Important points of ZDNET
- of one plus pad 2 is the company’s latest Android tablet with a premium design and flagship specs.
- Get it now for $499 ($50 off) during Amazon’s October Prime Day.
- It’s compatible with the keyboard and pen that OnePlus sells separately, so you can turn it into an Android-powered laptop.
- Multitasking is great, and the Pad 2 has it all when it comes to entertainment, but it still suffers from the pitfalls of using Android on a big screen.
The Android tablet market has been in a strange situation for some time. Companies are looking to position them as a replacement for the regular iPad or add advanced productivity features to compete with the iPad Pro and Surface Pro. There are also tablets that can be turned into smart displays, such as the Google Pixel Tablet.
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There are many ideas about what an Android tablet could be. The new OnePlus Pad 2 combines some of these ideas while keeping the price affordable. With the latest flagship smartphone specs, aluminum design, high-quality speakers, and pogo pins for the keyboard, this product aims to be used not only as your next laptop, but also as your go-to device for watching movies. I am.
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I’ll give it to OnePlus. It created a beautiful device. The Pad 2 features a high-end aluminum enclosure with the premium feel you’d expect. It’s durable, it’s ice cold when you pick it up in the morning, and it feels like it’s worth twice as much. It’s also surprisingly thin at 6.49 mm thick and weighs just over 1 pound.
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Speaker grilles are on each side for stereo audio, and pogo pins for the included keyboard are on the bottom. OnePlus has a prominent camera bump on the back of the tablet, a brand identifier found on most of the latest OnePlus smartphones. The company even says its smartwatch lineup was inspired by it. There’s a 13MP camera inside the bump, which is great for scanning documents and QR codes, not as a replacement for your smartphone camera.
The display is quite clear for an LCD. It measures 11.61 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 2800×2000, a refresh rate of 144Hz, and a brightness of 900 nits. OnePlus did a great job of adjusting colors to show accurate and well-saturated colors, making everything from movies to games look great. I still think Apple has the best LCD on any tablet (iPad Air is a great example), but OnePlus comes in a close second.
If you’re enjoying a great-looking screen and forget your headphones, the speakers will come in handy. OnePlus has added some additional speakers to the Pad 2 compared to the previous version. They sound very good. Audio quality is solid, very loud and with plenty of bass for such a thin device. I played a lot of music on the tablet and it all sounded great.
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OnePlus Pad 2 offers flagship performance. Powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, it delivers blazing speeds, smooth animations, and uninterrupted gaming with OnePlus’ HyperBoosted optimization. I have yet to encounter anything slowing it down and it is guaranteed to be powerful enough for now and for years to come. The chipset is paired with 12GB of RAM, so you don’t have to worry about apps crashing in the background.
I’m happy to report that battery life is also good. Because tablets can pack big batteries into their large size, it’s hard to compromise on battery life, and OnePlus has done just that. The Pad 2 comes with a large 9,510mAh battery that can last several days of light use or heavy use (e.g. watching a few movies or TV shows, playing a game, or all day long). I was organizing my mailbox).
In classic OnePlus fashion, the Pad 2 also comes with fast charging capabilities. The tablet ships with a 67W SuperVOOC charger that can charge from zero to 100% in about an hour and a half. This is great considering the size. of the battery.
OnePlus has done a lot to make multitasking easier. Through OxygenOS on Android 14, the Pad 2 supports Open Canvas, which originally debuted at OnePlus Open last year. This suite of software features lets you multitask like a champ. You can run three apps at once in a moving tile-like layout, summon more apps from the dock or floating app drawer, and drag and drop files between apps. This is the most convenient multitasking system I’ve ever used on an Android tablet.
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OnePlus also includes special settings to optimize apps that may not include a tablet layout by default. Of course, usability varies from person to person, and some apps don’t work well with such complex layouts, but simple apps like Calendar and To Do List need to stretch across the screen. In some cases, it’s at least useful.
The most convenient thing for OnePlus smartphone users is the tight integration between them and the Pad 2. OnePlus also lets you make calls, send texts, sync your clipboard and notifications, and remotely use apps installed on your phone directly from your tablet. . This obviously only applies to a small number of people who have invested in the OnePlus ecosystem, but it’s still a nice bonus.
OnePlus sent me: $119 smart keyboard and $32 Folio Case 2 I must say that it is very good for completing the multitasking experience. The keyboard has a wide range of motion and is reliably responsive thanks to the pogo pins. The case also provides extra protection for your tablet. of $79 OnePlus Stylo 2 It also came in a box and was in good condition as well.
Google has done a lot over the years to make Android on tablets a better experience, but many apps still need to catch up to their iPadOS counterparts. Some are optimized for tablet layouts, while others claim to appear as enhanced phone apps. Some features and functions and even Play Store listings are missing. Even Chrome consistently refuses to load the desktop version of Google Search. This is extremely painful when trying to complete a task.
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It’s also very difficult to use the Pad 2 to do laptop work. If you want to edit videos or touch up photos, you’re limited to the unfinished UI and app layout. In some cases, you may want to use Lightroom on your Android smartphone rather than your tablet.
A final note on software: OnePlus says the Pad 2 will come with three major OS upgrades and four years’ worth of security updates, which isn’t too bad considering the price.
ZDNET purchase advice
It’s easy to say who should buy one plus pad 2 And who shouldn’t. If you want a multimedia device with strong performance, a great screen, long battery life, great speakers, and don’t mind running Android, the Pad 2 is a great choice.
However, if you want a tablet that doubles as a laptop, you should consider more premium options such as: iPad Pro and Surface Pro. Either way, with a sale price of $449, the OnePlus Pad 2 is a great tablet that performs well in many ways, and the company continues to offer competitive trade-in and bundle deals to help you get the experience for less. can be enriched.
