OnePlus Pad first impressions – Be aware Apple, and Samsung, OnePlus is here!

New OnePlus Pad is here, Should you buy it? A Quick Guide for You in 2023

OnePlus launched its very first tablet back in February 2023, at the Cloud 11 event, where I saw the audience really excited for this one, even more than they were with the OnePlus 11 or OnePlus 11R smartphones. They revealed the tablet and its specs back then, made a big hype but pushed the launch date to April, and now finally it can be ordered.

Well, keeping the anticipation intact, I am also quite excited about this revamped Oppo Pad 2 for India in the form of this OnePlus Pad. So, essentially with the new OxygenOS 13.1, Dimensity 9000, 11.61-inch display 144Hz display and with lots of RAM & storage that too at a starting price of ₹37,999, is it worth the money to spend?

A lot of people will say a lot of things and today you will see thousands of reviews popping up, however, in my brief two days of full usage, I will tell you what I like about this tablet and who it’s targeted at. This is a completely honest first impressions article so that you can decide if this OnePlus Pad is the right choice for you or not.

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OnePlus Pad Features & Specifications

• [Display ]: 3K+ Display (16.61-inch/29.49cm), 7:5 read-fit ratio; Display type: IPS LCD; Display resolution: WQHD+ (2800×2000 high resolution) Dolby Vision display, 296 PPI; Max Display brightness (500 nits); Screen refresh rate: 144Hz; Support 10-bit true color
• [Calling supported]: The OnePlus Pad can make calls and use smartphone cellular data via the Auto Connect feature
• [Storage]: 12GB RAM+ 256GB storage;
• [Processor & Operating system]: Android 13 OS, MediaTek Dimensity 9000, 4 nm advanced flagship chipset;
• [Camera]: Front 8MP and Back 13MP Camera with 4K recording with camera Flash
• [Special Features]: Palm Rejection, Quad Speakers with Dolby Atmos, Compatibility with external HDD, Central Portrait mode
• [Accessories]: OnePlus Stylus and Keyboard are compatible. (the OnePlus stylo and Keyboard are sold separately)

For reviewers, there’s this bundle containing the OnePlus Pad tablet, OnePlus Magnetic Keyboard, and OnePlus Stylo for the best experience.

Accessories

Though it was told earlier that OnePlus will be bundling a Magnetic keyboard with the tablet, however, now it seems that only for a limited time, OnePlus Folio Case come included. So, if you want to buy any accessories you have to buy them separately and here are all of them with the prices mentioned:

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OnePlus Folio Case

This is the basic folio case that costs ₹1,499 and is up for free during the pre-order period, and the Folio Case won’t let go until you want it to. This is nothing but basic protection for your tablet with a matching Green color, so work and play with total peace of mind.

Buy from here: https://fas.st/3NtRh

OnePlus Magnetic Keyboard

The OnePlus Magnetic Keyboard revolutionizes the typing experience for the OnePlus Pad with its seamless magnetic attachment, eliminating the need for Bluetooth connectivity, switches, plugs, or pairing hassles. With ultra-smooth typing and lightning-fast gestures, this keyboard enhances productivity to new heights. The touchpad on the keyboard replicates the fluidity of the screen, allowing for effortless swipes, gestures, and taps.

To ensure optimal comfort while reading and working, the OnePlus Pad can be easily tilted to a convenient 120-degree angle. This ergonomic design choice enables a more relaxed and enjoyable experience. Coupled with the vibrant and vivid display, your viewing pleasure is taken to the next level, immersing you in stunning visuals.

Whether you’re typing away or indulging in multimedia content, the OnePlus Magnetic Keyboard and OnePlus Pad combo deliver a seamless and elevated user experience. This is priced at a nominal ₹7,999 and is far less than Apple or Samsung’s price of its own accessories.

Buy from here: https://fas.st/Tb-ae

OnePlus Stylo

Experience the incredible responsiveness of the OnePlus Stylo, boasting an impressively low 2ms latency that virtually eradicates any lag. Unleash your creativity with enhanced speed, enjoying seamless writing and flawlessly precise sketching. Whether you’re jotting down notes or unleashing your artistic flair, freely adjust the line width to achieve the utmost accuracy in your creations.

Express your unique style by selecting your preferred font and making a statement with your writing. With an impressive 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity, artists can bring out the finest details in their artwork, ensuring every stroke captures their vision. Making a lasting impact has never been easier as the OnePlus Stylo empowers you to leave your mark with maximum precision and excellence.

Priced at only ₹4,999, this is an incredible option if you love using drawing or taking notes, buy from here: https://fas.st/47Dugt

Now, let’s talk about the OnePlus Pad and its first impressions, usage experience and more:

Design & Build Quality

The fresh new design of this OnePlus tablet has already attracted the eyes of many and its sleek ultra-portable form factor makes it easy to carry anywhere, weighing only 552 grams. Thanks to a Unified Metal Body, even though it’s light but feels premium to touch or hold in your hands, also because of this cambered frame, it’s very comfortable to grip in your hands.

The Halo Green is a very clean and subtle one, giving a soothing experience, I liked its design along with this color that is synchronous to Buds Pro 2’s Arbor Green and OnePlus 11’s Eternal Green. So, if you want to further expand your ecosystem, this OnePlus Pad is surely a good option especially because of its lightweight and minimal design language along with good build quality.

