Realme Pad X Review: A subtle binge viewing tab with 5G at INR 20,000

Realme Pad X review summary:

Editor’s rating: 3.5/5

The Indian tablet market is growing rapidly and recently reported a 68% YoY growth. One of the top five Tablet OEMs in India is Realme. The Chinese manufacturer entered the tablet sphere last year with Realme Pad and as we clear the halfway mark of this year, yet another tablet has been announced in India. It is a 5G-powered Realme Pad X that claims to offer a ginormous display with a brilliant processor under the hood.

Realme Pad X looks sweet on paper but do its amazing specs transcend into an all-encompassing tablet experience? Well, we got our hands on the 5G Realme Pad X for testing for more than a week and we can answer pretty much any of your questions whatsoever. Read the entire Realme Pad X 5G Review right here to know more about the tab and what it brings to the table.

Realme Pad X Review: Design

Realme doesn’t shy away from experimenting with designs. The Realme Pad X looks delightfully minimalistic in its design. Paired with a plastic back and a matte design onboard, the Pad X looks premium. Having a matte back allows it to escape the clutches of fingerprints that could easily riddle the entire back panel end-to-end.

The tab is a bit heavy at 499 grams for the Wi-Fi version while the LTE version is at 506 grams which makes it a tad bit heavier than Realme Pad. Holding the tab isn’t an issue, however, if you intend to hold it using just one hand and for a long time, you should really reconsider. But hey, that’s with all types of tabs which are usually on the heavier side when compared to smartphones.

Moving on, we have a larger display onboard at the front with decently-sized bezels. The front camera is on the right side which makes it easier for video calls and more in landscape mode. You will finger the microphone and volume rockers on the right; microSD and SIM card on the left; you will find two speaker grilles and a USB-C port at the bottom while the top gets a microphone, and two speaker grilles, and a power button. That’s about it when it comes to the appendages on the sides.

Realme Pad X Review: Display

Now that we know more about Realme Pad X design, let’s have a look at the display and how it performs in real-world situations.

Realme has gone for a 10.95-inch LCD WUXGA+ producing a 2000×1200 pixels resolution. Apparently, Realme has sought to cap it with a 60Hz refresh rate which as of now, is much lower than what other OEMs are doing. For instance, Xiaomi Pad 5 boasts a 120Hz refresh rate so there’s some distinction that you can gauge.

Talking about the display, the colors are vibrant and do pop up making it an amazing machine for media consumption. With that resolution, Realme Pad X comes closer to a 2K panel which is amazing. However, it comes with 1080p streaming support for most the apps such as YouTube. On Netflix, you get streaming support at FHD resolution thanks to the Widevine L1 support.

After testing out the tab indoors and outdoors, I have found that the viewing angles on par with premium tablets. The Realme Tab X offers 450nits of peak brightness so some might find it difficult to view content under direct sun given the brightness. When you compare LCD with an AMOLED panel, we can confirm the former won’t be able to compare in terms of perfect blacks and punchy colours.

Anyways, the Realme Pad X display is still good when viewed indoors. The size makes it a whole lot easier to binge content while the stereo speaker support takes it to another level.

Realme Pad X Review: Performance

Specs-wise, Realme Pad X is equipped with a Snapdragon 695 5G octa-core SoC clocked at a 2.2GHz frequency. It has a tri-cluster arrangement with Adreno 619 as the GPU, 64/128GB storage, and 4/6GB RAM. That’s about the specs, now let’s see how the tab fares in real-world conditions.

Realme has upgraded the chipset under the hood compared to Realme Pad. With that being said, the new chipset onboard is a Snapdragon 695 which is a mid-tier SoC that Realme has adapted to tackle everyday workload with relative ease. It is a budget solution capable of rendering streaming, browsing the web, calling, and other tasks without breaking a sweat. In fact, it can handle much more than that given the price tag onboard.

The Realme Pad X arrives with 4GB and 6GB LPDDR4X RAM variants that you can pick. It has 5GB of virtual RAM which uses built-in storage to extend the RAM. Moving on, we tested the tab on various benchmarking scores – 691 points and 2009-points on single-core and multi-core tests on Geekbench while it hit 397870 points on AnTuTu.

I played a few games to test its ability to cope with the immense workload on an Adreno 619 GPU. Although the tab takes usual games like Candy Crush or Subway Surfers without any hassle, it can take AAA titles like Asphalt 9 and Call of Duty: Mobile with good graphics although with a ting of stuttering after some time. However, being an advocate of performance, I would say it manages to break through the performance that the original Realme Pad brought to the table with its Helio G80 SoC.

Realme Pad X Review: Software

Realme Pad X runs on an Android 11-powered Realme UI 3.0 which is refined. I didn’t notice any glitches during the testing. You can hail its split screen feature for multitasking purposes or you can go for a myriad of features the UI brings including Kids Space which is without any confusion, dedicated to the kids.

Luckily, it doesn’t borrow too much bloatware such as Xiaomi’s MIUI although you can still expect some to be alive such as the Facebook app. Text Scanner, Smart Sidebar, and Flexible Windows are some of the features that Realme UI 3.0 has onboard. Realme has done an amazing job building the ecosystem allowing Pad X to mirror other compatible Realme smartphones.

