Xiaomi Book S 12.4-inch review: Windows on an affordable 2-in-1 Arm

Xiaomi is best known for its mobile phones in the UK, but the Chinese company also sells a range of other devices including smart speakers, home security suites, wearables and headphones. Its portfolio currently includes Xiaomi Book S 12.4 inch tablet, priced at £599.99 in the UK (down from £649.99). There are also two optional extras: £129 12.4 inch Xiaomi Book S keyboard, make it a 2-in-1 detachable and £89.99 Xiaomi Smart Pen. We’ve got all three components to look at, bringing the total price tag to £818.98.

Powered by Qualcomm’s Arm-based Snapdragon 8cx 2nd Generation” SoC and offered for review with both keyboard and stylus, 12.4-inch Xiaomi Book S included Windows 11 in S mode. It’s not for anyone looking for a powerful computer, but how does it stack up into a 2-in-1 detachable for everyday use?

It’s a three-piece detachable 2-in-1, with a separate tablet, keyboard, and stand. The 12.4-inch tablet weighs 720g, while the keyboard weighs 317g.

It’s important to note that the Xiaomi Book S 12.4 runs Windows 11 in S mode, which Microsoft says is “streamlined for security and performance, and offers a familiar Windows experience”. S mode only allows users to download apps from the Microsoft Store, and the only browser allowed is Microsoft Edge. You can switch out of S mode, but not back. I was in S mode for the duration of this review to maintain continuity with the 12.4-inch Xiaomi Book S when it was delivered to the user. However, this means I don’t have access to some apps – most notably Geekbench 5 benchmark application.

The tablet’s case is plastic on top of a magnesium-aluminum alloy body, and while it feels pretty sturdy, it’s probably a good idea to use protective gloves while traveling – especially since the display is only yes 3 . tempered glass.

The magnetic stand attaches to the back of the tablet quite firmly, the keyboard part also has a solid magnetic connection. I certainly never felt that things would fall apart in transit. However, as with all devices of this type, working on your lap or any other uncertain surface is not possible. There’s no lift mechanism for the keyboard, so if you prefer a higher typing angle, you’ll be disappointed.

The optional 12.4-inch Xiaomi Book S keyboard is very comfortable to use. The keys are large, have a lot of travel, and work quite well for a keyboard of this type. They only make a slight ‘thump’ sound when in use. The QWERTY and character keys are both slightly indented, but the Fn row and other ‘function related’ keys like tab, caps lock, shift, backspace and enter keys, as well as all bottom rows, are flat. On the surface it looks a bit disjointed, but it made no difference for me when typing and I managed to work with my normal touch typing speed.

The 12.4-inch screen is housed in small bezels. It has a 2,560 x 1,600 display that offers 244ppi in a 16:10 aspect ratio. The 60Hz refresh rate isn’t more than enough, but the 500 nits peak brightness makes it possible to use this tablet outdoors. Color gamut support is also good, with Xiaomi claiming 100% DCI-P3.

The touch screen is easy to operate and Xiaomi also offers an optional Smart Pen that attaches to the short left edge with a strong magnet, charging wirelessly when in this position. However, there’s no permanent cover for the stylus on the chassis, so you’ll need to be careful not to misplace it.

All ports and connections are on the tablet. One short edge houses the volume rocker, power switch, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C port, MicroSD card slot, and one of two speaker grilles. The other grille rests on the other short edge. It’s good to see a 1080p webcam here for video calls, while the rear camera is a 13MP unit. No fingerprint sensor, but Windows Hello Face Authentication available via webcam in addition to the Windows password or PIN.

The sound coming from the speaker is of reasonable quality and volume. They are perfectly suitable for general listening, although the bass is not as strong as they could be.

Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 processor backed by 8GB RAM. It handled the tasks I threw at it – streaming content through a few browser windows and writing to web apps – well enough, but these are low-level workloads. As noted earlier, I did not run Geekbench 5 to see how the Xiaomi Book S compares to other tablets as the feature is not available in the Windows app store. Look at Geekbench browsersingle-core score is around 750 while multi-core score is around 2900. This is, unsurprisingly, in the same playing field as HP’s. Elite Foliouse the same chipset.

There’s 256GB of internal memory, enough for everyday use cases, and more can be added via the MicroSD card slot.

Xiaomi quotes up to 13.4 hours of battery life and offers a 65W charger. To test this, I worked for three hours from fully charging the battery. After three hours, the battery had 61% remaining, indicating a total battery life of about 7.7 hours.

When the battery was down to 28%, I started charging. After 15 minutes, the battery has increased to 40%. After 15 minutes of charging it reached 53% and after 45 minutes the battery was at 66%. I’m a bit worried about how warm the 65W charger is.

Conclusion

The 12.4-inch Xiaomi Book S is compact and well-finished. The keyboard is comfortable to use (although its angle can’t be raised) and the screen offers plenty of brightness. The 1080p webcam is very good and has a MicroSD card slot for memory expansion. Windows S mode comes preinstalled, but you can take a one-way trip out of this restricted mode for free (however, there’s no way to return to S mode afterwards).

The downsides include aging Gorilla Glass 3 screen protection, a chipset that offers modest performance, a lack of an integrated case for the stylus, a lack of ports and connectivity, and no support for mobile broadband. .

The Xiaomi Book S 12.4 may be suitable for users without a need, but its small screen and basic specs mean it’s not powerful enough to be your main work device.

Xiaomi Book S 12.4-inch Specifications

Alternatives to consider

The 12.4-inch Xiaomi Book S looks good at £818.98 for tablet, keyboard and stylus compared to its main Windows on Arm competitor. Microsoft’s 13-inch Surface Pro X with the SQ1 chipset, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage, plus the Surface Pro Keyboard and Surface Slim Pen 2 is priced at £1,047.99, while the 13.5-inch Elite Folio is priced at £1,047.99. HP’s similar designation will set you back £1,438.60 at the time of writing. If you prefer to look outside of the Windows ecosystem, you can pick up the 10.2-inch Apple iPad with Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard for £707.

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