Xiaomi Mi Pad 4 — Talking Tech — Mitchell Millennial

For many, Android tablets are a thing of the past, pieces of hardware that are as old as time

itself. As media streaming becomes increasingly popular however, we have decided to revisit these

now niche products to ultimately answer: are they still worth it in 2019?

Quickly glance through Amazon and you’ll find that in 2019, Android tablets are either very

cheap or extremely expensive. Ranging from the $100 plastic tablets that still feature quad core

processors to the $700 Samsung tablets that are just too hard to justify, shopping for an Android

tablet has never been more difficult.

Actually pick one up, in our case the Mi pad 4, and you’ll quickly start to realise that

removing Android from the Android tablet equation would quickly fix its worst problems. Whereas

IPad OS now offers desktop level browsing and a full version of Adobe photoshop, Android tablets

feel like a sheer waste of space. Load an app like Google Chrome on any Android tablet and you’ll

swiftly realise that you’re running what is an essentially scaled up version of the phone app,

making the desire for a dedicated device much less appealing.

As if software limitations weren’t enough, Android tablets suffer from all sorts of hardware

imperfections - even at the higher end. Whether it be terrible displays at the lower end or

insufficient battery life at the higher-end models, you’ll be hard pressed to find a single

manufacturer that builds a tablet that can ooze as much as your typical Android smartphone - and

that’s a shame for consumers that want a device that feels just as bit as nice to hold as it is to use.

Beyond being often improperly priced, and leaving much to be desired in terms of Software

optimisation, Android tablets also have a fierce - and undeniably better - competitor: iPads. Now

starting at simply $329, products that were once associated with premium users can now not only

be accessible to most consumers, but do so while offering an unrivaled level of software and

hardware revision that most Android tablet users could only dream of having.

To bring home my point, allow me to explain myself through an analogy. Mitchell uses a Mi

Pad 4, a perfectly fine Android tablet, perhaps one of the best at its price. Yet due to software and

hardware limitations, Mitchell’s use of his device has been limited to a point where his justification

of owning the device are very personal, in his case simply offering a bigger display for his drone-

flying experience. Meanwhile, I carry with me Apple’s latest iPad Pro, and whilst it may be priced

closed to a laptop, Apple’s constant software revisions alongside flawless first-party accessories

have allowed for an experience that has, in my personal use, completely warranted its price-tag.

Does this mean that you should completely avoid Android tablets? Not necessarily. If you

can find a tablet as good as the Mi Pad 4 for a price significantly lower than $329, and have a

perfectly justifiable excuse to need an Android device that is not a phablet, then by all means make

your happy purchase. But if you are simply in the market for a bigger, yet perfectly solid device,

we’d whole heartedly recommend buying Apple’s offerings or a bigger Android phone before you

dive in what in 2019 seems like uncharted Android tablet territory.