OnePlus is diversifying its portfolio this year beyondgreat phones, unveiling its first foldable and its first tablet earlier in the year. The company is now making its tablet lineup even more versatile, with a budget option targeted at emerging markets like India, where cheaper tablets attract a sizable audience.
The OnePlus Pad Go is clearly inspired by its more premium sibling in all ways but one: the price tag. This tablet’s price is far more palatable and suitable for the oh-so-cost-conscious South Asian market. It’s a slate that gets a lot of things right, especially for the segment it is slotted in, but there are a few things about the Pad Go that could’ve been a lot better.
OnePlus Pad Go
The budget OnePlus tablet is made for entertainment and does live up to the task. It has a beautiful display, and four speakers are perfect for catching up on your favorite TV show or for your kids to play a game in the car. you’re able to pair it with a Bluetooth keyboard for light work. The software is tuned to make the best use of the big display area with a few cross-device tricks if you also own a OnePlus phone.
Price and availability
The OnePlus made its pricier Pad available in several global markets, including the US. Still, the Pad Go targets the budget tablet segment in India and won’t be officially available anywhere else. It’s already up for grabs in that market, with prices starting at ₹20,000 (~$240) for the base variant with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Spending another ₹4,000 (~$50) will double the storage and add LTE capabilities — something the premiumOnePlus Paddoesn’t support at all.
OnePlus is strong with this one
The Pad Go is unmistakably a OnePlus device. Its recognizable circular camera island on the back is reminiscent of the entire OnePlus family of devices, including its newly launched foldable and theOnePlus 11. Moreover, from the outside, it is identical to its higher-end sibling, thanks to its display proportions and a metal chassis, with that two-tone glass finish on the back being the only noticeable distinguishing factor. While interesting looking, the glass portion attracts a lot of fingerprints when holding it vertically.
Despite being a budget device, its aluminum casing feels on par with any premium tablet. However, the protective plastic lining cushions the screen from shocks and is slightly raised, keeping the front from seamlessly blending into the metal frame.
While the camera bump is in an unconventional place, I didn’t find holding the tablet awkward. I tend to grab it from the other edge with my left hand while using my dominant hand to interact with the device, so my fingers rarely brush with the camera bump. You can hold the Pad Go with a single hand for a few minutes, but it’s large and weighty enough that you’ll probably need to swap hands regularly.
A sleek look, great for different tasks
As you’d expect from a modern tablet, the Pad Go features slim bezels surrounding the display, making it look much trendier than the Apple iPad 9. The screen itself is quite good to look at — it’s an 11.35-inch LCD panel that refreshes at 90Hz. The pixel density is slightly lower than the OnePlus Pad, but it is plenty sharp, even for small text (I figured out the difference only after comparing their specs sheet).
I’ve been using the tablet for reading books on the Kindle app and scrolling through the web, and its unique 7:5 display has turned out to be perfect no matter how you hold the tablet. The aspect ratio is particularly helpful in landscape, giving you much more vertical room, which means less scrolling while browsing the web.
This unique aspect ratio is similar to what the original OnePlus Pad first showcased. It is great for all kinds of use cases but not for widescreen movies (usually in a 2.4:1 aspect ratio), where you will see extra thick black bars on the top and bottom. Nevertheless, the display is fantastic for media consumption and can handle HDR10+ content, which looks pleasing on the Pad Go. OnePlus has included a bunch of tools (along the lines of Apple’s True Tone) that let you tune the display temperature to keep your eyes safe, though you can turn them off if the screen appears too yellow for your taste.
For the price, it is one of the better-looking LCD panels, vivid and plenty bright outdoors. What further elevates the entertainment experience is its quad-speaker system. They can get quite a bit loud to fill a medium-sized room easily. However, you wouldn’t want to play audio at full volume all the time because the speakers tend to get a tad shrill at 100% volume, which becomes unpleasant after a while.
Other hardware and what’s in the box
It comes with a charger in the box!
On its slim sides, you will find the power button on the shorter side and volume rockers on the adjacent edge, while its four speakers are arranged on either side when you hold the tablet in landscape mode. There is a USB-C port for charging and data transfer, a combi tray to hold a 4G SIM card, and a microSD card (yes!). While OnePlus is touting the Pad Go as an entertainment device, unfortunately, it doesn’t come with a headphone jack.
What particularly bothers me is the tablet’s lack of a fingerprint reader. The only form of biometric authentication available is facial recognition through the front camera, which isn’t secure enough for applications like password managers, forcing me to enter a PIN or my long master password to access my credentials while logging into the apps for the first time. Since the pricier OnePlus Pad doesn’t come with a fingerprint reader either, you can’t expect the Pad Go to get one, but this remains a sore point that the company should reconsider.
Inside the box, you will find OnePlus' iconic red USB-A to USB-C cable and a 33W charger bundled with the tablet. There are a few documents, and you’ll also get a SIM ejector tool if you go for the 4G variant.
