablet team. There’s just no getting away from the fact that the Pad 6S Pro is very derivative of the iPad Pro.
I also have to call out the truly excessive camera bump, which is the size of a flagship phone's despite housing nothing more than a tiny 50-megapixel 1/2.76" sensor, a useless 2-megapixel depth sensor, and an LED flash. It's not that the camera itself isn't fit for things like basic document scanning, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't need to look like this.
On a positive note, the Pad 6S Pro has a good webcam that, unlike the iPad Pro's, is located in the correct position — on the long edge, laptop-style. It also has a green LED that activates when the camera is on, which the iPad represents with a small green circle in the corner of the screen. I prefer Xiaomi's approach; Apple's works fine on a phone, but it's much less prominent on a big tablet display.
The selfie camera can be used to unlock the Pad 6S Pro, but as with most similar methods it isn't as secure as biometric hardware. For that, there's a fingerprint reader embedded in the sleep/wake button.
The Pad 6S Pro's screen feels on par with a regular Apple LCD. There's no OLED or Mini LED dimming tech here, which is a shame; I’d have liked a way to view photos from Xiaomi’s class-leading cameras in true HDR. But this panel does have impressive colour reproduction and supports Dolby Vision; it's also backed by a respectable six-speaker stereo array, making it a good option for casual media viewing. And at 12.4" and 3048 x 2032, its 295 ppi is very sharp for a tablet.
That resolution works out to a 3:2 aspect ratio, the same as what Microsoft uses on most of its Surface devices and a little squarer than the 16:10 you'll see on most Android tablets. The Pad 6S Pro is about the same width as an 12.9" iPad Pro — the difference in screen size is really just that it's slightly shorter in landscape orientation. I prefer the iPad Pro when reading in portrait, but the Pad 6S Pro makes for a more natural video device in landscape, and you still get a lot more vertical space than on a 16:9 laptop.
Continuing the theme, Xiaomi's keyboard case feels like a hybrid of Apple's and Microsoft's designs. It attaches magnetically to the back of the tablet, like Apple's, but comes with a Surface-style adjustable kickstand to prop the Pad 6S Pro up.
I don't love the kickstand approach, because it's awkward to use on your lap and takes up much more room on cramped tables in cafes or on planes. On the other hand, it does allow for more flexible viewing angles, which is helpful if you're tall like me — I found Apple's 11" Magic Keyboard unusable because it didn't tilt back far enough.
What I will say for Xiaomi here is that I prefer the Pad 6S Pro's actual keyboard to Apple's. Their key response is pretty similar, but Xiaomi's has a more conventional layout (including an Esc key) and features a full function row. The trackpad works about as well while being a little taller and narrower, which is a tradeoff I'll take given the amount of vertical scrolling it has to handle.
One more thing about the keyboard: it attaches with magnetic pogo pins, and the same mechanism also lets you connect the tablet to the back of the headrests of Xiaomi's new SU7 electric car. Which, sure, why not. Might have been a nice feature on an Apple Car.
The Pad 6S Pro's optional stylus is called the Focus Pen. Like the Apple Pencil, it pairs and charges with a magnetic connection on the side of the tablet. Unlike the Apple Pencil, it has a bunch of button-activated features. The Focus Pen appears to have two buttons, but they actually handle three separate inputs and it's not immediately intuitive what each of them do.
The longer button is divided into "writing" and "screenshot" commands, for example — holding the former launches the Mi Canvas notes app and holding the latter takes a screenshot, which is straightforward enough. But when you’re inside Mi Canvas, pressing "writing" switches between your brushes and "screenshot" swaps your colours. I suppose the way to think of it is that the longer button acts like a rocker control for your pen, at least inside that app.
The smaller button, meanwhile, is called the Spotlight button and can be used as a laser pointer through presumably gyroscopic witchcraft. It also handles functions like annotation and works as a remote shutter for the camera.
I'm not an artist and can't speak to the Focus Pen's performance in that regard, but it does work very well for note-taking once you get your head around the various buttons. I appreciate that Xiaomi took a different approach to the minimalist Apple Pencil, even if there's a bit of a learning curve.
