OnePlus Pad Review: A Swing and a Home Run

OnePlus recently launched its first Android tablet in India. The OnePlus Pad arrives as a powerful mid-range Android tablet that will look to challenge offerings from Xiaomi, Samsung, Lenovo, and Apple.

The OnePlus Pad arrives with a MediaTek chipset, a super-smooth display, large battery, fast charging, and solid software support. The OnePlus Pad price in India is set at Rs 37,999 for the base 8GB/128GB model, while the 12GB/256GB variant will set you back Rs 39,999. So let's see how OnePlus fares at its first attempt at a tablet in my full OnePlus Pad review.

OnePlus Pad Review: Design & Build

The OnePlus Pad features an eye-catching design and features a slim factor, measuring a mere 6.5mm thick. The pad also weighs little over half a kilo and is light considering its glass and aluminium build. The screen is adorned with edge-to-edge glass with uniform bezels, which are large enough to ensure your fingers don't disturb the content on the display.

The OnePlus Pad comes in a single Halo Green shade, which looked sharp but was prone to smudges. OnePlus appears to design the tablet for horizontal use, with both front and rear cameras placed on the sides as opposed to the top of the device.

The Pad has two volume buttons on the right and a power button on the top, while pogo pins to attach the keyboard sit on the left. Additionally, there's a USB Type-C port for charging on the bottom. Overall, I found the OnePlus Pad extremely comfortable to use considering its size.

OnePlus Pad Review: Display & Audio

The OnePlus Pad opts for an 11.61-inch LCD panel with a resolution of 2800 x 2000 pixels. The display has a unique 7:5 aspect ratio and can hit 500 nits of peak brightness. The screen is super smooth with a fast 144Hz refresh rate that can scale between 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, and 144Hz. Furthermore, there's a 144Hz touch sampling rate as well.

The display also supports a range of HDR formats including HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, and Dolby Vision. It is worth noting that the HDR support on the OnePlus Pad is very limited, even on popular apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. However, you can expect that to change soon.

You can currently test the tab's full HDR potential on YouTube. The screen pushes out punchy colours with deep blacks, although colours don't appear as accurate. The display here is not quite as good as an OLED panel, but it comes pretty damn close. The screen was also easily visible outdoors and had excellent viewing angles.

The OnePlus Pad packs quad stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support. The speaker system here is engineered to give you the best possible sound regardless of the orientation you use the tablet in. The speakers get loud enough to fill a small room with good vocal clarity. The overall audio experience on the OnePlus Pad is good but it does lack a headphone jack.

OnePlus Pad Review: Performance

The addition of the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 all-but guarantees flagship performance on the OnePlus Pad. Furthermore, the tablet is paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The MediaTek chip can easily handle multitasking as well as any title you throw at it.

I tested Call of Duty: Mobile and Diablo Immortal on high settings at 60fps, which the tablet ran with little effort. In Geekbench 6, the OnePlus Pad managed a single-core score of 1102 points and a multi-core score of 3401 points. It is safe to say that the OnePlus Pad is the best-performing tablet in the segment.

OnePlus Pad Review: Cameras

For optics, the OnePlus Pad gets a single 13 MP camera on the back with autofocus and an LED flash and an 8 MP ultrawide front camera with fixed focus. The rear camera can capture video in up to 4K resolution at 30fps, while the front camera is limited to 1080p at 30fps.

The camera software is quite basic here, more of a stripped-down version of the software from OnePlus smartphones. There are a few toggles including HDR, aspect ratio adjustment, AI enhancement, and 2x digital zoom. There's also a night mode and you can use background blur on the selfie camera. It also features panorama, slow-motion, and time-lapse modes.

The rear camera reproduces decent images in good light, like most tablets in the range. The front camera works well indoors when taking video calls, although I don't recommend using it in low light. The 4K video looks lackluster but it is a nice option to have and does a fairly decent job outdoors in bright conditions.

OnePlus Pad Review: Battery

OnePlus' first Android tablet packs a 9510 mAh battery with 67W SUPERVOOC charging support. The OnePlus Pad boasts some impressive battery life, capable of delivering over 10 hours of heavy usage on a single charge. A three-hour movie using the tablet's speakers at 60% volume and screen at 70% brightness drained 25 percent of the battery.

The OnePlus Pad also offers excellent charging support, delivering a full charge in around 90 minutes with the included 100W adapter. This is easily the fastest charging we've seen on an Android tablet. Together, the battery life and charging speed on the OnePlus Pad are second to none, particularly in the segment.

OnePlus Pad Review: Software

The OnePlus Pad runs on Android 13 out of the box with the OxygenOS skin on top. The software experience on the OnePlus Pad is average at best but this feels more like an Android problem rather than a OnePlus problem. However, there are a few useful features like the multi-window function, gesture navigation to move between apps, a floating window mode, and basic split-screening.

Additionally, only a few apps can take advantage of the larger screen. On the flip side, there's always room for improvement and the OnePlus Pad has a bright future ahead of it down to its three years of OS updates and four years of security patches. The overall software experience is average for Android tablets, although OxgenOS feels a little too cluttered.

OnePlus Pad Accessories

OnePlus sent us the Stylo, and Magnetic Keyboard along with the Pad. The OnePlus Folio Case price is set at Rs 1,499 and comes with a kickstand, while the OnePlus Stylo and OnePlus Magnetic Keyboard will set you back Rs 4,999 and Rs 7,999, respectively. All three accessories are sold separately.

The Magnetic Keyboard does feel a little cramped but that is primarily down to size constraints of the OnePlus Pad or tablets in general. The trackpad on the keyboard was surprisingly roomy considering the size of the keyboard and supports multi-finger gestures, making it delightful to use and nearly replicating that laptop feel.

The keys feature good tactility, although it could have used some backlighting. There are pogo pins located in the centre of the keyboard to attach it to the Pad. The keyboard does lack support for shortcuts but that is a general criticism for Android apps in general.

While the keyboard does turn the Pad into a laptop substitute while stationed on a desk, it is a far cry from the real thing. The OnePlus Pad also comes with a stylus, which was responsive and gave a natural feeling of writing on paper. The pressure sensitivity and palm rejection on the stylus was excellent, although I didn't like the fact that it attached magnetically on the Pad.

OnePlus Pad Review: Final Thoughts

For a first attempt, OnePlus have got it spot on with the OnePlus Pad. The Android tablet features some of the best hardware on paper and combines it with solid software support. If you are looking for a premium tablet experience under Rs 40,000 and aren't interested in getting an iPad, then the OnePlus Pad is just about as good as they come.

In my OnePlus Pad review, I noticed that it offered the best performance, software support, and battery life in the segment. OnePlus may have substituted an OLED display for an LCD panel, but the high refresh rate and resolution make an extremely good screen. Camera performance was in-line with most other tablets in the segment.

The overall design and build of the tablet were solid, although the back does attract smudges. However, the Pad was very comfortable to use, particularly thanks to its lightweight design. It was hard to find fault with the OnePlus Pad, although its accessories are its Achilles Heel, although that will improve with time. The OnePlus Pad is easily the best Android tablet under Rs 40,000 in India and should be your got-to tablet in the segment.