OnePlus Pad review: A sub-$500 iPad Pro challenger

Can the elegant and potent OnePlus Pad be the Android tablet that finally gives the iPad a run for its money? OnePlus is known for delivering flagship smartphones that compete with Apple and Samsung’s best at a far more affordable price, and now it’s applying that same formula to its first tablet. 

The Halo Green, sleek OnePlus Pad or, as I lovingly refer to it, “The OPP” has unique styling with eye-catching curb appeal that make you want to handle it. With tight straight lines and curved edges, the OPP feels so good in the hand, and that has to do with the maker's choice to go with an 11.6-inch, 7:5 ratio display that is larger in width than most tablets and makes it great for when you’re using it to read books or articles. 

The OnePlus Pad’s 2,800 x 2,000, 144Hz display is gorgeous, and bright and produces vivid colors and sharp text.  You can expand its capabilities with the OnePlus magnetic keyboard and OnePlus Stylo pen, which alongside a OnePlus 11, makes for a well-orchestrated experience. 

Finally, OnePlus uses its well-designed Oxygen OS Android skin, one of my favorite renditions of Android OS, making the overall experience feel familiar. I am trying to hold back here and not write hyperbolically, but hands down, this has been the best Android tablet experience I’ve had. It’s evident to this scribe that the OnePlus Pad is possibly the most purposefully designed Android tablet ever made. OnePlus deserves to take a victory lap up New York City’s Canyon of Heroes. Yeah, it's that good; let me show you why.

OnePlus Pad pricing and configurations

The OnePlus Pad currently only comes in Halo Green with 128GB of storage for $479. The review unit I received came with the OnePlus magnetic keyboard cover ($149) and the magnetically attaching OnePlus Stylo pen ($99), which charges while attached to your tablet. There is also an available folio case for $39.

OnePlus Pad design

The Halo green unified all-metal body of the OnePlus Pad feels like a sturdy thin slab of cool steel in hand, and when you flip it over to peek at the 13-megapixel rear camera, the brushed green-hued metal is pleasing to the eye.

Thanks to its ultra-minimal 6.7mm bezel, and 88% screen-to-body ratio, users enjoy a super responsive and immersive touch display. It is like a wider-bodied iPad that just feels really natural when you have it in hand. It’s like holding an all-metal hardcover book.

Holding it vertically, you will notice the Halo green power button and dual speaker slots at the top. On the immediate right, the volume control buttons are color-matched in a chromed-out Halo green.

Along the bezel's right side, we find the 8-megapixel front-facing camera.

At the bottom of the unit, the USB-Type C port for charging and peripherals is joined by two more speakers.

On the left, we find three gold metal dots (pogo pins) that magnetically connect to the keyboard when you want to push some documents out in Google Docs or answer emails. 

I really enjoyed running my fingers along its lines down to its rounded edges. It's a device you will love touching, handling, and not sharing with others. It’s like that stylish yet elegant sports car your dad bought himself when he turned 50 and that your mom rolls her eyes at. It’s an absolutely gorgeous design, but keep a cleaning cloth handy cause it collects fingerprints like a forensic scientist at a crime scene.

Measuring 10.1 x 7.45 x 0.25 inches and weighing 1.02 pounds, the OPP is a razor-thin and sleek piece of metal. In comparison the Apple iPad 10th gen measures in at 9.79 x 7.07 x 0.28 inches and weighs 1.05 pounds. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 measures 9.9 x 6.51 x 0.25 inches and weighs in at 1.10 pounds.

OnePlus Pad security

To keep nosey folks out, the OnePlus Pad uses facial recognition just like the OnePlus 11, but you can also choose a security code to lock folks out and keep your files and information safe. 

OnePlus Pad ports

As for ports you get one USB-Type C port, for charging and connecting peripherals like a mic or external SSD drive and the pogo plugs for connecting and communicating with the magnetic keyboard.

OnePlus Pad display

The 11.6-inch OnePlus Pad display is a media devouring Dolby Vision HDR beast with a unique 7:5 aspect ratio that makes it excellent for reading and viewing all kinds of content. Its144Hz variable refresh rate allows it to save battery life and adjust automatically to what the user is actually doing. It’s particularly unique in this price range. The Galaxy Tab S8 offers a 120Hz refresh rate starting at $699, while you need to bump up to the $799 iPad Pro to get an Apple tablet with a 120Hz refresh rate. , which. 

