Xiaomi suddenly release a brand new tablet – the Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro 12.4. It’s a rather low-key launch as there was not much fanfare – but the tablet itself is a rather interesting one as it packs yesteryear’s flagship specs in a rather huge tablet.
Performance
When we say yesteryear’s flagship specs, we really mean it. This tablet comes with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and the performance is genuinely amazing. We’ve already done a gaming test with this tablet – and as stated in that video, the 8 Gen 2 doesn’t have the excessive heating like the new 8 Gen 3, and the tablet is practically a giant heat sink.
That means this tablet will rarely thermal throttle – and even if it does thermal throttle, the performance won’t drop that much. And that’s the magic of tablet gaming. The frame rate that we get from this tablet is really, really good and consistent.
However, if the games do not support an external controller then it’ll be a bad experience. Having such a big screen and for our fingers to reach to those buttons… Yeah, it’s not fun. Certain games do let us reposition the buttons which I think makes it more bearable but games like Genshin Impact does not have such feature – and my hand hurts.
Screen
And the next literal big thing about this tablet is the screen. As the name suggests, it’s a massive 12.4-inch screen with a resolution of 3048×2032 pixels and up to 144Hz refresh rate. However, this is an IPS LCD screen.
In terms of colour accuracy, this tablet’s screen is actually fine. Using the default Original Colour PRO colour profile, we can get 97.15% and 70% of DCI-P3 colour gamuts.
But when we change it to the Saturated colour profile, it covers 99.76% of sRGB and 95.67% of DCI-P3. Obviously I’ve been using the Saturated colour profile since I got this tablet because I like it that way and the Delta E number is very, very low.
As for the maximum brightness, this tablet can reach to around 515 nits and I think that’s okay for day-to-day usage. Just that if we want to use this tablet outdoors, then it’ll be a problem.
Oh – this tablet does have a pretty good size of bezel which makes it possible to grab the tablet with one hand.
I just wish that this tablet is using an OLED screen. We really need an affordable tablet with an OLED screen in the market right now.
And by the way – this tablet does not come with any screen protector. You’ll have to get it yourself.
Design
Now the design of this tablet is reminiscent of the Xiaomi 14 but that camera bump on this tablet is just total wasted space. You see, this tablet does have two cameras but only one of it can be used to take pictures. Depth sensors shouldn’t exist in 2024 – but they decided to include one anyway.
I mean, yeah some of you guys use tablets in the classroom to take pictures of the whiteboard or blackboard – but seriously, this camera bump is unnecessary.
And the placement of the power and volume buttons are the same as the iPad – so they’re around this corner here. One thing that I don’t like is how thin the power button is – making it very difficult to press and not that obvious if you’re just feeling for it.
Since it’s so flat and thin, feeling for the power button to scan my fingerprint is pretty unreliable at first as we’ll have to train our muscle memory.
Battery life
This Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro also comes with a 10,000mAh battery but I have no idea what’s the Wh value since they don’t publish it on their website – and this battery can last for only about 11 hours in our standardized battery life test. This is to be expected since the screen is so big.
Charging speed
Okay, the charging speed. I have a lot to talk about here. So by default, if we just plug in the included 120W charger in the box, then it’ll take about 42 minutes to charge from 15% to completion. But the default charging is not using the full 120W speed.
So, we’ll have to go into the settings menu and find this option, then we can find this Boost Charging option that we can turn on – but it does warn you that it will damage the battery in the long term. With the Boost Charging option turned on, we can reach from 15% to completion is about 37-ish minutes. Not that much faster if we’re charging to completion, but we can reach the 50% mark faster.
However, since Xiaomi uses a proprietary charging standard, it will only take in like about 16W to 17W via our USB-PD charger and it takes around 120 minutes to charge completely. I genuinely think Xiaomi should at least support 45W of USB-PD.
Software
And the software. It’s using the typical MIUI – I mean HyperOS software just like their phones but it does come with a few tablet-exclusive features like this taskbar here.
It’s… quite unintuitive, I’d say. This taskbar is not usable unless you use gesture navigation. No idea why there’s such a limitation.
By the way, remember the iPad’s Stage Manager? Xiaomi managed to copy something similar but I think this is even clunkier than Stage Manager. And I can only open up to 4 windows at once.
If you want a proper desktop mode in a tablet, Samsung DeX is still the undisputed king.
Accessories
Okay, now let’s talk about the accessories since Xiaomi did send us the full set.
We have this case that I think is actually quite okay since it is the origami design. We can fold it to stand it in portrait mode, landscape mode, or in this drawing mode. The quality of the case feels nice, too – and the strap will hold the stylus in place and prevent it from falling.
The keyboard case is not my cup of tea since it’s using the standard kickstand design and eats up a lot of space. I mean, if you’re planning to use this setup on a plane, then you just can’t.
The keyboard itself is pretty okay as it is springy and has a good travel distance and has a backlight too. I’m just not sure why the keyboard’s brightness key is adjusting the tablet’s brightness, not the keyboard’s backlight.
The problem is that the stylus is left hanging when we snap it onto the tablet to charge, and that’s the same issue as the iPad. Somehow Xiaomi can add that strap to the origami case but not the keyboard case???
The stylus in itself is pretty standard so there’s not much to talk about it here. I’m not an artist and I just draw and write some stuff on it – and it works well enough. It also has some customizations in the settings menu but that’s about it.
Few more things to mention
And of course, a few more things to mention. This Xiaomi Pad 6s Pro does come with a USB 3 port at the bottom, and maxes out at 5Gb/s. It can also output display via USB-C but it only mirrors the display even if we turn on the Stage Manager lookalike.
There is no microSD card slot or audio jack, and that’s about it with the Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro 12.4.
Good value?
Finally, is this tablet a good buy? Does it have good value? That is something that I can’t tell right now since I don’t have the prices for the tablet or the accessories yet.
I will update this page when we do have the price – and we’ll also include my opinion about the value too. So, check back later. For all I know, all these accessories will also be available for sale – at least in the Malaysian market.
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