realme Pad Mini review, in LTE version is the real deal!

realme Pad Mini review

After the arrival on the Italian market of realme Pad, the brand's first Android tablet, the company tries again with the announcement of a version with a smaller diagonal display. The manufacturer famous for conquering the market with its excellent quality / price ratio devices has announced the interesting realme Pad Mini, also available with LTE connectivity to stay connected wherever you are.

We've passed the last weeks in the company of the best version of this new low-cost tablet and we are now ready to tell you about our experience in this complete review of realme Pad Mini.

Practical and solid

The volume rocker has been placed on the right side, above it the power button. On the opposite side there is space for the slot dedicated to inserting the SIM and the MicroSD expansion card. In the hand, the tablet is always comfortable regardless of orientation, it hardly slips or escapes from the grip, and is only 7.6mm thick. It has a weight of 372g which gives it the right feeling of solidity that many cheap products lack.




Obviously it is not a rugged tablet and there is no IP certification against the ingress of water and dust, however realme Pad Mini is certainly a product suitable to be entrusted to even the youngest (and the most careless) given the solidity and resistant materials with which it is built. Inserting the tablet into a backpack where there may be books or other objects shouldn't be a problem even without a cover, however we recommend that you be careful not to scratch the front glass with hard and / or pointed objects placed in the same compartment. >

Convenient to use and carry

Holding the tablet horizontally and watching videos in 16: 9 format, the most popular one for online and social content, there is a very light letterboxing (commonly called "black bands") but that does not affect meaningful about the experience. The bezels surrounding the panel are also surprisingly small for a device in this price range, with the more pronounced short sides that are perfect for grasping the realme Pad Mini when using it in landscape.



The resolution is equal to 1340 x 800 pixels, not the most defined display we have encountered with a value of only 179 ppi but more than enough to guarantee a clear and more than legible text display. Do not expect to watch HDR and high definition content on the main streaming platforms, but for the use of social networks and to spend your free time on YouTube it is certainly more comfortable than a smartphone thanks to the larger viewing surface.
Too bad the maximum brightness does not reach extremely high levels, making it difficult to use the tablet in full sun. Keeping up-to-date on the latest news on the train or bus while you move or reading a book during your lunch break will not be a problem even on the sunniest days, as long as you find a small shaded area for the display.

realme trusts Unisoc

The chip used by realme on this Pad Mini is different from the usual ones we have been getting our hands on lately. This is not a Qualcomm chip, much less one of its main rival MediaTek, but a product of Unisoc engineers (formerly known as Spreadtrum Communications).

Unisoc is a chip company that does not owns its own foundries, it must therefore be entrusted to external "fabs" and consequently the production process of its chips is not of the latest generation, this also due to the very high competition from large rival companies that reserve the most advanced.

This has not stopped realme from working closely with this "emerging" company, giving it confidence and supporting the development of this SoC family, becoming one of the important customers that Unisoc has managed to win over in recent years . It was explained to us by realme itself that it wanted to trust Unisoc exactly as it did in the past with MediaTek, before the latter became the leading chip manufacturer in the world, surpassing the American rival Qualcomm in market share.



Returning to realme Pad Mini, its Unisoc Tiger T616 chip is based on ARM architecture and shares 2 Cortex-A75 cores and 6 Cortex-A55 cores with the competition. All this to make you understand that even if it is a lesser known name, in the end we are not detaching ourselves much from the hardware we are used to dealing with on the practical side. All Android applications meant to run on ARM chips also work here and we did not encounter any incompatibility issues in our testing period.

The Mali-G57 MP1 GPU is obviously not the most powerful available on the market, but for a tablet positioned in this price range does very well. In our benchmark tests the realme Pad Mini came out with its head held high, and even in graphics-curated games like League of Legends: Wild Rift (graphics settings maxed) it was able to maintain a stable 60 fps on-screen. We cannot say the same for Genshin Impact but we know that this is a title capable of causing much more expensive products to flounder.

Smartphone Geekbench 5 Geekbench ML 3DMark PCMark Work 3.0 Speedometer 2.0 Jetstream 2 Single-core Multi- core CPU GPU NNAPI Wild Life Wild Life

Stress Test Performance - - realme Pad Mini 300 1191 168 217 113 471 (2.80 fps) 471 - 468

(99.4%) 8376 34.79 (± 0.23) 45844 realme 9 4G 381 1590 192 248 182 447 (2.70 fps) 450 - 449

(99.8%) 8009 38.83 (± 0.33) 45234 Honor X8 379 1531 185 252 216 446 (2.70 fps) 450 - 447

(99.3%) 7803 39.11 (± 0.23) 42751 Oppo Reno7 383 1654 191 248 185 450 ( 2.70 fps) 451 - 449

(99.7%) 6730 38.54 (± 0.26) 45055 There are two different memory sizes of realme Pad Mini: the first with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory, the second with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal memory that we recommend. Much of the internal space is already occupied by the operating system and by the applications of the Google suite that cannot be missing in Android, consequently the 32GB version is really easy to fill by downloading applications and games.