The Pad 6S Pro has solid specs for an Android tablet, though Apple isn't going to be too worried here. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, which is the flagship chip from most 2023 Android phones. My review unit is the entry-level model and has 8GB of RAM with 256GB of storage, though it can be configured with up to 16GB and 1TB respectively. The 10,000mAh battery can be fully charged in 35 minutes with the supplied 120W adapter.
One unfortunate omission at the hardware level is any form of cellular network connectivity. Built-in LTE is something that's really hard to lose once you're used to it, and it's a big reason I continue to use my iPad Pro over a laptop. Sure, you can tether to your phone, but it's not at all the same in terms of reliability or convenience. Even just eSIM support would have been appreciated, given the modem is sitting right there in the Snapdragon chip.
Performance has been more than good enough for my regular workflow. You'd prefer a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor for a product positioned like this, but I don't think it's a big deal. Almost every iPad Pro feels like horsepower overkill when it comes out, and the same is basically true of the Pad 6S Pro. I've been using it for the same things I use my iPad Pro for, and I've never felt like its silicon has gotten in the way.
The software? That's another story.
To be fair, I could say the same thing about iPadOS — no-one has quite solved the whole problem of how to scale a smartphone operating system up to a laptop-sized device. The iPad's advantages are that I'm used to it, which isn't a fair criticism, and that it has much better apps, which is.
The Pad 6S Pro runs HyperOS, Xiaomi's version of Android 14, so it doesn't leverage all the tweaks Google has made for devices like the Pixel Tablet. The taskbar, for example, has been replaced by an iPad-style dock that you can bring up at any time with the keyboard's command key. Xiaomi has also implemented its own take on multitasking, including a Samsung DeX-style "workstation mode" where you're free to drag and resize Android app windows at will.
If you have a recent Xiaomi phone, you can mirror its display in a side window on the Pad 6S Pro by holding it to the side of the tablet. There’s also a “Director Mode” in the camera app that lets you use the Pad 6S Pro as a multi-camera monitor, in case anyone out there is shooting movies on a bunch of Xiaomi 14 Ultras. While these features are undoubtedly niche, they did work very well in my testing and would be well-received if Apple ever did the same thing, so it’s worth mentioning them as Xiaomi builds out an ecosystem of its own.
The HyperOS UI is not particularly original, but it stacks up pretty well to iPadOS. In some ways it works better due to the extra flexibility of Android, whether that's through multitasking or simple access to the file system. There's no denying that the iPad is well ahead when it comes to pro-class productivity apps, but I could easily use the Pad 6S Pro as a regular computer. I'd certainly rather have it than a Chromebook.
But it’s still not quite there. The original promise of the iPad was that it acted as a blank slate that could turn into anything. If you still mostly use tablets with single apps in full-screen mode, you’re going to find a lot more things to do on an iPad. The apps that are on both platforms are often much higher quality on Apple’s. (The New Yorker finally got around to releasing an Android app a couple of years ago; it still only runs in portrait orientation.) And if you do use computers like this for productivity, the iPad still gets to draw on the broader iOS developer base for countless well-designed apps and utilities.
In other words, the iPad Pro is still the best tablet on the market, and I’m not going to switch — much as I like Xiaomi’s phones. But if you have your reasons for wanting an Android tablet, then I think Xiaomi has put in some pretty good work here.
It’s also coming in at a reasonable price. Starting at €799 in Europe for an 8GB/256GB model, the Pad 6S Pro undercuts the iPad Pro significantly. The entry-level 11” iPad Pro is €1,009 with just 128GB of storage, while the more directly comparable 12.9” model starts at €1,339. You could go down to the iPad Air at €799, but you’d be getting a much smaller, slower screen.
For a long time, Android tablets were a joke if you wanted to do anything beyond full-screen Netflix. That’s no longer the case. The Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro 12.4 is a great media device, but it also proves it’s more than possible to use an Android tablet as a laptop replacement.
As an iPad Pro replacement, though? Well, that’s out of Xiaomi’s control.