Technology

OnePlus Pad 2 Review: Powerful tablet with big ambitions

Published

6 hours ago

August 17, 2024

At a glance

Expert review

Plus points

Great performance for the price
Comfortable, elegant design
Good display and sound
Excellent battery life

Disadvantages

Can be even faster
Mediocre cameras
Bad desktop mode

Our verdict

Stylish and comfortable design, good value for money, surprisingly good screen and battery that lasts all day. In many ways, the OnePlus Pad 2 impresses, even if it falls short of its lofty ambitions as a productivity tablet. However, that may come with software updates in the future.

Price upon review

$549.99

Best prices today: OnePlus Pad 2

$549.99

The OnePlus Pad 2 completes the manufacturer’s tablet offering, which now ranges from the affordable OnePlus Pad Go, via the original 11.6-inch OnePlus Pad to this 12-inch tablet with top performance.

OnePlus did not make its debut as a tablet manufacturer until early 2023. With a quirky design, focus on comfort and its own approach to multitasking, the original Pad made an attractive case as a mixed-use tablet for the home. However, it lacked the necessary software to make it a great productivity machine.

Have things changed on this second generation slate? Here’s our full review.

Design, specifications and performance

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
Strong performance
Some AI features

Compared to the original OnePlus Pad, the Pad 2 improves both screen size and performance, and introduces a bunch of new features.

The design of the tablet is recognizable from the original OnePlus Pad, with rounded, grip-friendly edges, a sturdy aluminum casing and round camera puck centrally located near the long side at the back. The placement of the camera is a small detail that I appreciate about the design: it allows the tablet to sit firmly on the table, despite the camera body protruding a few millimeters.

Mattias Inge

OnePlus doesn’t hold back on the hardware, with the Pad 2 powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. That’s the same flagship chipset that powers many of the best Android phones you can buy – including the OnePlus 12.

You also get 12GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage on the only available configuration.

However, according to benchmarks, the performance isn’t as good as the best phones out there. It is being held back, probably due to limited heat dissipation or intentional backclocking. The performance is more in line with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 than with Gen 3, although it is of course still very fast.

OnePlus Pad 2 benchmarks

And with Gen 3 you also get other benefits, such as support for Wi-Fi 7 and a much more powerful NPU (Neural Processing Unit).

The latter helps enable a number of AI features within Oxygen OS, OnePlus’ skin over Android 14, from intelligently removing objects in photos and automatic facial brightness improvements to transcribing and summarizing recorded meetings.

Other AI features are expected in a future software update, including some already available on the OnePlus Nord 4.

The design of the tablet is recognizable from the original OnePlus Pad

It’s not quite the breadth and quality of features at Google Pixel or Samsung Galaxy levels yet, but OnePlus is on the right track. And of course, the Snapdragon’s NPU can be used by any third-party app that wants it.

The graphics also don’t run at full speed with the same gaming performance as on phones, but that could be more due to the high-resolution screen being reluctant to hit high framerates in graphics-heavy games.

Screen and speakers

12-inch, 2120 x 3000 screen
Refresh rate of 144 Hz
Six speakers

Otherwise, the screen is very suitable for gaming, with a frame rate of up to 144 Hz, a wide color gamut, high brightness and support for both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. It’s not an OLED but an IPS panel, so you don’t get that ultimate contrast, but the deep blacks you normally get with OLEDs are still visible here, and it can handle different viewing angles without any problems.

You also get well-balanced auto-brightness, meaning visibility is good even in sunlight. There is also an automatic color tint, but it leans too much towards warm tones, giving the image almost sepia tones. I turn that off and set it manually – it’s easy to adjust.

Mattias Inge

The device has a total of six speakers, including two pairs on the short sides and two built-in woofers. They combine to deliver lush sound that’s very good in surround mode, using ‘OReality’, a sound enhancement technology from OnePlus’ sister company Oppo.

You get a good cinema feeling, the right balance and details for music and extra detail in the sound for when you play games.

The screen is very suitable for gaming, with a frame rate of up to 144 Hz, a wide color gamut, high brightness and support for both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision

What doesn’t impress, however, is the sound volume. It can get very loud, but quickly becomes sharp and shrill, to the extent that it is quite unpleasant.