I went full Disney Plus and watched the first episode of season three of The Mandalorian. When Mando and Grogou are battling the pirates in their ship as they slip deadly asteroids, the red of the ship's display is beautifully saturated on Grogou’s skin as he sits in Mando’s lap.

During a scene between the Armorer and Din Djarin, her worn red armor and gold helmet were rendered with excellent color accuracy. Mando’s armor similarly showed fine details and shadows that help ground that world.

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I did love the scene where in a flashback, they showed Tie Fighters bombing Mandalore.

Not because I’m evil, but because it looked great as the brilliant orange, white, and black explosions flared  on the OPP’s display. 

I then switched to my favorite armored Avenger and re-watched the first Iron Man movie. When Tony Stark finally puts on his hot rod red and gold armor to take on the Ten Rings member, the gold shined as it should, and the deep hot rod red looked splendid.

While watching Iron Man, I also noticed that skin tones were very accurate, and there were no moments of oversaturation. 

We put a colorimeter on the display to test it and found that it reproduced 79.1.% of the DCI-P3 color spectrum in Natural mode but 113% in Vivid mode, which is better than the 81.1% category average.  The 10th Gen Apple iPad scored 71.1% of the DCI-P3 color spectrum during the same test, with the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 registering 71.6 % in its Natural mode but tallying 111.8 in Vivid mode. 

Next, we tested the brightness and found it averaged 465 nits, which surpasses the 368.3 nit category average. The iPad turned in a solid showing averaging 504 nits of brightness, with the Galaxy Tab S8 rounding things out at 463 nits of average brightness.

OnePlus Pad audio

With four Dolby Atmos tuned speakers, the audio performance on the OnePlus Pad is excellent. I could hear the actors' voices clearly across my studio apartment while watching The Mandalorian. While watching the latest trailer for The Flash in our offices, two of my colleagues were super impressed with the clarity and depth produced by its speakers. 

I popped open Spotify and listened to Bruno Mars and Silk Sonic “Smokin out the Window,” and the bass had depth; the highs were perfectly reproduced with the mid-tones sliding in and making for a beautiful listening experience that had my colleague's heads bobbing. 

The audio quality is shockingly good, I can’t imagine how they do it. How do such tiny speakers create such full, rich sound? Must be elves, so I challenge them by putting on Mozart’s Requiem in D minor. The slow build of the haunting strings was as I remembered them, and the OPP’s speakers reproduced them with the crisp clarity required for classical music.

OnePlus did an excellent job with these speakers as overall, in every situation, the speakers were loud, clear, and never distorted as they produced audio across the full tonal spectrum without fail. The depth was pleasing, and again I was surprised by the bass output of such tiny speakers. 

I also used the OnePlus Pad to attend a few Google Meets gatherings, and everyone reported that the mics sounded very clear, with my voice's natural timbre coming through cleanly. 

However, I always suggest checking out a pair of wireless earbuds or noise cancelling headphones for those times when listening to your audio out loud would disturb others.

OnePlus Pad performance

The OnePlus Pad’s Media Tek Dimensity 9000 chipset, which runs at 3.05 GHz, is speedy. It also comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Overall, this combination kept applications running smoothly. I found its performance quite snappy, so I opened up Google Chrome and started browsing. I opened up 25 tabs, with two playing videos, while I worked on a document in Google Docs, and it never froze, lagged, locked up, bogged down, or screamed make it stop.

All apps ran smoothly, starting up rapidly with excellent responsiveness. I even played a little Modern Combat 5 and averaged 60 frames per second while sneaking in a little gaming.  

During Geekbench 6.0, a synthetic overall performance test, theOPP’s MediaTek CPU scored 3,275 in the multicore benchmark. This is above the category average of 1,633. The 10th Gen iPad’s A14 Bionic CPU easily surpassed this at 4,040, while the Samsung’s Qualcomm Snadragon 8 Gen 1 CPU finished narrowly behind at 3,228 in this benchmark.

During our 3D Mark Wildlife Unlimited benchmark, the OnePlus Pad averaged 52.63 frames per second. The iPad averaged 46.97 FPS, with the Galaxy Tab S8 averaging 57.2 frames per second to take this category.

OnePlus Pad battery life

Because of my experience with the OnePlus 11 and its magical levels of battery life and super speed charging, I was expecting similar performance from the OnePlus Pad and I was not disappointed. The OPP comes with a 9,510mAh battery which averaged 13 hours and 32 minutes with the display running at 60Hz, and lasted 13 hours and 22 minutes with the adaptive refresh rate turned on. So on one charge you’re getting over 13 hours of battery life. I found during my use, that I recharged it every other day or so. The OPP comes with a 67W SUPERVOC charger that will get you 41% in 30 minutes of charging and a full charge within an hour and twenty minutes during my time with it. 

The Apple iPad managed 10 hours and 57 minutes of average battery life, while reaching 26% during 30 mins of charging. Our Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 averaged at 60Hz and 12:52 with adaptive turned on. So OnePlus’s wizardry continues, and that makes the Pad a serious competitor.

OnePlus Pad keyboard and stylus

The magnetically connecting keyboard that came with my review unit is fantastic to type on, even with my massive hands. I did have to adjust to its small size, but within minutes typing on it felt natural. I took the tenfastfingers.com test and scored 73 words per minute with 86% accuracy.

Those results are below my normal 85 and 95%, but that is to be expected when you’re bouncing around a tiny keyboard with hands that look like a mad scientist sowed them on.

The OnePlus Stylo stylus/pen is a huge win for the maker. It has been my best stylus writing experience. The Stylo is super accurate thanks to 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity that create a very accurate and real feel when using it to take notes or sketch out ideas.

 I even used it to autograph a few photos for an upcoming project. 

The Stylo is magnetically connected to the right side of the unit and charges while doing so. Connecting it to the Pad took a minute, and I often found myself writing using the Stylo instead of the keyboard thanks to its accuracy and ease of use; even the pencil noise is realistic.

OnePlus Pad cameras

The 8mp front-facing webcam on the OnePlus Pad produces clear, color-accurate photos and videos while adjusting quickly to changes in surrounding light.

I was happily surprised by this and even got compliments about how sharp and clear I appeared during a Google Meet I attended. The camera can shoot video at FHD 1080p at 30FPS with built-in EIS stabilization.

The 13mp rear camera shoots some solid photos and videos. At 13 megapixels, I was expecting a solid shooter, and that's what I got, with the cameras may not come with Hasselblad tuning, but the controls are very similar to the ones you get on a OnePlus phone. The rear cam can shoot video at 4K 30fps and even be capable of timelapse and slow motion.

Overall both cameras shoot and film color-accurate media, which is crisp and clear as long as you stay within both cameras' capabilities.

OnePlus Pad software and warranty

The OnePlus Pad runs OxygenOS 13, a skin of Android 13. It’s super responsive, colorful, customizable, and easy to use. OxygenOS is my favorite Android skin because it works; I never have any issues with it on my phone or on the Pad. I am able to run all the same apps I have on my OnePlus 11, and everything works the same and looks great on the much larger display. 

I found Google Workspace works fluidly on the OnePlus Pad, which is something I am grateful for because I like the idea of carrying this lightweight device around instead of having to haul a laptop with me everywhere and being able to push documents. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the one major issue with Android tablets as a whole is the lack of apps specifically designed for Android tablets. Hence you can sometimes end up feeling like you just have a larger smartphone. 

However, I would add that when you’re using the keyboard it feels more like a Chromebook, which is good for document pushing and checking emails and content. Actually, I would take the OnePlus Pad over any Chromebook I have reviewed thus far. Sadly though, that doesn’t solve the issue of their truly not being a potent Android tablet application ecosystem that can compare with the iPad.

The OnePlus Pad comes with your standard one-year limited warranty.

Bottom line

The OnePlus Pad is the first Android tablet I have used that is a serious contender to take on the Apple iPad. With fast, smooth performance, I could handle document pushing in Google Docs, enjoy hours of video content, and even sneak in a little gaming. When you add all those capabilities to it being one of the most enjoyable tablets to read a book on, it has been my best Android tablet experience. The only flaw I can point to is its knack of collecting more fingerprints than a season of C.S.I. 

Don’t forget the excellent audio, solid camera performance, and high-end design that feels elegant and sturdy. The OnePlus Pad has earned 4.5 stars and our coveted editors' choice award.