Realme Pad Mini Review: An entry-level tablet that holds up well for education and entertainment

Last year, Realme launched its first tablet in the Indian market. The Realme Pad was aimed at offering the best possible value in the affordable tablet segment. The company introduced the Realme Pad to bring more competition to the affordable tablet space in the country.

And while the Realme Pad (Review) had an impressive specification sheet for its price, it did have its fair share of problems as you’d expect with any affordable tablet. So when the company announced an even more affordable version of the Realme Pad, there was definitely cause for concern. But are those concerns justified; well; let’s find out in our full Realme Pad Mini review.

Design and Build

The Realme Pad Mini features a minimalist design and a solid build. The tablet boasts an aluminium build with sharp edges. There’s a single rear camera on the back and prominent bezels on the front. In terms of the finish, the Pad Mini comes in Grey and Blue colours, our model arrived in the former.

There’s no extra branding or special elements to the finish like we see on Realme smartphones. The tablet is easy to grip in portrait or landscape orientation, while it only weighs 372 grams. It also measures 7.6mm thick, which is quite slim. The Realme Pad Mini gets an A for its build, while its design makes it extremely comfortable to use on the go.

Display

Realme has opted for an 8.7-inch HD+ LCD panel with a 1340 x 800 pixels resolution. The large size and low resolution of the display make picture quality look not as quite as crisp as watching content on a Full HD panel. The screen’s resolution is underwhelming, but not unexpected considering the tablet’s price. I also found the touch response on the screen slower than usual.

The display also offers a peak brightness of 360 nits, which is adequate indoors but isn’t quite sufficient for outdoor use, under direct sunlight. Overall, colours are fairly accurate and watching content on OTT platforms is fairly decent considering the tablet's price range. The one issue is the lack of sharpness and softness in picture quality. Despite my criticism, I think the Realme Pad Mini has one of the best displays for a tablet in this price range.

Performance

For performance, the Realme Pad Mini opts for a Unisoc 616 chipset paired with up to 4GB of RAM and up to 64GB of storage. The Unisoc chip is not the fastest but gets the job done when it comes to navigating through the interface, although the experience can be on the slower side if you are delving into intensive tasks. However, I found that the table worked well enough for regular multitasking like watching videos and browsing the internet.

The Realme Pad Mini also works well enough for casual gaming. Titles like Raid: Shadow Legends and Clash of Clans ran smoothly on their default settings. But the frame rate drops were evident in titles like BGMI and Call of Duty: Mobile, both of which only ran on low graphics. In Geekbench 5, the Realme Pad Mini managed a single-core score of 361 points and a multi-core score of 1381 points. In Geekbench OpenGL, the device gathered 588 points. I think you get what you pay for in terms of performance on the Realme Pad Mini.

Cameras

In terms of optics, the Realme Pad Mini opts for an 8 MP rear camera with an f/2.2 aperture, while the camera on the front uses a 5 MP sensor with an f/2.2 aperture. The rear camera supports 1080p video at 30fps, while the front camera is limited to 720p resolution at 30fps. The rear camera on the Pad Mini is quite good for use in daylight with decent colours and sharp images. The front camera also works well for video calls but isn’t quite good for taking selfies.

While camera performance on the Realme Pad Mini was pretty good for a tablet at this price, there are things that could have been added on to make the experience better. The front camera doesn’t have the ability to record 1080p video, which isn’t good if you are going to frequently use the Pad Mini for video calls. And secondly, the rear camera could have gotten a document scanner mode to make it easier to scan documents.

Battery

The Realme Pad Mini packs a decently sized 6,400 mAh battery that offers little over a day of heavy use. Under lighter workloads, the battery can deliver well over a day of battery life, going well into the next evening.

Realme has also added an 18W adapter in the box, which will get you a full charge in about two hours. It isn’t the fastest charging you’ll see on a tablet, but it is just about the best you’ll find at this price. Unless your tablet is your primary device, you won’t have to worry too much about the charging speed.

Software

The Realme Pad Mini runs Realme UI for Pad based on Android 11. The software is generally clean with no pre-installed apps, although that could be down to the fact that the version of the OS here is near-identical to stock Android. There is very little room for customization, while the UI doesn’t offer any tweaks or customisation to utilise the large screen. You do get some pre-installed Google apps, but apart from that, the tablet offers the same software experience you’d get on a stock Android smartphone.

Audio

For a budget tablet, the Realme Pad Mini has some impressive speakers. The dual speaker setup here offers good stereo separation and can get adequately loud at maximum volume. There’s a headphone jack on the top if you want to connect a pair of wired earphones for a better listening experience. The stereo speakers get sufficiently loud to fill an entire room when watching movies and listening to music.

Realme Pad Mini Price in India

The Realme Pad Mini is available in four different variants, including a Wi-Fi-only 3GB/32GB model and a 3GB/32GB LTE variant that will set you back Rs 10,999 and Rs 12,999, respectively. The Pad Mini is also available in a Wi-Fi-only 4GB/64GB model that costs Rs 12,999, while the LTE model with the same configuration will set you back Rs 14,999.

Verdict

With a starting price of Rs 10,999, the Realme Pad Mini is not hard to recommend. It is one of the best tablets in a segment with very few options. The Pad Mini shines in the design and build departments, while also offering solid battery life. Additionally, you also get fairly loudspeakers, clean software, decent camera performance, a large display, and a chipset that gets the job done.

It is difficult to complain because of the tablet’s price, but there are areas that Realme could still address, particularly software customizations that will help users take advantage of the large screen. The tablet could also use a Full HD display and 1080p video support on the front camera. On balance, the ‘Pros’ on the Realme Pad Mini definitely outweigh the cons, you pretty much ‘get what you pay for’.