OnePlus Pad First Impressions: The Missing Piece of the Ecosystem Puzzle

After plenty of rumours and speculation, the OnePlus Pad is finally official. OnePlus announced its first tablet at its Cloud 11 event in New Delhi, and pre-orders begin in April in India. The company hasn’t announced the price yet, but looking at the specs and based on the short time we spent with it at the launch event, we could be looking at a starting price of around Rs. 40,000. We got a chance to use the OnePlus Pad for a brief period at the event, and from the looks of it, it could give stiff competition to Xiaomi, Lenovo and Samsung in the premium Android tablet space.

The OnePlus Pad is surprisingly light and measures just 6.5mm in thickness. The rounded corners and sides should allow you to use it comfortably even for long stretches. There are four speakers, and the device is said to be able to automatically orient its left and right audio channels depending on how you are holding it. There are contact points at the bottom of the tablet, to connect to the OnePlus Magnetic Keyboard accessory.

The OnePlus Pad is said to be the world’s first tablet with a 7:5 aspect ratio display. Framed by the evenly slim bezels is a 11.61-inch LCD panel with a 144Hz variable refresh rate and a resolution of 2800×2000 pixels. The tablet also boasts of a Delta E rating of less than two for high colour accuracy. The OnePlus Pad is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC and will be available with up to 12GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage. It is said to run OxygenOS 13.1. The tablet also has a 9,510mAh battery and supports 67W fast charging.

The OnePlus Pad is relatively slim and light

The OnePlus Pad will also support a stylus called the OnePlus Stylo for those who want to be creative on the move. One eye-catching design feature of the OnePus Pad is the prominent centre positioning of the 13-megapixel rear camera, which supports up to 4K video recording.

The OnePlus Pad that was demoed didn’t look like a final retail product, and we didn’t get to try any of the accessories either. When paired with a OnePlus smartphone, you should be able to take advantage of things such as file sharing, copy and paste between the two devices, and displaying notifications. OnePlus also claims that the Pad can deliver an entire month of standby time.

The OnePlus Pad could be an interesting addition to the premium Android tablet market. Its specs seem solid, the accessories look interesting, and you should be able to take advantage of special features if you use other OnePlus products. We’ll know for sure if this ecosystem push can indeed work according to plan once we get our hands on the OnePlus Pad to review it thoroughly. Until then, don’t forget to check out all our reviews of the OnePlus 11 5G and the OnePlus Buds Pro 2, and our first impressions of the OnePlus 11R 5G.

Disclosure: OnePlus sponsored flights and hotel stay in New Delhi for its event.