Sometimes referred to as the Chinese Apple, Xiaomi’s approach to design isn’t free from controversy but their devices have delivered a solid bang for the buck - hardly a surprise to users who are willing to look beyond the replica outfit.
The Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 is, at first glance, a cheap version of the Apple iPad mini 2 - it has the same 7.9 diagonal, the same 1536 x 2048 resolution and MIUI looks and acts more like iOS than Android, on which it is based. The design is almost identical too though they couldn’t quite match the slim profile. Made of glossy plastic, the Mi Pad 7.9 looks like the lovechild of an iPad and an iPhone 5c.
With a mix-and-match Apple design and a MIUI skin for Android 4.4.4 KitKat looking like a pretty convincing iOS clone you’re probably thinking you know where this is going. But Xiaomi just loves proving people wrong. If the screen resolution wasn’t a clue, the Mi Pad 7.9 has some specs that are sure to impress. This is the first commercially-available device to be powered by Nvidia’s Tegra K1 chipset combining a quad-core Cortex-A15 processor and a 192-core GPU for desktop-grade gaming graphics.