OnePlus Pad is solid hardware at a reasonable price

OnePlus has been known for its speedy powerful smartphones, often outpacing more expensive flagships in general performance. In recent years, the Chinese company co-founded by Carl Pei, who now heads Nothing, has diversified its portfolio of products. OnePlus has a TV, a smartwatch, a number of accessories, and now, an Android tablet. For ₹35,999 or ₹37,999, the OnePlus Pad has been launched with a similar strategy to that used for the smartphones — offer strong hardware for surprising price. But of course, there are both pros and cons.

The OnePlus Pad is in an interesting “Halo Green” hue that makes it look different from other tablets but has it fitting right in with similar tinted OnePlus phones. The large package that arrives for review has all the accessories, such as the keyboard and digital pen, but customers would need to buy those separately. The tablet itself is A4-sized or 10.1 by 7.4 inches and is meant to be used more in landscape mode. It's dressed in aluminium and isn’t too heavy at 552 gms. On the back, there’s a large prominent camera circle right in the centre that gives the impression it’s a camera centric device. It isn’t. Looking around the edges, you’ll see iPad-style button placement with the power button on top, in portrait view. The button does not double up as a fingerprint sensor and in fact, you can’t use your fingerprint as a security measure on this tablet.

Also missing in action is a SIM slot because this device only works on Wi-Fi and doesn’t have a cellular version at all. There’s no 3.5mm headphone jack either, a fact that doesn’t surprise anyone any longer but continues to disappoint many. There’s also no memory card slot.

Moving up to the front, we have a 2K LCD display. At the price, it’s unlikely to have been the brighter, more vivid, OLED type of screen but OnePlus has given it 500 nits of brightness and 144Hz refresh rate. The latter is for some apps, without which the refresh rate drops but is nevertheless more than on most tablets. The display is quite good with colours, viewing angles and overall look, though it doesn’t have the deep blacks and contrast levels of the more expensive OLED. It’s framed by reasonably slim bezels, leaving the user with enough room to watch movies in peace. There are four speakers to shatter that peace.

The tablet has phone-like hardware specifications with either 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of fast UFS 3.1 storage. It runs on the Mediatek Dimensity 9000 chipset. Mediatek’s processors are more associated with budget devices and doesn’t quite have the brand power of Qualcomm, but they have been getting more powerful and capable in recent years.

Snappy performance

Performance on this tablet is fast and snappy. With 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM (more than a regular iPad) to play with, one can open up many apps and multi-task, moving from one app to the other rapidly. Browsing, navigation, gaming, using the camera — all of this is fast. But although the software the device runs on is Android 13 and OPPO’s ColorOS flavoured Oxygen13.1, there’s a certain smoothness and polish missing. Android apps are notoriously tablet-unfriendly so they don’t behave as they would on a phone. There are very evident bits and pieces that seem to be similar to those in Apple’s iPad including the icons of certain apps, but the experience is not comparable.

Optional accessories

Adding the keyboard to the OnePlus Pad for ₹7,999 naturally increases the usability of tablet. It’s nice to find that a specific keyboard case has been made for it and it turns out to be a very good one. The keys are have the right feel, the touchpad is responsive, and it’s easy to type on fairly fast. There is one problem however. You have to be careful when closing and opening the tablet with they keyboard attached because it can shift out of place and lose its magnetic connect and the tablet can then fly out of your hands. That’s something to keep in mind if kids are using the device though adults too will have to get into the habit. A folio cover is also optionally available for ₹1,499.

One more accessory for the OnePlus Pad is an Apple-style digital pen called the Stylo for ₹4,999. It snaps on to the top of the tablet and stays in place there and connects and charges via Bluetooth. The Stylo isn’t supported by many apps — you’ll need to find some that allow pen input — but the Notes app preloaded on the tablet does support it the moment you click on the pen icon. The Stylo works quite well and smoothly at basic writing and drawing or sketching. It can be used to mark up images as well.

Stay cantered on calls

This tablet’s rear camera, a straightforward 13MP lens, is adequate for a tablet and will do the job for the limited times you might want to use it. The tablet being a little large, it isn’t likely to be one’s choice of device for photography, but undoubtedly will be useful in some situations, including scanning documents. The 8MP front camera is well-positioned for video calls in landscape mode. It’s a little sluggish and includes the automatic flash that is supposed to light up one’s face but which can end up looking very harsh and artificial. It can, of course, be turned off.

A 9510mAh battery keeps the Psd going for quite a while. This level of battery is also more than tablets typically come with. It supports 67W fast charging.

The OnePlus Pad is an interesting mixed bag pluses and minuses. It’s reasonably priced, but the accessories take the cost up. It’s got great hardware specs, but the software needs some finesse. It’s a good size for work and content consumption, but a little heavy to be ultra portable. All in all, it’s a great addition to the rather scarce options that exist in Android tablets.