Xiaomi’s Smarter Living event 2024 was a rather bleak affair. This is of course relative to all the previous iterations where Xiaomi made a big splash with high-profile gadgets all geared to up India’s smart home quotient. This was the first time in four years that it did not launch any new smart TV, a curious omission to say the least. But we digress.
As is usually the case, Xiaomi had revealed all the products it would launch on D-day ahead of the event. The handheld streamer picked up a lot of “steam” with largely positive buzz all-round. But at the same time, a lot of people were left wanting for more with Xiaomi’s tablet choice. The company for some reason chose to launch the Redmi Pad SE in India, a tablet that made its global debut all the way back in August 2023, and not the relatively newer (and theoretically superior) Redmi Pad Pro.
Now, it seems, there was some method to this madness. Rumour has it that Xiaomi “plans” to rebrand the Redmi Pad Pro under the Poco branding and relaunch it under a new name — Poco Pad. The Poco Pad, if true, will be Poco’s first tablet and it will have all the underpinnings for a global launch, India included. The alleged Poco Pad with model number 2405CPCFBG has been spotted on the FCC website and also in the Camera FV-5 database. The sighting has confirmed a few specs including HyperOS 1.0, Wi-Fi 6, and 33W fast charging while corroborating rumours that it would be virtually identical to the Redmi Pad Pro.
In which case, it could come with a 12.1-inch 1.5K LCD display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 processor, and 10,000mAh battery.
Again, all this is just speculation for now as just because Xiaomi is tipped to be rebranding a certain Redmi product, it doesn’t mean the existing Redmi product can’t launch as is. The Redmi Note 13 series and Poco F6 series phones are a classic example. But it’s an interesting take on why Xiaomi might have kept the Redmi Pad Pro close to its chest for now and launch the Redmi Pad SE instead. So, fingers crossed there.
The Redmi Pad SE has been launched at a starting price of Rs 12,999 (4GB/128GB) with general availability pegged for April 24.
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