Display

One of the major pros of this OnePlus Pad has to be its unique 11.61-inch display with the world’s first 7:5 aspect ratio which  OnePlus claims that this tablet is specifically designed for reading and surpasses the commonly seen 16:10 aspect ratio found in most tablets today.

This display, even though not OLED, offers an impressive visual experience with its 500 nits brightness, intelligent brightness control with 2048 levels, 2800*2000 pixel resolution, 296 PPI and a high 144Hz refresh rate. In my usage experience, the higher refresh rate does give a fluid experience daily, though the contrast or colors are not as good as OLEDs for the price the display is pretty good.

The thin 6.7mm bezel makes the display look even sexier and that allows an 88% screen-to-body ratio, which is one of the best at this price range.

Though the display supports Dolby Vision I couldn’t find Netflix content showing that as it does on the OnePlus 11, so, OnePlus needs to work on the support front. The high 144Hz refresh rate adjusts automatically based on different scenarios, OnePlus Pad can toggle between frame rates of 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz.

In terms of daily usage, the display to be fair is very smooth, crisp and pleasing to the eyes, on the other hand, when it comes to media consumption I miss the color depth of OLED but it is far better than my older iPad’s Retina display. This new aspect ratio is better than Apple’s or equivalent to Samsung or Lenovo’s in a similar price range and so you will enjoy everyday YouTube or Binge-watching Netflix, Prime Video and more.

I even enjoyed reading books on this OnePlus Pad because of this unique aspect ratio, and also you do not have eye strains. The tablet has a Widevine L1 license for FHD streaming and overall, as of my brief usage, the display is one of the best and as a complete package far better than the ones in a similar price range in India.

Performance

When you are spending up to Rs.40k, performance plays a big role in your buying decision undoubtedly and OnePlus has gladly taken care of that by providing the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC, up to 12GB LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB UFS 3.1 storage on this OnePlus Pad. Though the Dimensity 9000 isn’t taken very seriously but is indeed very powerful and with proper cooling can give incredible performance.

For me using it for a short while, I didn’t experience any lag as it’s paired with 12GB RAM, you can open multiple apps together, work with multiple apps simultaneously and more. The performance is in fact comparable to the iPad I personally have but as this OnePlus Pad has a higher refresh rate, I did enjoy the smoothness of the UI in my daily usage.

Here are some quick benchmarks:

In the 3DMark Wild Life test, this OnePlus Pad posted a score of 8410 points whereas in Wild Life Extreme this scored 2385 points which is toe-to-toe with A14 Bionic’s scores. Even in Geekbench 6, the performance is dominant because in single-core the Dimesity 9000 manages to score 1658 points and in multi-core too the score is a healthy 4171 points.

These scores are no joke and go to show the capability of this tablet, by far in this price range this is the most powerful Android tablet yet and the numbers prove it. I was shocked to see that the Geekbench 6 scores are almost similar to the OnePlus 11’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, and I need not need to say more about what OnePlus is offering is truly next-level.

Do you want a detailed comparison between OnePlus Pad and iPad 10th Generation? Well, we will bring one for you soon!

Audio and Camera

OnePlus did boast of its incredible audio experience, which is a key feature of any tablet as this OnePlus Pad sports an omni-bearing sound field feature that allows you to clearly hear the sound coming from the tablet from any direction. I would say with Dolby Atmos support, the speakers are adequately loud, most importantly clear and precise.

From listening to music or watching movies or anything, the sound produced has a wholesome feeling and the OnePlus Pad intelligently identifies the screen direction and automatically switches between left and right audio channels. Overall, in terms of audio experience, this new Oneplus Android tablet won’t let you down at all.

Coming to the cameras, which for a tablet is often skipped upon, however, you do have a 13MP rear camera that can shoot up to 4K 30 fps videos and an 8MP front camera, which I think is a very basic one. The quality of the cameras is decent, nothing extraordinary but good overall.

Connectivity

One of the major things, OnePlus has worked on is the connectivity of this OnePlus Pad, I like the fact that both variants have Wi-Fi 6 & Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity. In this price range, the connectivity options, OnePlus is providing are exceptional and anyone who loves roaming about can take the OnePlus Pad anywhere and work or play easily.

On the WiFi front, it was exceptional and I had no issues connecting, also the Bluetooth connectivity worked very well. If you have a great OnePlus ecosystem, you can use this tablet as a medium to control them as well or even use this Cellular Data Sharing feature.

This Cellular Data Sharing capability enables it to access the 5G signal of the user’s OnePlus smartphone. This feature kicks in when the distance between the OnePlus smartphone and OnePlus Pad is around 1 to 5 meters.

Battery Life

Last but not least, talking about battery life, the OnePlus Pad has a huge 9510mAh Battery and 67W SUPERVOOC charging support which does make life easier for anyone. The battery life of this tablet is exceptional and I was getting over a day of usage with this one easily!

The charging experience was also superb because the 67W SUPERVOOC charging did fill up the battery’s sauce within an hour and then it lasted over a day. Though I didn’t have much time to assess the screen-on-time or battery life thoroughly, with optimizations by OnePlus, you do expect great battery life out of this one!

It’s too early to judge the verdict, but I can say the new OnePlus Pad is promising and has become one of my favourites truly. A lot of devices come and go but as a secondary device, the OnePlus Pad has eased my workload a lot, will reserve my full judgement in a week or so, till then if you have any queries do let us know in the comments down below.

Buy from the OnePlus India store: https://fas.st/PatBRo or from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Nl8ZLF

Here are some common FAQs related to this new OnePlus Pad 2023: