OnePlus Pad Review

When shopping for a new tablet, there are only two brands that typically come to mind, Apple if you want an iPad and Samsung if you want an Android tablet. But now OnePlus is entering the tablet market with their new OnePlus Pad.

Design & Hardware

The OnePlus Pad’s body is made from an aluminum frame and a unified metal body with rounded edges that make it easier to hold. The back of the tablet comes in a Halo Green colour that looks good and is similar to the green colourway phones that OnePlus has offered.

For the display, the OnePlus Pad has an 11.6-inch LCD with a 144Hz refresh rate and a 2000 x 2800 resolution. The screen has a 7:5 aspect ratio and supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+.

The OnePlus Pad’s display looks great especially when watching videos on YouTube or Disney+.

For biometrics, the OnePlus Pad has face unlock but there’s no fingerprint sensor either in-display or on the power button.

Powering the OnePlus Pad is the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 with 8GB of RAM. Using the device was fairly quick with no issues using the tablet.

The tablet also supports stylus input via the OnePlus Stylo (which is sold separately for $139 CAD). The OnePlus connects to the tablet via Bluetooth and magnetically attaches to the device and also wirelessly charges the stylus.

The OnePlus Stylo works like any other stylus but there are very minimal software tweaks that take advantage of it.

For cameras, the OnePlus Pad has a 13MP sensor on the back and an 8MP front-facing camera.

The OnePlus Pad comes with a 9510 mAh battery that can be rapidly charged via the 67W SuperVooc charger. The tablet does last all day (about 10 hours or so) but the standby time isn’t that great.

One gripe I have is that it only comes in one storage option of 128GB, which would be fine but there is no microSD card slot. Other specs include Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3.

For those that want to use the tablet for some work or as a sort-of laptop, OnePlus offered a magnetic keyboard for $209 CAD that attaches to the tablet.

The keyboard is fine but it is a bit cramped, especially the trackpad. There are some issues when you attach and use the magnetic keyboard and the on-screen keyboard shows up anyway.

The OnePlus Pad is available now from the company’s website for $649 CAD ($479 USD) and only comes in one storage option, 128GB.

Software

The OnePlus Pad is running OxygenOS 13.1 based on Android 13. If you’ve used some of OnePlus’ recent phones such as the OnePlus 11 then it’ll seem familiar.

The overall look of OxygenOS is similar to Android skins you would find on OEMs such as Xiaomi and Oppo (OnePlus’ sister company) and less like stock Android.

There are a few software tweaks that are tablet-specific such as a two-finger gesture to open two apps in split-screen, and a sidebar with quick access to apps.