Software and performance
OxygenOS saves the day
While OnePlus has spent considerable time perfecting the Pad Go’s exterior and display, I wish it also paid as much attention to the tablet’s performance as possible. The MediaTek Helio G99 that powers everything is a processor you typically find on much cheaper phones and tablets, and its performance belongs to that class of devices.
Quickly switching between apps slows down the tablet to a point where you notice a few frame drops and stutters, even though everything should look smooth with a 90Hz display. Despite plenty of RAM available, the tablet becomes noticeably slow when you have a handful of apps — especially heavy ones like games — open in the background. For instance, in my case, YouTube videos started stuttering when I played them at 2x speed right after a gaming session.
Speaking of which, the tablet can handle games like Asphalt 9 and Call of Duty, and I had fun beating the opposing team in a multiplayer match. However, don’t expect the tablet to get you the best graphics quality or the highest frame rates — on many games, higher graphics settings weren’t even available.
If you don’t always have a ton of apps open in the background, then the tablet’s performance won’t be a problem for you. This tablet is made for light games like Angry Birds and watching movies on Netflix in your bed, and it handles those tasks pretty well. All you need is to keep your expectations in check.
The silver lining here has to be the software, which is lifted straight off the OnePlus Pad. The company has taken inspiration from the best tablets in the market, both on the Android and Apple side, for its multitasking features. From the convenient dock to the option to open two apps side by side, the Pad Go can be great for getting a lot of things done using its large display area. You can add a third floating window to make the interface even denser with apps.
While this should be quite adequate for most people, theOnePlusOpen’sOpen Canvas has spoiled me for good, which takes multitasking to the next level and makes it much more fun, allowing you to keep apps side-by-side in an extended canvas view. OnePlussaidit is working on bringing the Open’s capabilities to its tablets, but I won’t hold my breath for it, especially for this budget tablet. The tablet uses Android’s familiar navigation gestures, but coming from an iPad, I initially found myself using the four-finger pinch gesture to enter the multitasking screen. Thankfully, it’s easy to quickly adapt to Android’s alternative.
OnePlus is embracing its ecosystem with a bunch of cross-device features like mirroring your OnePlus phone’s screen and notification syncing. While basic stuff like syncing clipboard and media files worked as expected, the tablet doesn’t support more advanced features like call and cellular data sharing.
The Pad Go comes preloaded withAndroid 13, and the company told us that it will offer 3 years of Android and 4 years of security updates. While that’s generous for a budget tablet, there are certain things that the Android tablet ecosystem itself needs to improve, such as better tablet apps that don’t just look like blown-up versions of their phone apps.
Better than most budget tablets
Honestly, camera performance isn’t what you get a budget tablet for, and the company certainly seems to know that much. Both the front and back come with a basic 8MP camera that takes pretty soft indoor photos and somewhat usable shots when there is plenty of light. There is nothing to write home about when the lighting gets challenging for the tablet. The 1080p video from its front camera is good enough for taking office video calls or for your kids to attend their online classes. Otherwise, stick to your smartphone.
Decent battery life
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve needed to charge the device only three times, which is great news for those who like to travel light and would prefer to leave its charger behind. This is impressive also because I was testing every aspect of the Pad Go during this period, which involved a lot of taxing tasks like gaming, media streaming with the speakers blasting at full volume, and more.
With a more normal use involving some reading, occasional gaming, and streaming videos on YouTube or Netflix, the tablet easily lasts for 4 to 5 days of regular use. And if you’re an occasional user, you will be happy with its excellent standby times. The bundled 33W charger (which itself is appreciable) uses OnePlus’s proprietary tech to juice up the tablet completely in a couple of hours. Pair that with its great battery life, and you won’t need to worry about the Pad Go’s charging as often.
Competition
There are only a few budget tablets that come close to the OnePlus Pad Go, like theSamsung Galaxy Tab A8and theAmazon Fire Max 11, but the Pad Go beats them out of the park with its excellent display, speakers (for the price), and nice build quality. OnePlus even packed it with plenty of RAM and storage, and while its performance won’t win any awards, it’s comparable to the competition. What makes the OnePlus tablet stand out is its display aspect ratio, which boosts its usability over any other tablet with a 16:9 display.
Should you buy it?
For nearly half the price of the original OnePlus Pad, the Pad Go gets you a lot of its sibling’s best features, from its display and build quality to several software tricks and marathon battery performance. It’s an entertainment tablet at its heart and even delivers on that front. If you unwind at the end of the day by watching some YouTube videos, catching up with your favorite Netflix series, or just reading a book on Kindle before hitting the bed, the OnePlus Pad Go is going to be your perfect companion.
While it cannot replace your work laptop, considering it doesn’t support OnePlus' stylus and keyboard accessories, it is well suited to be that plus-one (geddit?) device that sits right between your phone and laptop. And the kind of package OnePlus has put together for the asking price, with a beautiful display and quad speakers, the Pad Go stands out in a sea of budget tablets. I wish OnePlus had worked as hard on improving its performance with better optimizations, but if you aren’t a heavy user, you won’t have much trouble getting by with this budget pick.
