Xiaomi Redmi Pad 2 9.7 Review: Compact but Underpowered

The tablet market has been moving away from compact designs for some time. With the exception of Apple's iPad mini and a handful of models below 10 inches, the fashion is for XXL screens on tablets that stand in for computers or second monitors.

Running against that current, and rather better suited to portable use, the Xiaomi Redmi Pad 2 9.7 makes its case on compactness and a deliberately light specification, as befits the Redmi range. Its entry configuration pairs 4 GB of RAM with 64 GB of storage, which gives a clear indication of what to expect.

The Redmi Pad 2 9.7 is not a large device, measuring 22.65 x 14.8 cm and reaching a slimness that is quite remarkable for its category at no more than 7.4 mm. It sits around the average for models of its size, and its 9.7-inch display occupies a little over 81% of the available front area. Dimensions like these cannot be compared with a phone, where maximum slimness is the goal. On a tablet, the thumbs need somewhere to rest along the edges when it is held in the hand.

On that count the Redmi Pad 2 9.7 does well. Its front-facing camera is set into the upper border when the tablet is held in landscape orientation, which suggests it has been designed with video calls in mind, propped up on a case acting as a stand.

Classic in design terms, the tablet has a careful finish. The chamfer around the screen is comfortable under the fingers and its unibody aluminium casing makes a decent impression: the styling does not give away its position at the affordable end of the market.

A little less weight would have been welcome, but 406 g remains very reasonable for anyone wanting to carry it around. The casing carries IP52 certification, so dust is not a concern, but it will not tolerate more than a few splashes.

The edges of the Redmi Pad 2 9.7 house two speakers, positioned either side of the tablet in landscape orientation, together with a USB-C port and a 3.5 mm headphone socket. At a time when wired headphones are making something of a comeback, that is a detail worth appreciating.

The unlock button on the left-hand edge does not incorporate a fingerprint reader, so a passcode or face recognition, assisted by a small dose of AI processing, is the only way to secure the device. The top edge carries the volume buttons and one further physical element that the market has largely rendered obsolete but which remains extremely practical: a microSD card reader. Since Xiaomi offers the tablet in 64 or 128 GB versions to keep costs down, that expansion option is welcome.

There is no eSIM version, and connectivity is minimal. The tablet supports Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0, and no more. Xiaomi mentions neither support for an in-house stylus nor for a keyboard — and indeed the tablet has no pogo-pin connectors.

Budget constraints mean the Redmi Pad 2 9.7's screen does not use Oled technology. The tablet makes do with an LCD panel which, to its credit, offers a perfectly respectable resolution of 2048 x 1280 pixels (268 ppi) and a refresh rate that can climb to 120 Hz, but not much beyond that.

Under the probes the panel showed its limits, particularly on maximum brightness. Despite repeated attempts, and probably because of a slow-reacting virtual brightness sensor, it could not be pushed beyond 419 cd/m². That is a low figure, which makes outdoor use difficult to recommend, at least on a sunny day.

Reflections, at 46% reflectance, stay around the average for the comparative test group, but they are not really offset by the screen's brightness. Its minimum brightness of 1.8 cd/m² is well suited to comfortable use in dimly lit surroundings.

Because it relies on LCD technology, the Redmi Pad 2 9.7's panel cannot claim the near-infinite contrast ratio of Oled. It nonetheless sits around the middle of its category, with a ratio of 1328:1.

Calibration is more of a lottery. By default, in Vivid mode, the tablet shows colours that are not sufficiently faithful. Delta E comes in at 5.19, well above the threshold at which the human eye starts to notice colour drift. Switching to Natural mode and selecting the cool tint is needed to reach a more acceptable delta E of 3.54 and, above all, a far more neutral overall tone.

By default the colour temperature is too cool, reaching 7443 K, whereas with that adjustment it settles at 6500 K — exactly the target value. In summary, this is a dim screen whose colour reproduction is acceptable once a small adjustment has been made.

At the heart of the Redmi Pad 2 9.7 sits Qualcomm's Snapdragon 6s Gen 2. Built on a 6 nm process, it has four Cortex-A73 cores at 2.9 GHz, four A53 cores at 1.9 GHz and an Adreno 610 GPU. When Xiaomi ventures into technical comparisons, quoting a 34% performance gain, it is measuring the tablet against the Redmi Pad SE 8.7 and its MediaTek Helio G85 — in other words, anything but a powerhouse. With only 4 GB of LPDDR4X memory and UFS 2.2 storage, expectations were modest from the outset.

Those expectations were borne out: the tablet is seriously short of speed. It does not respond well to being hurried when switching between apps, and response times are unfortunately too long. Gaming is a step too far: at the lowest demand setting, its GPU could not exceed an average of 24 frames per second. This is not a device to press into service as a spare games console; it is far better suited to watching video, browsing the web and running straightforward productivity or entertainment apps.

The Redmi Pad 2 9.7 carries an 8-megapixel rear camera with a wide-angle lens at f/2, badged AI Smart Camera. Whatever the processing contributes, it has to work with limited hardware, and the result is images too short on detail to be genuinely usable.

Even at the centre of the frame and in daylight, definition remains weak — the sensor resolution is, after all, very limited — and most of the finer detail is erased. Colour-patch test charts are barely legible and, overall, smoothing dominates. Heavy-handed exposure contributes to flattening the scene.

In low light, matters unsurprisingly do not improve. The edges of the frame show heavy vignetting and the centre loses most of its colour. Digital noise and smoothing work in concert to produce a messy result from which little can be salvaged.

On the front, Xiaomi fits a 5-megapixel sensor with an f/2.2 lens. No miracle occurs on this side either, but the module will do for video calls when needed. Video can be recorded at 1080p at 30 fps or 720p at 30 fps, front and rear, though judder is a hazard.

Xiaomi fits the tablet with a 7600 mAh cell, which is fairly generous given the size of the device. The choice looks sensible, since the Redmi Pad 2 9.7 managed 20 hours 42 minutes in a mixed-use battery test. Given that it is unlikely to be subjected to particularly power-hungry tasks — simply because they are beyond it — running flat should rarely be a problem.

Charging, on the other hand, calls for patience: a full charge still takes 2 hours 25 minutes, since the device accepts a maximum of 18 W.

This tablet's strength is arguably that it has no direct rival at present. The latest iPad mini is considerably more expensive but also far more pleasant to use, while achieving a smoother experience at a broadly comparable level of the market means turning to bulkier models such as the Galaxy Tab A.