The OnePlus Pad 2 is the best Android tablet I’ve used this year

Where is the flagship killer tablet? Samsung has one with its FE tablets. The other compelling options aren’t available in the U.S. Thankfully, the second half of 2024 has graced us with the long-awaited solution: the OnePlus Pad 2.

Armed to the teeth with Qualcomm’s fastest silicon, a delightful kit of computing accessories, and a few promising software tricks, this one looks like a well-rounded powerhouse. I bravely endured using it as my primary workhorse for a couple of weeks, and what follows is a retelling of all the snags and joys I encountered in that time.

OnePlus Pad 2: specs

OnePlus Pad 2: display, stylus, and speakers

On the OnePlus Pad 2, you get a 12.1-inch display with a 144Hz refresh rate — the highest on any tablet. This is an LCD panel, and the aspect ratio is also odd at 7:5. It seems OnePlus is chasing the format Apple has adopted for its iPad Pro tablets. The resolution figures stand at 3,000 by 2,120 pixels, which is great for a display of this size.

The peak brightness goes up to 900 nits, but typically, it climbs up to 600 nits. That’s not bad for an LCD screen, but it’s definitely a notch below the OLED panel on the iPad Pro, which touches 1600 nits for HDR content. As far as raw quality is concerned, OnePlus has done an impressive job.

Now, let’s start with the basics. That odd aspect ratio means nasty black bars are a mainstay while streaming films and TV content. On the positive side, using apps in split mode gets that sweet extra vertical space on the screen. For someone hopelessly addicted to working on tablets, I love this.

This 3K panel is lovely for watching videos and playing games. My only gripe is that the panel is pretty reflective, and if you are working outdoors or in a well-lit indoor space, you will see reflection artifacts even at peak brightness.

It’s a problem afflicting almost every tablet out there, except those with a special coating on the screen, a much higher brightness output, or a matte screen protector on top. It, therefore, doesn’t come as a surprise that this glossy screen gets smudged rather quickly. Also, the screen has no Corning Gorilla Glass protection.

OnePlus tells Digital Trends that China’s Panda Glass supplies the display glass. A display supply chain expert tells me that Panda is an affordable alternative to Corning but is known to be more scratch-prone. On a similar note, there is no proper dust and water resistance to be found here.

Watching 4K videos on the display is a lovely experience. Unless you’ve been spoiled by the deep blacks and high contrast levels offered by large-format OLED panels, you will love the OnePlus Pad 2 and won’t be left desperately hunting for more colors. The viewing angles are acceptable, and no glaring color shift issues exist.

The 144Hz refresh rate only sweetens the visual experience. Now, this is not a fully adaptive panel. Instead, it takes a staggered approach, which means the refresh rates automatically shift between 30Hz, 48Hz, 50Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, and 144Hz values. It’s smooth, responsive, and glides like a dream for stylus input.

Talking about the stylus, OnePlus has outdone itself once again. The Stylo Pen is one of the nicest touch pens I’ve used. It mimics the same fundamental formula as the Apple Pencil Pro but comes draped in leather-like skin, which looks and feels deceptively premium. OnePlus says it can recognize over “16,000 pressure sensitivity levels,” roughly four times higher than the Samsung S Pen for its Galaxy tablets can offer.

There’s a vibration motor packed inside, and it can double as a laser pointer, one that supports touchless scribbling, as well. I have tried a few sketching apps like Krita and Ibis Paint, and I loved the experience. There is virtually no latency for pen strokes, and coupled with reliable pressure sensitivity, it can be a trusty companion for any artist.

However, the touch-sensitive area is slightly iffy with touch gestures. Despite trying multiple apps, I couldn’t get the double-tap gesture for pen switching to work. Interestingly, the same double-tap gesture managed to do other tasks, like opening the color palette or shifting between current and previous pens.

I believe the tap gestures on the touch-sensitive areas could also use a bit of refinement to improve their consistency. On the positive side, it can trigger a quick note right on the lock screen, lets you adjust the haptic and tracking speed, and allows free scribbling with automatic handwriting recognition across the system.

