The Realme Pad: A Budget-Friendly Android Tablet With Impressive Media Capabilities, But Limited Productivity
The landscape of Android tablets is often a frustrating one. Many brands offer models that are either underpowered or exorbitantly priced, leaving users feeling like they’re settling for less than they deserve. This is primarily because Google hasn’t invested heavily in tablet-optimized Android, leaving app developers to struggle to make their apps effective on larger screens. However, Realme has recently entered the fray with the
Realme Pad Pricing and Variants: Finding the Right Fit
The Realme Pad is available in three configurations, ensuring there’s an option to fit different budgets:
- Wi-Fi Only (3GB RAM/32GB Storage): Rs. 13,999
- LTE (3GB RAM/32GB Storage): Rs. 15,999
- LTE (4GB RAM/64GB Storage): Rs. 17,999
Both Real Gold and Real Grey colour options are available for all three variants. Our review unit was the 4GB RAM/64GB Storage LTE variant in Real Grey.
Realme Pad Design: A Blend of Premium and Practical
Despite its 10.4-inch display, the Realme Pad feels remarkably compact, allowing you to comfortably hold it vertically like a smartphone. Its slim 6.9mm profile adds to this portability, although the 440g weight might be felt after extended use.
The design exudes a premium feel, featuring rounded corners, flat sides, and a matte-finished metal back panel. The LTE-enabled version, notably, boasts a seamless design without visible antenna lines. All antennas are discreetly placed beneath a colour-matched plastic cap that covers a silver strip running horizontally across the back, passing through the rear camera.
As expected, most of the perforations and buttons are neatly integrated along the edges of this plastic cap, making them easily accessible for repairs. A well-placed volume rocker sits at the top left corner, while the power button is positioned on the left. Two microphones and the SIM card tray are strategically placed towards the centre of the cap.
The USB Type-C port is conveniently located on the right side, but the headphone jack is somewhat strangely positioned on the bottom right corner. This placement might hinder the use of headphones when holding the tablet in the most natural way, with your hand resting around this area.
The selfie camera is centrally placed at the top of the display (when held horizontally), boasting thin bezels. The display’s rounded corners seamlessly blend with the overall design. Two speakers are located on each side of the device, providing a balanced and immersive audio experience.
The absence of a fingerprint reader makes face recognition the only quick unlock method. Thankfully, this feature worked reliably, whether the tablet was held horizontally or vertically.
While the matte-finished back panel effectively resists fingerprints, the display unfortunately does not share this trait. Removing smudges from the Panda Glass front can be a bit of a chore.
The box contains the tablet, a charger, and a cable. Realme hasn’t yet launched any accessories for the Realme Pad, meaning there are currently no soft cases or keyboard covers available. Realme has also explicitly stated that the display does not support stylus input.
Realme Pad Specifications and Software: A Familiar Yet Restrained Experience
The Realme Pad is powered by the MediaTek Helio G80 SoC, a gaming-focused chip first introduced in February 2020. It boasts eight CPU cores with a top speed of 2GHz. The tablet comes with up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, offering expandable storage capacity up to 1TB via a microSD card. The higher-end variants support 4G/LTE for both data and voice calls. Connectivity options include dual-band Wi-Fi ac and Bluetooth 5. The Realme Pad houses a 7,100mAh battery and supports 18W fast charging.
The Realme Pad marks the first appearance of Realme UI on a tablet, making it a particularly intriguing aspect of the device. Realme UI for Pad, based on Android 11, is a stripped-down version of its smartphone counterpart. While this might sound limiting, it actually results in a clean and responsive interface. The UI retains the signature Realme icons, including those in the Settings app, but it significantly reduces the customisation options found on Realme smartphones.
For example, long-pressing the homescreen doesn’t bring up the usual pop-up for wallpaper selection, a feature present in Realme UI 2.0 on smartphones. Personalisation is generally restricted, with no options to adjust icon shape and size, modify the UI color or theme, or enable the right swipe for the Google News Feed.
