I made one small tweak to my Android tablet and now it’s so much better for movies

If, like me, you sometimes use a tablet to watch movies and TV shows, then you’ve probably read loads of articles on tablet settings you need to change to get the best experience.

However, I recently discovered a new favorite one that significantly improved my movie nights. The best Android tablets often have various display features you can tweak to appease your eyes.

The Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro, which is the tablet I was using when I discovered this feature, lets you play with the color profile, and the OnePlus Pad Go 2 let me add some eye comfort overlays.

But the features that have really improved movie night aren’t visual; they’re audio.

In my Xiaomi — and several other tablets I’ve tested, like the aforementioned OnePlus — I’ve found that there are some pretty handy ways to customize the audio output.

As someone who’s often testing the best wireless headphones, I rarely listen to my tablet’s speaker array when I’m not reviewing it. But that’s started to change thanks to regular movie nights at my partner’s house, when we can’t be bothered to set up her projector.

After struggling to hear the dialogue in a mumbly TV show, I jumped into the settings menu of the tablet, to see if there was something I could do to fix it.

I’ll admit, I all-too-often ignore my Android’s Settings app unless I’m going in there for a purpose, so I was surprised to discover just how many useful audio settings could be found.

How to change sound settings

Before I talk about the features, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about how you can change yours.

The golden ticket to improving your Android ticket’s sound output is by jumping into the Settings app. In the left menu, below Display & brightness, is Sound.

First thing you see in the Sound menu is adjustable volume for different aspects, and the ability to change your notification and alarm sounds. But scroll down, right to the Sound effects option, to find the good stuff.

How to improve your sound

Without using headphones

The Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro had three Sound effects settings which I played with to improve movies.

The first one let me choose between Dolby Atmos audio for the tablet, or Xiaomi Sound. I couldn’t find any explainer of how Xiaomi Sound differed from Dolby Atmos, but from testing, it seems to reduce the sound stage and expansive atmosphere, in favor of boosted trebles and volume.

In short, it made dialogue and music easier to hear, though arguably less detailed or atmospheric.

In ideal conditions, Dolby Atmos would sound better to me. However, I live next to a train line, and the rumbling of my city’s overground can sometimes drown out the subtle details in movies and shows.

Xiaomi Sound’s changes let me hear a little better, and so I turned it on when I was watching in my room where the problem is worse. At my partner’s house, though, I stuck to Dolby Atmos.

Any downgrade from turning off Dolby Atmos could be rectified with another setting: Immersive sound. This artificially increased the sense of space for videos, using the quad speakers, and while it’s not quite Dolby-level, it helps.

I found it most beneficial during conversations, where dialogue felt more audibly panned to the sides, but it seemed to increase the volume a little too.

A little tablet needs big boots to broadcast decent audio, so this was an appreciated extra.

The most useful setting I found, though, was an equalizer. The Xiaomi Pad has an EQ menu that’s better than most I’ve used in earbuds and headphones I’ve tested. It has eight presets, as well as a ten-band custom mode.

Having used plenty of earbud listening tests, I know that my ears don’t pick up treble quite as well as they could, and so I often jump into equalizers to adjust sound accordingly.

Not all Androids I’ve tested have EQ settings, so this is a lovely welcome touch, and playing around with these settings helped me create a custom mix that made movies much more enjoyable on my tablet.

Give sound a chance

It’s as important as screen tech

I’m aware that audio isn’t as important as visuals for many people. Testing plenty of AV gadgets and headphones has given me a larger-than-average appetite for great-sounding kit.

But I think sound is incredibly important in movies and TV shows. It’s a common refrain from filmmakers that the sound recordist’s job is just as important as the entire camera crew’s, even if it’s not often considered as such.

Care and attention goes into mixing dialogue, composing atmospheric and emotionally-charged soundtracks, and creating densely-layered foley tracks that immerse you in a fictional world.

Tech like smartphones and tablets often do poor justice to these creations; despite how many people seem to think it’s okay to play videos out loud on public transport, built-in speakers often fall short of what TV shows and movies deserve.

So it’s really great to see Android tablet makers building in so many ways to get the most out of content, when they’re not making entertainment hub slates with eight speakers.