After conquering the smartphone market in key emerging markets such as China, Xiaomi’s venturing into the world of tablets with the Xiaomi Mi Pad.

While this year’s offerings by Xiaomi such as the Mi Note have followed an original design, last year’s products such as the Mi Pad bear a striking resemblance to Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) offerings, with Xiaomi clearly targeting the iPad mini with its first tablet. In broad strokes, both tablets share the same pixel density at 324 ppi, the same 4:3 ratio and are offered in a 7.9-inch form factor. That’s where the similarities end, however, as both products are aimed at entirely different buyers.

Design

The iPad mini features an all-metal chassis that feels great in-hand, with Xiaomi deciding to go with plastic on the Mi Pad. There are several Android-based tablets in the price segment Xiaomi is targeting, but by offering much better hardware than tablets priced significantly higher, the Chinese vendor is once again looking to punch above its weight.

The front of the Mi Pad is an unassuming slab, and features the Mi logo etched onto the top left corner. The top section also hosts the front camera sensor. At the bottom, you’ll find three capacitive buttons. The camera sensor at the back is on the top left corner, with the built-in microphone directly underneath. At the bottom, there are stereo speakers sitting below another Mi logo.

The volume rockers as well as the power buttons are on the left side of the tablet, and there’s a micro-USB charging port at the bottom and a 3.5mm audio jack at the top. The volume and power buttons have decent travel, which as it turns out is hard to get right as evidenced by HTC with the first few production runs of the Nexus 9. Xiaomi has however managed to get the tactile feedback right as far as the buttons on the Mi Pad are concerned.

The gentle sloping sides allows you to grip the Mi Pad with ease, with the tablet belying its size when held in-hand. The overall build quality of the tablet is top-notch, but the decision to go with a glossy plastic back wasn’t the best by Xiaomi as it makes the tablet quite slippery at times. The Mi Pad is available in several colorful configurations ranging from white, blue, pink, green and so forth, with the more colorful options distinctly reminding us of the iPhone 5c.

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Being the world’s largest notebook vendor, Lenovo has a great relationship with Intel, which it is leveraging by launching a new Intel-powered tablet running Android, dubbed the Lenovo Tab S8. As the name indicates, the tablet is an 8-inch offering featuring a full-HD IPS display. With most tablets in the low-cost Android segment running Qualcomm or MediaTek hardware, Lenovo is banking on Intel’s Bay Trail architecture for the Tab S8.  

Under the hood, the Tab S8 is powered by the 1.8 GHz quad-core Intel Atom Z3745 CPU, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB internal memory, frontal speakers and Android 4.4 KitKat. Although there isn’t a 64-bit version of Android available, when Google does launch a 64-bit version, Intel claims that the Bay Trail processor will offer significant advantages even though the amount of RAM is less than 4 GB. One reason why Intel was unable to find significant hardware wins with the Bay Trail line of CPUs has to do with energy efficiency, and with the Tab S8, the situation does not seem to be rectified, as the 4290mAh battery is claimed to offer a battery life of just over seven hours. 

Other features of the Tab S8 include an 8 MP camera with auto-focus and a wide F2.2 lens, 1.6 MP front shooter, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. Those looking for faster Wi-Fi ac connectivity have to look elsewhere as Lenovo still does not seem inclined to offer the latest Wi-Fi standard in its low-cost products.

With dimensions of 209.8 x 123.8 x 7.9 mm and a weight of 299g, the Tab S8 is in-line with other 8-inch tablets in this segment, like the Galaxy Tab S 8.4. Lenovo is also offering four color variations of the tablet — Ebony, Blue, Canary Yellow and White — although availability will be based on the region.

Lenovo is targeting the US market with the Tab S8, which will be available in the country later this month for $200 for the Wi-Fi variant. An LTE version is in the works, and will be available later this year. Although the vendor is focusing its attention of the US market with the 8-inch tablet, an inter nation launch is also on the cards. 

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