Overall, this is one of the nicest stylus experiences I have experienced on Android tablets. It could just use a bit of “inspiration” from a few other things that Samsung’s S Pen can accomplish.

The six-speaker system is fantastic. It is sufficiently loud and delivers clear audio output with a thumping undertone. It does an impressive job at vocal clarity and separation without messing up too much of the subtle backgrounds.

It has a sound signature but could use a bit of soundstage refinement. But if you like bass-heavy or EDM tracks, those drops sound amazing, and so do high-tempo instrumental tracks. OnePlus has also devised a system where the speakers adjust their directional audio pump based on the tablet’s orientation.

OnePlus Pad 2: design, build, and keyboard

OnePlus didn’t do anything radical with the OnePlus Pad 2 compared to the first model. The rounded sides are here to stay, and despite being slightly thicker than the iPad Air, the OnePlus Pad 2 is easier to hold as the sides don’t dig into your palms. For extended usage sessions, like binge-watching a TV series, that’s a crucial consideration.

The build is all metal, with a beautiful anodized sandblasted surface finish. The weight profile seems evenly balanced and less bulky than the 13-inch iPad Air. This tablet has a certain sense of symmetry, especially if you see the four tastefully cut speaker outlets on either side.

The top edge has a slightly recessed groove to accommodate the stylus as it draws wireless power from the tablet. OnePlus currently offers the OnePlus Pad 2 in a sole Nimbus Gray color, which also seems to have become a mainstay for Apple and Samsung.

The bezels are about the right size. They aren’t the slimmest, but you need that extra width for a secure grip. However, the metallic back attracts smudges, which is, once again, a familiar issue for metal-made tablets.

The real star is the OnePlus Smart Keyboard. It’s a detachable two-piece kit with a faux leather finish on top. It seems that OnePlus borrowed the aesthetics straight from the OnePlus Open, and it feels nice. One half of the keyboard snaps to the rear shell, with its own kickstand.

The other half relies on three Pogo pins to link up with the tablet, but the ridge has a firm magnetic grip. Notably, the keyboard deck can also be used as a standalone accessory, thanks to Bluetooth support, which means you can prop the tablet on a table and put the keyboard on your lap for a more comfortable typing experience.

The touchpad is generously big and does a fantastic job with clicks, taps, and multi-finger gestures. There are a whole lot of gestures, both on-screen and touchpad-reliant. I love this versatility. However, it occasionally gets too sensitive and registers a false tap input.

The key layout is familiar, with a full-function row layout at the top and a multi-function button at the bottom for executing key combination shortcuts. Most keyboard shortcuts work as they try to mimic the Windows format, but a bit of a learning curve is involved in a mobile ecosystem.

The keys offer lovely springy feedback, and even though they’re not truly clicky, they’re not mushy either. The keys are well-spaced and offer an acceptable vertical travel — more than Apple’s Magic Keyboard for the iPad — and they’re not particularly noisy either.

My only wish is that the keycaps were slightly bigger and had a slightly recessed surface. The closest comparison would be Apple’s Folio keyboard, which offers a similar typing experience without the touchpad perk. Since I am used to working on tiny keyboards, it didn’t take me long to hit my usual typing speed, but the sense of non-familiarity still lingers.

Also, this is not a backlit keyboard. While working in the dark, I always had the light mode enabled and pushed for maximum brightness from the screen so that it could illuminate the keycaps, as well. It’s quite a miss, OnePlus!

OnePlus Pad 2: performance

OnePlus went with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, the best Qualcomm currently offers. It’s a sweet surprise of no small magnitude, as phones with the same Qualcomm chip usually cost $800 or more. Yet, the company has crammed it inside a tablet that starts at $550, a feat that even beats the iPad dominance at price-to-performance ratio.

It works just as expected. The variant we got for review offers 12GB RAM paired with 256GB onboard storage, but a lower-end version (available in select markets) will give you 8GB of RAM and 128GB onboard storage. Unfortunately, there is no dedicated slot for storage expansion, so if you’re eyeing content editing, you might want to pick up the costlier 256GB version.

