Last year’s Redmi Pad Pro was impressive, to say the least. This is something that our review had noted too, calling it “simply far better than its mid-range price may suggest”. If there was some hint that it was a crossover point for Android tablets were a baseline in terms of performance and experience was being achieved, it may not be outlandish to say this year’s Xiaomi Redmi Pad 2 Pro has achieved that. Still very much priced thereabouts, specs are significantly better than before which immediately translates into a superior experience overall as an education focused or entertainment tablet (and also is great if you intend to hold on to this for a few years), whilst Xiaomi also makes a pitch to productivity and creativity use-cases with the Pro Keyboard and Smart Pen accessories.
Prices start ₹24,999 and you’ll have the choice of Wi-Fi only or ₹27,999 onwards for the Wi+Fi + 5G combination. Note, cellular connectivity is via a SIM card slot as you would be familiar with. We’ve seen OnePlus bring a distinctly different approach, where they encourage a tablet owner to also have a OnePlus phone, for sharing the phone’s 5G data on the tablet as well when cellular connectivity is required. I am sure more users would prefer conventional simplicity that Xiaomi adheres to, with a SIM card slot to get things going. If its within the budget, I’d recommend spending that extra money to get the 5G variant, and saying this from layered experience — it’ll prove its worth the next time you travel for work, and don’t want to carry a laptop along.
If I am to be allowed one complaint and one observation about the Redmi Pad 2 Pro’s build and design, the complaint would be the thick black bezels around the screen haven’t been slimmed down — and that’s what buyers now look for, when considering their purchases. As for the observation, while I absolutely love the Quick Silver finish, it does seem to catch smudges a bit more than you’d expect from this shade. And not easy to dislodge either, requiring some vigorous effort, albeit with a very fine cloth.
When Xiaomi says this is the fastest Redmi Pad yet, they aren’t kidding. Without getting into any complexity about benchmarks, I can report back with conviction that the Redmi Pad 2 Pro has a lot of power thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen4 chip, to take care of even the more power intensive apps that you may use. Very neat ‘features for tablets’ array, including floating windows and horizontal app layout, to give the tablet specific multitasking a notch more substance. That’s essential, because a 12.1-inch display (this is a 2.5K resolution screen with 120Hz adaptive sync refresh rate and Dolby Vision support) would feel under-utilised if multitasking wasn’t properly taken care of. This is a lively screen, one thats managing to keep reflections in check, but you may still complain of ceiling lights reflecting back at you, in a typical office environment.
Floating windows is a rather neat element to have, admittedly one that takes some getting used to more in terms of muscle memory, but proves its utility soon enough. I expect more, once HyperOS 2 gives way to a further refined HyperOS 3, in the coming months. Underlying usage is a mammoth 12,000mAh capacity battery, which is calculated in terms of days if not weeks, as far as longevity and stamina is concerned. This will also find some positive improvement with the next generation HyperOS, but even for now, close to 15 hours of screen time with mixed usage including web browsing, reading and a bit of live cricket streaming, is nothing short of impressive. If you’re looking at this as a robust tablet to carry as your work machine, or one for your child’s online classes and assignment work, the strong battery life is a definite positive.
The 33-watt charging speeds could perhaps have been faster still, but Xiaomi is betting on the fact that you won’t be plugging this often, and an extra few minutes won’t exactly be a negative in that respect. Value comes from the 27-watt reverse charge, which essentially converts this tablet into a 12,000mAh power bank, and fast enough to charge even the latest generation flagships including the Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL, as of course Xiaomi’s own phones.
Google Gemini and circle to search are very much part of the HyperOS experience, and considering this is a tablet with its own unique use cases, the Gemini suite may be useful in content and summarisation tasks as well. Mind you, there doesn’t seem to be a subscription bundle with the Redmi Pad 2 Pro, and power users would have to sign up for one of Google’s AI plans.
I don’t often find enough substance to specifically point out the speakers on a tablet, but the Redmi Pad 2 Pro does put a significant step forward compared with the predecessor in terms of audibility and clarity. Headphones and earbuds aren’t always convenient (or healthy), and this is good news if your child will use the tablet for online classes, or you’ll use it to live stream cricket or football as you get some work done on the side. Xiaomi claims this has immersive directional audio, and while that wasn’t apparent to my ears, the room filling nature of emerging sound certainly is noticeable.
You could be asking yourself this — should you bundle the Redmi Smart Pen and a Redmi Pad 2 Pro Keyboard with the tablet? I would, if you’re interested in either artwork or using the pen to take notes, or purely use this as a work machine from time to time, certainly recommend the bundle. The stylus, or the Smart Pen, is something we’ve seen before and it simply works. The keyboard accessory though, does require you to rely on the touchscreen as much as on the keyboard itself — the lack of a trackpad means you’ll be switching more often between the physical interface that is the keyboard and the touch interface of the display, than perhaps ideal. Xiaomi could do well to consider a revamped keyboard accessory for future generations of this product line.
It is clear to me that with the Redmi Pad 2 Pro, Xiaomi is quietly making a point about how mid-range Android tablets have matured with substance. It builds on the predecessor’s momentum by upgrading elements that genuinely matter — noticeably higher performance ceiling, excellent battery stamina, and the sort of everyday polish that makes this viable not just as a consumption slab, but as something you can reasonably work on too. And that is, without changing the fundamentals, such as a lively display and ever improving software.
Yes, the bezels are still thicker than they should be in 2026-adjacent times, and charging speeds won’t impress spec-sheet warriors, but Snapdragon-powered smoothness, the flexibility of 5G as an option, and thoughtful reverse charging does make this a clear upgrade. With the Smart Pen and keyboard in tow, the Redmi Pad 2 Pro’s strongest argument is about versatility. More than Android tablets ever could, till now.
