Whoa. Eleven inches, 144 hertz, a metal body, under five hundred bucks? Under five hundred in China. And it's basically last year's tablet. The Xiaomi Pad 9: an Android tablet from about 447 dollars, aimed straight at the iPad Air. This is Tech After Dark. We read eight articles, watched zero hands-ons, and zero hands touched it. Three things are actually new. And thing one made me gasp. The screen.

Notebookcheck measured 802 nits, up from 613 on the Pad 8. That's readable in a sunny room. And no P W M flicker! Okay, but what does that mean for me? Some screens secretly blink to dim. This one doesn't, so flicker-sensitive eyes get a break. Thing two: a bigger battery. 9,720 milliamp-hours! I want it. Who's lending me one? Bigger tank, thirstier engine. Notebookcheck measured idle power roughly doubling, so it didn't outlast the Pad 8 in their tests.

Oh no. Okay, thing three: a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 and Wi-Fi 7! Wi-Fi 7 is faster on new routers. And the 5-gigabit U S B-C helps, because there's no microSD slot. Specs that matter. The chip is upper-mid-range, and reviewers found it fine for games and multitasking. So it crushes the iPad Air, right? Geekbench multi-core: 6,432 for the Pad 9. The M4 iPad Air? 13,494. More than double. Battery, though!

The battery's gotta be good. It is. 19.5 hours of Wi-Fi browsing in Notebookcheck's test. That's more than a day of normal use. And the camera? Thirteen megapixels on the back! No autofocus. Great for scanning a receipt. Don't expect great photos. So what did the reviewers say? Tell me they loved it. Notebookcheck gave it 88 percent, calling it an excellent mid-range tablet and an affordable iPad Air alternative.

Yes! Shiny and cheap! Same outlet's verdict: no real advantages over the Pad 8. And the speakers got quieter, with less bass. Wait. Seriously? They made the speakers worse? The price. In China it starts at 2,999 yuan, about 447 dollars, and it's on sale now. So I can grab one tomorrow! Nova's Catch: it's China-only. No announced U S, U K or E U launch, and Notebookcheck says imports start around 525 dollars.

Okay, that's more than the Chinese price. That's fair. Rivals. The M4 iPad Air: 599 dollars, double the benchmark score, but Notebookcheck found the Pad 9's battery much better. And the Honor MagicPad 4? I heard it's shiny. It is. A 12.3-inch oled, measured at 2,337 nits versus 802 here. Not sold in the U S, though. Verdict! 7.2 from me. Bright screen, metal body, and that China price! 6.2. Nice tablet, but it's last year's tablet with a brighter screen.

Wait for a global price. After Dark Score: 6.7. Sixth on laptops and tablets, under its big brother, the Pad 9 Pro Max. Rocco, close the import tab.