Irrespective of your usage requirements, this tablet can hold its own. I had about a dozen task management and communication apps constantly running in the background and never ran into performance stutters. I just wish that the auto-rotation system is more reliable. It can be really annoying.

At benchmarks, the OnePlus Pad 2 comfortably leapfrogged the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE+ by about 35% but still has much to catch up on when compared to Apple’s M2 and even further against the M4 silicon inside the iPad Pro. Those are much more expensive, so keep that in mind, too.

But in the Android world, this is the fastest machine you can get on U.S. shores, which is a mean feat given the sticker price. When it comes to gaming, I had a great time playing Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat at top graphics settings without ever running into lingering stutters or lags.

Titles like Asphalt and Diablo: Immortal offered a similar fluidic experience. I was surprised that even a demanding title like Zenless Zone Zero offered a smooth experience. Bluetooth controllers also posed no hindrance in the games I tried.

When pushing Battlegrounds Mobile at Extreme graphics presets, the game touched 90 frames per second. However, there were frequent dips in the frame rate, and especially during combat, it usually played around the 50 fps territory. Temperatures climbed by about 19 degrees Fahrenheit in a session lasting 30 minutes.

Those figures aren’t too bad, but the frame rate stability could use some performance optimization, mainly because gaming mode was enabled and system resources pushed toward one app in particular. Synthetic benchmarks yield a stability score of 80.1%, but the frame rate dips are regular — and consistent.

I then switched to productivity workflows. Flat Full HD footage took about six minutes to export, while some AI filters applied throughout the timeline and upscaled to 4K/60 fps took about 10 minutes to export. The M4 iPad Pro blazed through a similar workflow in less than half the time.

I also hate that the Android interface of many multimedia editing apps is seriously feature-devoid and visibly lighter than the iPadOS version. That predominantly has to do with iPads loaded with top-tier silicon, while Android tablets are a sea of machines with a spectrum of silicon firepower.

But at the end of the day, machines like the OnePlus Pad 2 have to live with this app bottleneck, something beyond the company’s control. However, if you plan to buy the OnePlus Pad 2 as an on-the-go machine for quick media edits or gaming, it’s a trusty machine. For web-based tasks, it will chew through them without breaking a sweat.

Something odd is going on with the Wi-Fi, though. On the same network, my MacBook Air logged a downlink pace of around 300Mbps, while the OnePlus Pad could only muster half that number. Also, there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack.

OnePlus Pad 2: software

The OnePlus Pad 2 runs Oxygen OS 14 based on Android 14. The experience is deeply familiar. Take the software from OnePlus Open’s screen and span it across a tablet. That’s essentially what you get on this machine. It may sound drab, but there are a few standout tricks here.

You get access to the lovely sidebar system, which is neatly hidden at the screen’s edge and can be pulled inward for quick access to tools like screen recorder, notes, or any app you choose.

Among them is the file dock, a quick-access bucket for frequently used files. You can drag and drop files back and forth between an app and the file dock. The idea is neat, but the execution needs a bit of a lift.

For example, drag-and-drop didn’t work in the OnePlus Photos app, so I had to select the files manually, bring up the share sheet, and then add them to the dock. But once you’ve added the assets in the dock, you can drag and drop them into an app of your choice.

The list of supported apps is a bit tight at the moment, but it works without a hiccup for basic apps like Notes. It also offers a cloud sync option, so you can access it from a connected OnePlus phone.

It looks like OnePlus also considered AirDrop and a few other Apple goodies. Take One-Touch Transmission, for example. You just need to bring your phone close to the keyboard for an NFC handshake, and your phone will pair with the tablet. Oh, did I tell you the animation looks like a mishmash of Apple’s new Siri and Namedrop notifications? Yeah, that, too.

This connection, established over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, allows screen mirroring, call communication sharing, and, most importantly, cross-device file sharing. I could effortlessly transfer files between my phone and the OnePlus Pad 2 in either direction.

