ZDNET’s key findings
- He OnePlus Pad 2 is the company’s latest Android tablet, featuring a premium design, standout specs and a $549 price tag.
- It supports a keyboard and stylus that OnePlus sells separately, so you can turn it into an Android laptop.
- While the multitasking features are great and the Pad 2 ticks all the boxes when it comes to entertainment, it still suffers from the drawbacks of using Android on a large screen.
He android tablet The market has been in a strange situation for a while. Companies position them as regular iPad alternatives or try to add advanced productivity features to compete with the iPad Pro and Surface Pro. We’ve even seen tablets that have become smart displays, such as the Google Pixel Tablet.
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There are many ideas about what an Android tablet can be, and OnePlus is determined to uncover them. The new OnePlus Pad 2, which costs $549, combines these ideas at a moderate price. With specs from the latest flagship smartphones, With an aluminum design, quality speakers, and pogo pins for a keyboard, it aims to be both your next laptop and your go-to movie-watching device.
Credit to OnePlus for that; they’ve created a beautiful device. The Pad 2 has a high-end aluminium casing that feels as premium as you’d expect. It’s sturdy, ice-cold when you pick it up in the morning, and feels like it’s twice as heavy. It’s also impressively thin, at 6.49mm, and weighs just over half a kilo.
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Speaker grilles are on either side for stereo audio, and pogo pins for the accompanying keyboard are on the bottom. OnePlus included a prominent camera bump on the back of the tablet, a branding identifier seen on most modern phones. OnePlus SmartphonesThe company even says that its Line of smart watches I was inspired by it. Inside the case there is a 13 MP camera, ideal for scanning documents or QR codes, but not to replace your smartphone camera.
The display is pretty good for an LCD. It measures 11.61 inches diagonally and has a 2800 x 2000 resolution, a 144Hz refresh rate, and 900 nits of brightness. OnePlus did a good job calibrating the colors so they look accurate and properly saturated, making everything from movies to games look great. While I still think Apple makes the best LCD displays on any tablet, the Ipad air is a perfect example (OnePlus comes in second).
If you like the pretty display and forgot your headphones, you’ll find the speakers very useful. OnePlus has added a pair of extra speakers to the Pad 2 compared to the previous version, and they sound great. The audio quality is full, loud, and has plenty of rumbling bass for such a thin device. I played a lot of music on the tablet, and everything sounded great.
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The OnePlus Pad 2 offers top-notch performance. Equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, it delivers lightning-fast speeds, fluid animations, and lag-free gaming thanks to OnePlus’ HyperBoosted optimizations. I’ve yet to find anything slowing it down, ensuring it’s powerful enough for today and the years to come. The chipset is paired with 12GB of RAM, so you won’t have to worry about apps crashing in the background.
I’m also happy to report that battery life isn’t an issue. It’s hard to screw up battery life on tablets since their large sizes can accommodate big batteries, and that’s what OnePlus has done here. The Pad 2 ships with a massive 9,510mAh battery that can easily last several days if you use it lightly, or about a day and a half with mixed to heavy usage (e.g. watching a couple movies or TV shows, playing a few games, and sorting through my inbox all day).
In classic OnePlus style, fast charging is also included on the Pad 2. The tablet comes with a 67W SuperVOOC charger in the box that charges it from zero to 100 percent in about an hour and a half, which is great considering the size of the battery.
OnePlus has worked hard to make multitasking easier. Through OxygenOS on top of Android 14, the Pad 2 supports Open Canvas, which originally debuted on the market. OnePlus Open Last year, it’s a suite of software features that lets you multitask like a champ. You can run three apps at once in a shifting tile layout, open more apps via the floating dock or app drawer, drag and drop files between apps, and more. It’s the most useful multitasking system I’ve ever used on an Android tablet.
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But it’s not all that simple. OnePlus also includes special tweaks to optimize apps that might not feature tablet layouts by default. Of course, results will vary, and some apps don’t work well with these tight layouts, but it’s at least helpful if a simple app, like a calendar or to-do list, needs to expand to fill the entire screen.
The most useful thing for OnePlus smartphone users is the tight integration between them and the Pad 2. OnePlus allows you to make calls, send text messages, sync the clipboard and notifications, and even remotely use apps installed on your phone right from the tablet. Obviously, this only applies to the few people who have invested in the OnePlus ecosystem, but it’s a nice perk nonetheless.
OnePlus sent me the $149 Smart Keyboard and Folio Case $39 2 To round out the multitasking experience, I have to say that they’re pretty good. The keyboard offers plenty of travel and responds reliably thanks to those pogo pins, and the case adds extra protection to your tablet. OnePlus Stylo 2 for $99 It was also in the box and is equally good.
Google has worked hard over the years to make Android on tablets A more pleasant experience, but many apps still need to catch up with their iPadOS counterparts. Some are well-optimized for tablet layouts, while others insist on appearing as expanded phone apps. Some are missing features, capabilities, and even a Play Store listing. Even Chrome refuses to load the desktop version of Google Search consistently, which is a real pain when you’re trying to get work done.
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It’s also very difficult to do laptop stuff with the Pad 2. If you want to edit a video or touch up some photos, you’re limited to poorly developed app designs and user interfaces. In some cases, I prefer to use Lightroom on my android phone that on my tablet.
A final note on software: OnePlus says the Pad 2 will get three major OS updates and four years of security updates, which isn’t bad given the price.
ZDNET’s buying advice
It’s easy to say who should buy the OnePlus Pad 2 And who shouldn’t? If you want a multimedia device with powerful performance, a beautiful display, long battery life, and fantastic speakers (and you don’t mind that it runs Android), the Pad 2 is an excellent choice.
But if you want a tablet that can convert into a laptop, you should consider more premium options like the iPad Pro and Pro SurfaceStill, at $549, the OnePlus Pad 2 is a fantastic tablet that delivers on several counts, and the company continues to offer trade-in deals and competitive bundles to help you complete the experience for less.