Realme Pad Performance and Battery Life: A Solid Foundation with Room For Improvement
The stripped-down nature of the UI translates to a lighter, more agile experience. Even with just 4GB of RAM, the software ran smoothly on our review unit. However, multitasking revealed some weaknesses. While apps typically opened and closed instantly, crashes occurred occasionally. Realme has promised a forthcoming software update that aims to address these performance issues, hopefully improving the overall experience.
As with virtually all Android tablets, a severe lack of apps specifically optimised for tablets persists. This scarcity extends beyond third-party apps to Google’s own suite of offerings. Most apps are designed for smartphone displays and, as a result, stretch across the tablet screen instead of scaling intelligently, leading to wasted screen space and a subpar visual experience. Some apps manage to hold their own, but the lack of proper scaling is a widespread issue.
Despite these shortcomings, the Realme Pad features a bright and sharp 10.4-inch WUXGA+ (2000×1200) display that holds its own even in outdoor conditions. Color reproduction is pleasingly natural, making it suitable for media consumption. However, the Panda Glass front exhibits a frustrating tendency to attract fingerprints, making it somewhat difficult to view the display clearly outdoors, particularly under direct sunlight.
The tablet lacks HDR support, but its Widevine L1 certification allows for full-HD playback on Netflix. The Realme Pad boasts a four-speaker setup with Dolby Atmos support, delivering a surprisingly immersive audio experience for this price range. The speakers are powerful enough to fill a small room, often eliminating the need for headphones. The inclusion of a 3.5mm headphone jack caters to those who prefer a more personal listening experience.
Testing the two noise-cancelling microphones revealed decent performance, but not outright noise cancellation. The microphones effectively suppressed background noise, making voice calls sound clear and loud, with callers reporting no issues even when the tablet was placed on a table at a distance.
The Realme Pad, equipped with the MediaTek Helio G80 processor and 4GB of RAM, delivers decent performance within its budget constraints. Benchmark tests showcased performance comparable to many budget smartphones. The Realme Pad achieved a score of 2,24,755 in AnTuTu, and 345 and 1,305 in Geekbench’s single and multi-core tests respectively.
Gaming performance, while not stellar, was manageable. Call of Duty: Mobile offered a playable experience, albeit with some stuttering and frame skips. Medium graphics and High frame rate were achievable, with options for additional effects like Depth of field, Bloom, and Ragdoll remaining unavailable. Asphalt 9: Legends exhibited similar hiccups with texture quality. The smoothest performance was achieved with graphics settings set to Performance (Low).
Realme Pad Cameras: A Basic but Functional Approach
The Realme Pad features 8-megapixel front and rear cameras. The camera interface, while simple in layout and controls, is different from the one found on Realme smartphones. Despite its simplicity, Realme attempts to offer some flexibility with an expert mode that allows manual control over ISO, shutter speed, white balance, autofocus, and exposure. Unfortunately, image quality is strictly average, owing to the use of a basic sensor. A budget smartphone will likely capture significantly better photos. Video recording suffers from excessive shakiness, even when held with both hands. Low-light performance is unusable.
On a positive note, the front-facing camera boasts a 107-degree ultra-wide-angle view, providing a wide field of vision, particularly suitable for video calls. Image quality is decent in well-lit environments.
The Realme Pad houses a substantial 7,100mAh battery and includes an 18W charger in the box. With regular use, including an hour of gaming, several hours of video streaming, and general usage, the tablet consistently lasted a day and a half, delivering impressive battery life. Charging speeds were average, reaching 22 percent in 30 minutes, 46 percent in an hour, and completing a full charge in 3 hours and 5 minutes.
Verdict: A Solid Entry for Budget-Conscious Media Consumers
The Realme Pad represents a respectable first attempt from Realme in the tablet market, offering compelling hardware within its price range. However, the lack of accessories (including a keyboard and stylus support) positions the tablet primarily as a media consumption and lightweight communication device, not a workspace powerhouse.
Starting at Rs. 13,999 in India, the Realme Pad offers decent performance, a high-quality display, and surprisingly impressive sound for its price segment. Daily performance is smooth, and the ultra-wide selfie camera is well-suited for video calls. The LTE-enabled variant, starting at Rs. 15,999, offers even more value, making the Realme Pad a compelling option provided your expectations are aligned with its strengths – exceptional media consumption and basic communication.
