OnePlus has expanded its product lineup in recent years, venturing into new categories such as smartwatches, tablets, and now foldable phones. The company recently released its budget Android tablet, the OnePlus Pad Go, which is priced at Rs. 19,999 for the base model and Rs. 23,999 for the highest model. Let's take a closer look at what this new Android tablet has to offer.
What it gets right:
Design: The OnePlus Pad Go boasts a strikingly similar design to the OnePlus Pad, with its curved sides and edges, complemented by a dual-tone matte and glossy bar running along the back in the elegant Twin Mint color. Its 11.35-inch LCD display showcases a 7:5 aspect ratio, providing a visually immersive experience. In terms of button placement, the volume buttons are located on the top when the device is in horizontal mode. On the left-hand side, you'll find the SIM card slot and the power/lock key, while the right-hand side houses the USB Type-C port and the primary microphone. Additionally, the Pad Go features quad speakers, strategically positioned around the metal unibody, ensuring an exceptional audio experience.
The device weighs a little above 530 grams and is overall quite comfortable and grippy to carry around. The bezels around the display are not the slimmest we have seen but they aren't too thick either.
Display: You get an 11.35-inch LCD (LTPS kind) 2.4k (2408x1720) display with support for up to 90Hz refresh rates. The display is just about bright enough to be used outdoors under direct sunlight. For watching movies and videos, there's sufficient detail and colour calibration looks decent enough. This being perhaps the most important part for a device that you're going to consume your content on, I would say the Pad Go handles text rendering for reading and colour rendering for videos without any major lapses. The tablet can play videos up to 1440p on YouTube with very very stutters and frame drops, making it a pretty good option for video consumption.
Audio: The quad speakers on the tablet are loud and punchy to be used for watching videos or playing some game when you're not outdoors, and I think it might be more important in a tablet than its rear camera for consuming content. These speakers support Dolby Atmos provided your source is delivering that to begin with. They aren't the loudset you would have heard on a tablet, ever, but they still give pretty clear sound and pack a decent punch for the price tag. For wireless audio, it has Bluetooth 5.2 with SBC, AAC as well as LDAC codec support for higher resolution audio delivery.
Battery life: Powered by an 8,000mAh battery unit, the tablet lasts me 2-2.5 days when used for about 8-10 hours a day over WiFi and 4-5 hours less with 4G/LTE in use. The bundled 33-watt SuperVooc charger can charge the tablet from 1% to full in a little under 1.5 hours, which is fast for a tablet.
What it doesn't do very well:
Performance: Packing a MediaTek Helio G99 chipset (up to 2.2GHz octa core processor, Mali G57 MP2 GPU), 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB UFS2.2 storage (base model comes in 128GB). The tablet showed frame drops and stuttering every now and then during my usage, and even after an OS update, the performance didn't really improve. You can switch between apps such YouTube and Chrome or Telegram and Instagram without any worries but you can notice the tablet taking somewhat more time to load the app you're switching to. While videos play smoothly (as mentioned above), general performance and for gaming purposes, the Pad Go is far from a top performer.
Running on Android 13-based OxygenOS 13.2, the tablet offers a plethora of familiar customization options. These include options for customizing icons, theming wallpapers, and the ability to open two apps simultaneously using the recent files shortcut. This feature is particularly useful for the tablet form factor. However, it's worth noting that the styles and keyboard introduced by OnePlus with the OnePlus Pad earlier this year are not compatible with the Pad Go.
I never experienced excessive heating issues while using the tablet.
Verdict: If you're looking for an Android tablet that is good for reading PDFs and long webpages, plays videos at a decently high resolution without too much stuttering, and delivers really punchy and loud audio, plus has a reliable battery experience, the OnePlus Pad Go can be an option you can look at. However, if you are somebody who wants buttery smooth performance and something with gaming capabilities, then the Pad Go would fall short of your expectations.