Battery life and charging

9510mAh battery
Impressive battery life
65W charging, but no charger in the box

Battery life is one of the OnePlus Pad 2’s key strengths.

You can expect around 11-12 hours of active app use on a single charge, or even more for video streaming, which is a real positive. You won’t get that on an iPad or Galaxy Tab, especially for video, where the Pad 2 seems to have both an efficient processor and an efficient screen.

Mattias Inge

You can also charge the battery impressively quickly – provided you have a charger that supports OnePlus and Oppo’s 67W Supervooc fast charging. As is common these days, there is no charger in the box.

If you have a compatible charger, you can expect a full charge within an hour. I don’t have access to it in my test tablet, but a 65W GaN charger I had was almost as fast.

Battery life is one of the OnePlus Pad 2’s key strengths

Accessories

OnePlus Stylo 2 pen
OnePlus Folio Case 2
Both available separately

The edge on the upper long side is beveled so that you can place the Stylo 2 pen there for storage and inductive charging. It works well, but won’t be a necessity for most people.

However, if you want to turn the Pad into a productivity laptop of sorts, the Smart Keyboard is great. You get a built-in kickstand, a comfortable and well-built keyboard, and a large, responsive mouse pad. It also has a built-in NFC reader, which can be useful.

Mattias Inge

It is connected via Bluetooth, so it can also be used while disconnected from the tablet. It came as a surprise when I unplugged it and continued to check the mouse and text input.

However, there is no way to quickly disable it. Shouldn’t there just be a switch on the keyboard? It feels like a design flaw.

If you want to turn the Pad into a productivity laptop of sorts, the Smart Keyboard is great

None of the accessories are included in the price, but they are sometimes discounted if purchased in a bundle with the tablet.

Software and updates

OxygenOS 14 over Android 14
Three years of operating system, four years of security updates

On the software side, I’m still missing some things from OnePlus to make the Pad 2 a better productivity tablet for work.

A desktop mode that makes mouse and keyboard controls more central is the first. Both Samsung and Lenovo now have very good versions of this, and it makes it much easier to do things like writing and spreadsheet apps or multitasking with multiple browser windows.

On a screen as large and high-resolution as this, it would have been a plus, especially with the fast processor that can undoubtedly power it. Native multitasking interface Open Canvas feels better on the smaller OnePlus tablets – it makes a small screen feel bigger better than a larger screen.

Mattias Inge

OnePlus, like any other manufacturer, is keen to build ecosystems, and pairing it with a OnePlus phone offers some benefits. You can quickly sync your phone with the tablet using the NFC function on the keyboard to share files or display the mobile screen as a window on the tablet.

But that is more spectacular than necessary. The cell phone is there, and there are plenty of other ways to easily sync files between devices.

WPS Office comes pre-installed, but it’s the only real app here that feels like a work app. And it’s just a basic version, with some features requiring an upgrade to the Pro plan. I might as well use Google Docs or Microsoft Word.

I’m still missing some things from OnePlus to make the Pad 2 a better productivity tablet for work

In terms of software updates, OnePlus is offering three major OS updates and four years of security patches for the Pad 2. That’s quite a commitment, and at the high end for an Android tablet in 2024.

Price and availability

The OnePlus Pad costs £499/$549.99. At the time of writing, it’s only available directly from both OnePlus UK or OnePlus USA.

This currently includes a free Folio Case 2, but an upgrade to the Smart Keyboard will cost you money £149/$149.99. Adding the Stylo 2 pen is an added bonus £99/$99.99.

It’s a very competitive option for the price, but many of the best Android tablets offer an equally strong experience. However, you often pay much more.

Should you buy the OnePlus Pad 2?

There’s no denying that the OnePlus Pad 2 offers great value for money. It is essentially a scaled-up version of the original in terms of size, performance and quality in many areas. The only real exception is the mediocre cameras.

However, it’s still up to you to find ways to use the Pad 2 as a work tablet. There have been some attempts to create a system for this, but OnePlus has not yet gone far enough.

For browsing, entertainment and gaming, it is without a doubt a very good tablet. But it is certainly not the only one around this price.