Impeccable pad. Review on Xiaomi Mi Pad

Xiaomi Mi Pad has the best hardware for price.Coming from a Nexus 7 2013 32GB(see my review there too!) and HTC One M8 I had my benchmarks set high for this.The processor, GPU, display, speakers and overall build are much beyond this price range.But I personally didn't like MIUI much, though your opinion may vary.

Pros

1.Great hardware inside

2.Superb Display and Touch

3.Decent build

4.Appropriate size(at least from my pov)

5.PRICING!(No competitor comes close)

6.MicroSD(I hate 8/16gb devices without cards, they are just too constrained!)

7.Great speakers(even vs HTC One M8), they outclass Nexus 7 2013

8.Decent cameras

Cons

1.Slippery(get a case!)

2.MIUI drains lot of RAM

3.Slightly hefty(Heavier by 30gm than iPad mini Retina)

The display is simply gorgeous! I compared it side by side with my friend's iPad mini retina and found that Mi Pad equals if not betters the iPad mini retina display. The viewing angles, color reproduction and resolution(ditto as Retina!) are much better than what you expect from a budget device.

4:3 display of this has same aspect ratio(aka squariness!)as iPads or old CRT TVs.It's great for browsing, reading eBooks & PDF(college needs), and viewing slideshows. This is the FIRST android device that I found to be FULLY capable of browsing desktop sites.

For movie buffs this or even any iPad ain't the solution, 4:3 is odd for that.16:10 tablets like Nexus 7 2013 or larger one's make more sense. But I'm a reading, browsing and gaming guy, so that won't bother much.

Now, in gaming it is simply a beast! It blows my HTC One M8 and Nexus 2013(now dead) out of water.I tried GTA Vice City at max graphics and wow! No lag no drop frames .that's unbeatable. All thanks to desktop grade keplar graphics.

I applied tempered glass on it(lesson from broken Nexus 7 2013) and the capacitive keys were rendered useless.To enable On Screen buttons, I tried rooting MIUI but failed even after using developer ROM and 2-3 different techniques given on MIUI site, XDA and others. So I got Cyanogen Mod 11 ROM for it and that resolved all my worries. It runs amazingly well now, in fact better than Nexus or One M8.

To sum it up, do the following if you want maximum utility of Mi Pad(* for pro users)

get CM11(ALL apps are now directly intallable via playstore)

Microsoft office(3 separate apps)

Google Keep

Google Keyboard

Ideal Theme X(if you are on Cyanogen)