Realme Pad X Review: Battery

Realme Pad X draws its power from an 8,340mAh battery that sits under the hood flanked with a 33W fast charging tech. For context, it is way larger than what the last-gen Realme Pad brought onboard. You will certainly not have to charge the battery so often because it just lasts longer. In fact, our Realme Pad X unit still has some power left even after two days of usage. But make sure you have enough time to let the battery regain power as it takes three hours to juice it up to its full capacity. For a battery that big, I don’t think it isn’t a fair deal.

Realme Pad X Review: Camera

Before diving into the real-world performance, let’s have a look at the specifications that Realme Pad X brings onboard w.r.t the camera tech. The front has an 8MP ultrawide snapper with 105° FoV and a capability to shoot at 1080p@30fps. On the other hand, the rear 13MP camera has the same 1080p@30fps.

Although the specs might seem okay on paper, Realme should have gone for better specs especially when you are shelling out INR 20,000 for a tablet. Talking about the performance, I found that the rear camera’s 13MP sensor does capture average photos but with a lot of grain even in ample light around. Of course, shots during the daytime will be better with any phone, and Pad X is no distinction. The low-light photography on Realme Pad X is well below average where you will find a lot of grains and shadiness in the shots which is a major turn-off.

The front-facing camera carries an 8MP ultrawide shooter which surprisingly captures better shots than its older sibling at the back. The selfie shooter has a Limelight feature that keeps the user in the frame during calls and works on various platforms with up to five participants such as Zoom and Google Meet. However, I still hope that future software updates might be able to bring Realme Pad X’s camera performance to a better high ground than what it is today.

Realme Pad X Review: Verdict

Realme Pad X is a capable tablet with a giant display, a quad speakers setup, and a smooth performance thanks to the Snapdragon 695 SoC. However, it lacks a high refresh rate when compared to Xiaomi Pad 5 which is basically targeting the same pricing point. The Samsung Tab S6 Lite (2022) has a Snapdragon 720 which is better than Snapdragon 695 SoC on the Pad X.

There are certain backlogs such as a below-average camera that you can offset by buying an iPad Air 9th-gen instead. However, not everything has gone down the drain. The humongous battery size, a matte back design, and affordable pricing are some of the selling points that most potential buyers will consider.

Realme Pad X Alternatives

Now that you have read the entire review on Realme Pad X, it’s quite logical that you would want to search for alternatives as well. Apparently, since Realme Pad X goes from a sub-20K INR table to a sub-30K INR through its variants, it has been able to come up against a variety of tabs in the same price range.

Xiaomi Pad 5

The Xiaomi Pad 5 is a sub-320K INR tablet with two storage variants 6GB+128GB (at INR 26,999/-) and 8GB+256GB (at INR 28,999/-). Specs-wise, the Xiaomi Pad 5 is fully loaded with a 10.95” 10-bit LCD 2560×1600 pixels resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate.

You have a Snapdragon 860 SoC with UFs 3.1 storage, LPDDR4X RAM along with Android 11-powered MIUI 13. There’s an 8MP front and 13MP rear camera setup along with Dolby Atmos quad-speakers, Bluetooth v5.0, and a USB-C port among others. There’s an 8,720mAh battery paired alongside 33W fast charging tech.

Motorola Moto Tab G70

If you want to go for a Motorola alternative, the Moto Tab G70 can be a companion priced between INR 21,999/- and 22,999/- for the base variant. You get an 11-inch LCD panel with 2000×1200 pixels resolution, Android 11, LPDDR4X RAM, Helio G90T SoC under the hood along with a 7700mAh battery, a 20W fast charging tech among others.

Apple iPad 9th Generation

If you are ready to shell out more, the Apple iPad 9th Generation is apt with 64GB storage at INR 30,900/- in India. There’s a 10.2-inch LCD 2160×1620 pixels resolution with an Apple A13 Bionic chipset, runs on iPadOS, and has an 8MP front-facing camera and 12MP rear camera.

You get an 8,557mAh battery with a 3.5mm headphone jack, dual stereo speaker setup, Lightning port, dual-band WiFi, and a fingerprint scanner, among others. Additionally, iPads get 5 to 6 years of software updates which is twice that of even the flagship tablets in India.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (2022)

Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite is a powerful alternative that packs in a 10.4″ TFT LCD panel with 1200×2000 pixels resolution, Snapdragon 720G under the hood along with 64/128GB storage and 4GB RAM. There’s 5MP front and a 8MP rear camera setup. It has dual-band WiFi ac, Bluetooth v5.0, USB-C port, a 7040mAh battery with 15W fast charging tech among others. The 4G tab is available at INR INR 29,999/- while you can go for Snapdragon and Exynos variants at INR25,999/-.

Oppo Pad Air

Released in May this year, the Oppo Pad Air packs in a 10.36″ 1B 360nits 1200×2000 pixels panel and draws its power from a Snapdragon 680 4G SoC. There’s Adreno 610 SoC, 64/128GB UFS 2.2 storage and 4/6GB of RAM options available. It too has a 8MP rear and 5MP front camera setup as that of Tab S6 Lite. The Oppo Pad Air brings onboard a 7,100mAh battery with 18W fast charging tech. The 4GB+64GB variant is priced at INR 16,999/- which makes it much cheaper than Realme Pad X although it is Wi-Fi only.