Premium Android tablets haven't been in abundance in the past few years, especially with Apple iPad's secure position in that segment. Even for other price segments, outside Xiaomi, OnePlus and Samsung, there's very little space taken by Android tablets. The new OnePlus Pad 4 starts at ₹59,999 for the base model and goes to ₹64,999 for the higher model. And it aims to fill that gap between your laptop and tablet by trying to cater for both.
The first thing you might notice about the tablet is how big yet slim it is. Measuring under 6mm in thickness, the tablet feels nice in the hand with its silk-silhouette back, but it does catch on to fingerprints and smudges rather quickly. It has a 13.2-inch (7:5 aspect ratio) display with narrow bezels, while the back houses a single camera with the OnePlus branding in the middle.
Next to the top left corner, you have e the volume buttons on the side and the power/lock key on the other side. The USB Type-C port sits in the middle of the other end. I tried the tablet in the Dune Glow colour, which is one of the nicer-looking colours on a tablet in recent times, then there's also the familiar Sage Mist colour option.
The 13.2-inch (3392x2400) IPS LCD display supports up to 144Hz refresh rates. This is a really good quality display with accurate colour reproduction, good viewing angles, which can handle Dolby Vision more than well enough. It seems to have better capabilities in playing HDR content than the Pad 3, from what I can remember in terms of sheer details as well as contrast, though this is still a bit reflective like its predecessor.
The Pad 4 is equipped with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset (up to 4.61 GHz octa core processor, Adreno 840 GPU), 8GB or 12GB LPDDR5X and 256GB or 512GB UFS 4.1 internal storage. There's no cellular variant this time. It's running on Android 16-based OxygenOS 16.1 with the March security patch in place as of now.
The device is responsive in day-to-day usage and is smooth to operate—whether watching 4k videos, something between social media apps or editing photos. In terms of gaming, you can play games such as CoD at the highest settings without any major stuttering at high frames. I didn't see the tablet heat up much, though it can get slightly warm when viewing high-resolution videos for around an hour.
OxygenOS allows you to keep a navigation bar at the bottom, keep multiple app windows open at the same time, drag and drop content between apps, or multiple videos or files for quicker management. You can edit documents, maybe some straightforward spreadsheets, but complicated tasks and other tasks, such as editing high-resolution videos and merging video clips, may still not be ideal, depending on your current setup, including the software bundle you rely on.
The 8-way speakers on the tablet are certainly better than the Pad 3's. It delivers loud output with good depth and clear dialogue for both video and gaming purposes.
The 13MP (f/2.2) rear camera does a decent job of taking an odd photo if you really need to take one using the tablet, and can be used for scanning documents reliably. The front-facing 8MP (f/2.0) handles videos in calls well enough to be considered for your regular usage, though details under low to mid light conditions could have been better, considering the price tag.
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Powered by a 13,380mAh battery, the Pad 4 lasted somewhere around 2 days when used continuously for multimedia playback and some moderate gaming. It can go further if left idle or not used for video playback than long. The bundled 80-watt SuperVooc charger can top it from 1 per cent to full in a little over 2 hours.
The OnePlus Pad 4 in itself is a really nice high-end tablet that does many things well, along with a sleek and shiny design in place. It doesn't disappoint in terms of performance, apps, and multitasking, and comes with a quality display.
While I didn't get to try the new keyboard, the new Stylo Pro does a nifty job for quick notes and drawing on the tablet, or can also be used as a shortcut accessory, such as swiping gestures, double-tapping, and pinching on the screen.
Is the Pad 4 worth upgrading to if you have a Pad 3? Maybe not. But if you are looking for an Android tablet that handles content consumption, multiple apps, a bit of gaming and doesn't disappoint with its battery life while handling all that, the OnePlus Pad 4 is worth a look.