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POCO has been known for finding the sweet spot between specs, features, and pricing. The new POCO Pad M1 tries to walk the line between the two use cases of a full-sized tablet: content consumption and content creation. It’s a balancing act that a manufacturer like POCO has been known to execute well with its phones. But does it succeed with its newest tablet?
At first glance, the hardware gives the impression of a more premium device with its all-metal build. Whether you hold it in vertical or landscape orientation, handling the unit is a cinch because of its finely rounded edges. Putting it in a case is optional.
When it comes to the case design, POCO went for the minimalist route with just the brand’s big yet still understated typeface logo the back. The only other prominent feature at the back is the rear camera lens and LED light which are mounted on a slightly raised platform. The quad stereo speakers are optimally mounted for landscape use. With support for Dolby Atmos, the speakers deliver the goods when it comes to sound quality. It can get pretty loud with minimal distortion at near max volume. There’s still a dedicated headphone jack near the charging port for those who want to use a wired headset.
With its 16:10 screen ratio, it’s definitely a multi-media centric tablet. At 12.1 inches, it’s suited for watching marathon movie and TV show sessions as well. Browsing, reading ebooks, comics, and graphic novels is a satisfying experience on the 2.5K resolution IPS LCD panel with a max brightness of 600 nits. Packed with a 12,000 mAh battery, the tablet lasts long enough for more than half a day of mixed usage. Ultrafast charging would’ve been ideal for a tablet this size but with 33W charging, expect around 3 hours to charge from zero to full.
The Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chipset plus the 8GB ram keeps everything, well, snappy with ample storage space with 256GB onboard with the option to add up to 2TB expandable memory. When used for gaming, Pad M1 users can expect to crank everything up to medium settings for most graphics-heavy games.
As a stand-in for a laptop, the tablet works best with an add-on keyboard. You can adequately perform most tasks such as writing emails, content creation for social media, editing online documents, and even mobile-based graphics and video editing. Main connectivity is only via Wi-Fi6 so you have to keep that in mind when taking the tablet out for internet-heavy tasks.
At 610g, the tablet is easy to toss and lug around. Even without a case, the matte finish of the rear metal panel makes gripping it with one or two hands easier. The rear is resistant as well to smudges. Another must-have accessory should be the POCO Smart Pen which can be purchased separately. We didn’t have a unit during the review period but on paper, it’s an ideal drawing and sketching companion with 4,096-level pressure sensitivity and 240hz touch sampling rate.
On the software side, the tablet runs Xiaomi HyperOS v2.0. There’s practically no bloatware with only essential apps installed. Apart from standard Google apps, Gemini is also pre-installed to provide basic AI-features.
The POCO Pad M1 is now available at POCO’s official Shopee store for P12,999 (launch price) until Dec. 9 with a free keyboard/case bundle. SRP is P15,999. — Ed G. Geronia Jr.