The memory is expandable via MicroSD card, however it is not possible to move apps to the additional memory, keep that in mind. The space dedicated to the expansion card can be used in the LTE model to install a second Nano SIM, one of the many reasons to consider the LTE version a bargain when compared to the competition.

The Wi-Fi antenna 5 is fast enough to connect and make the most of fast internet lines and you can use your tablet as a personal hotspot, connection sharing that can last for hours without interruption thanks to the large 6400mAh battery. In our test performed with PCMark Work 3.0 connected to the Wi-Fi network and with the screen at 50% brightness the realme Pad Mini obtained a result of 14:49 hours.

The USB Type-C 2.0 port supports charging at a maximum of 18W (power supply included) and also the connection of accessories or external memories (USB OTG).



The stereo speakers are positioned so as to never be blocked with your hands when holding the tablet horizontally and have sufficient volume, although not a first-class quality. They are fine for couch videos and TV series but do not satisfy the overwhelming ears of the audiophile audience, not that we made such a claim for such a cheap product. There is a 3.5mm jack for wired headphones and Bluetooth 5.0 for connecting to wireless ones.

The 8MP f / 2.0 rear camera is sufficient for a few quick shots as a reminder or for scanning fast of documents. The 5MP f / 2.2 front camera is sharp enough to allow for pleasant video calling. However, both do not perform very well when the light goes down, they do not shine for quality and are limited to 1080 @ 30fps resolution for videos, not that other tablets are usually designed to be competitive in the world of mobile photography is clear ...

Simple, maybe too much

On board realme Pad Mini we find installed a very basic and simplified version of the realme UI based on Android 11. The company confirmed that this version of Android was chosen as "in line with the expectations of the tablet market in this price range" but also stated that it is exploring the possibility of developing the update to Android 12. br>
The realme UI in tablet version is at the moment essential and devoid of any customization (themes, icons, colors ...) to which the company has usually accustomed us. However, the brand has confirmed to us that the Pad Mini and its older brother are just the first bricks of a strategy in the world of tablets that will certainly have interesting implications in the future, so we'll see.

Right now realme Pad Mini has a clean, fast operating system, free of bloatware and applications that the company usually pre-installs on other products. Basically it is a tablet with stock Android, except for quick settings and settings, which will make many users happy. No bloatware or advertising, therefore, in the world of cheap tablets this is an incredible victory!



This means, however, that we do not find functions designed ad-hoc to improve multi-tasking, floating windows or other implementations capable of improving productivity: you will have to settle for the split screen between two apps that all Android devices have owned since Nougat 7.0.

Google Kid Space and YouTube Kids applications are pre-installed, which makes us reflect on the real target that this realme Pad Mini is aimed at.

Conclusions

So what do we think about realme Pad Mini? It is a cheap product, of course, which does not claim to be named the best tablet ever or to upset the market. However, it is a device positioned by the company wisely in a price range in which competitors are struggling to assert themselves and in which it can easily triumph.

Especially the 4GB / 64GB variant with LTE (Dual SIM !) proposed for only € 229.99, currently has no rivals and is one of the few valid alternatives when it comes to Android tablets with an 8 ″ display with data connectivity. Not only that, from 17 to 24 May it will be possible to take realme Pad Mini home at a discounted price, thanks to the promotions that will take place on Amazon:

realme Pad Mini 3GB / 32GB - Wi-Fi | 159.99 euros (179.99 euros) realme Pad Mini 4GB / 64GB - Wi-Fi | 179.99 euros (199.99 euros) realme Pad Mini 4GB / 64GB - LTE | 199.99 euros (229.99 euros)

The only real flaws are the lack of a secure biometric authentication system (a fingerprint reader for example) capable of allowing the quick unlocking of the tablet and the lack of NFC, which I honestly do not think the users interested in this product pay attention to.

It is an ideal tablet for the youngest, it is in fact an excellent "first computer" with which to teach children and for kids to approach the world of technology in the right way before buying them a smartphone in the years to come, but it's also perfect for older people who want to use it to keep in touch with loved ones.

Not only , realme Pad Mini adapts to many other different scenarios. For example, it is a good alternative if you are looking for an inexpensive tablet that you don't have to worry about particularly while working outdoors, to be used by your employees in the shop or factory in the business environment, to take on vacation without the anxiety that be lost or stolen, etc ...

In short, there is certainly a vast audience that realme has thought of and that the brand has kept very well in mind when designing this small tablet with many qualities.