You can sync keyboards and media; there’s also scope for sharing customizations for cellular data, calls, and notifications. A few times, the screen-mirroring feature disconnected automatically, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed using the “Controlled” bubble that appears in one corner of the screen on each device.

OnePlus calls it OneTouch Transmission, and I think it’s a neat trick for getting away from your distracting phone. It works almost as seamlessly as Apple’s own cross-device sync system. Since it’s all tied to a OnePlus account, OnePlus is evidently building an ecosystem, and I’m all for it.

I feel bad for the rest of the Android ecosystem, which is still trying to play catchup with Apple in this zone. Some rough edges could use some polishing, but for a first attempt, the whole endeavor looks quite promising.

OnePlus’ fantastic app multitasking interface, which we last saw on the Open foldable phone, is in full glory on the OnePlus Pad 2. It lets you run three apps side-by-side in a far less cramped format. It’s an approach we haven’t seen on any mobile or computing platform, and it works astoundingly well.

I just hope OxygenOS can offer the same kind of window resizing flexibility as One UI on Samsung tablets. It would be lovely if OnePlus could also build a Samsung DeX-like computing environment for its tablet. The foundations are already here; it’s just a matter of commitment and execution.

As far as longevity goes, this tablet will get three years of Android OS upgrades and an extra year’s worth of security updates. OnePlus isn’t quite on the same level as the likes of Google, Samsung, and Apple, so keep that in mind.

OnePlus Pad 2: battery life

Battery life has been somewhat unpredictable for me. On days that I had my usual blogging and editing duties — which entailed using apps like Google Docs, Chrome, Asana, Teams, Slack, Trello, and a whole lot of social media — I could get the OnePlus Pad 2 to last all day. That’s a claim not many tablets can claim to serve, especially with a couple of Bluetooth accessories connected to them at all times.

But when pushing it to video editing and high-end gaming with the added Bluetooth streaming load, the drain is expectedly quicker. For example, at Battlegrounds Mobile India, a 45-minute gaming session sucked up nearly 18% of the battery. Editing a 60 fps video for around an hour also consumed about 15%-20% battery in one go.

I ran a battery loop test that entailed playing a Full HD video over Wi-Fi and setting the screen brightness to maximum. The OnePlus Pad 2’s 9,510mAh battery managed around 10 hours, which is much better than its predecessor and slightly above the latest comparable Samsung tablet. The endurance figures fall shy of the iPad Pro, though.

However, the OnePlus Pad 2 is a cut above the rest in one crucial aspect: fast charging. It supports SuperVOOC fast charging, and the 67W charging brick comes bundled in the retail box. Getting an empty battery to full charge takes about 81 minutes. It’s the fastest charging slate from a mainstream brand, and the feature is as convenient as it gets.

OnePlus Pad 2: price and availability

The OnePlus Pad 2 costs $550 and is available now. In the U.S., there’s just one configuration available: 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

If you want to pair the OnePlus Pad 2 with its accessories, expect to pay $150 for the keyboard and $100 for the stylus. However, OnePlus does run promotions for these, so you may be able to snag them for up to 50% off (or more).

OnePlus Pad 2: verdict

The OnePlus Pad 2 is a terrific piece of hardware, and pound-for-pound, it offers the best experience of any Android tablet in 2024. The software is a rewarding experience, albeit it could use more time in the design and test labs. The build quality is top-notch, with a fantastic set of speakers and excellent keyboard and stylus accessories.

The biggest undoing of this tablet is Android, which is nowhere near as polished as iPadOS 18 and the refined app experience it offers. The benchmark isn’t too high because iPadOS is a frustrating mess in its own way. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab line races ahead due to niceties like DeX, better window management, and longer-term software support. The lack of an IP rating for dust/water protection is also hard to swallow.

But there isn’t much competition out there. If you have an iPhone, the iPad Air or a refurbished Pro should be your ideal choice. For Samsung fans, the Galaxy Tab S9 FE or the Tab S8+ are great. But if you pick up the OnePlus Pad 2, you won’t regret the decision. And if a OnePlus phone is your daily driver, you’re in for an even nicer treat.