By The OnePlus Pad Go, the smaller sister of the OnePlus Pad, carries on the company’s legacy of producing low-cost smartphones to compete with the industry’s more expensive titans.
Even with its comparatively modest price tag, the OnePlus Pad Go maintains its premium appearance. It is thin and light, but a few design errors make it difficult to use in the hand. The main one is that the camera is positioned in the middle of the long edge, which makes it begging to be choked by your fingers every time you pick it up. I did find a few minor flaws in the construction of my test model, thus it does not seem to be built to the same caliber as more expensive tablets.
A smooth and fluid experience is provided by the 60-90Hz variable refresh rate and the clear, vibrant colors of the 11.35-inch, 2.4K display. Despite this, its great reflectivity casts a real shadow over it. In dimly light environments, the Pad Go becomes a glorified mirror due to its dark tones, making it difficult to view details.
As for the Pad Go itself, OxygenOS, OnePlus’s Android-based operating system, works nicely. For the most part, it operated without any problems, but I did run into a few. These were the uneven method you control app windows and the unreliable performance of the face unlock and auto-rotate capabilities. Putting those criticisms aside, seeing a simple Android UI that was just as user-friendly as those seen on many of the top tablets was a welcome change.
Regarding performance, the Pad Go can do all the standard functions that one would expect from a contemporary tablet, such as streaming high-definition movies and web browsing. Except for the odd loading and buffering hiccup, it can easily handle the latter. Nevertheless, these incidents did not take away from the overall enjoyment.
Even if they do not look as good as they will on specialist mobile gaming devices, they can also play the newest and most well-liked mobile games. The Pad Go excels at productivity as well, although heavy users should not consider replacing their laptop or desktop with it because of its inability to handle workloads with high demands.
Although it has fast charging capability, the battery life is sufficient to handle a good day’s worth of diverse use; nonetheless, the process took a few hours to reach full capacity. Engaging in strenuous activities such as gaming will quickly deplete the battery, and in my testing, the 14-hour movie playback claimed by OnePlus appeared to be closer to 10.
The OnePlus Pad Go is a very good bargain when compared to its closest competitors because of its strong performance and stylish appearance. You will not find a better tablet for less money than the OnePlus Pad Go, albeit it will not be able to tackle the most professional of work and, unfortunately, the screen is so reflective.
PRICE AND AVAILABILITY
The initial pricing of £299 for the OnePlus Pad Go has been reduced to £269 on the OnePlus website. As a gift, you can also select between a charger and the Folio Case; but, as of right now, there is not an official keyboard. Australia and the US do not currently have access to the OnePlus Pad Go.
Even while £299 is still a significant sum of money, it is far less expensive than its competitors, especially the iPad 10.9-inch from 2022, which is still available for £349. The Pad Go provides nearly the same performance for daily usage, functioning nicely as a media player with a little productivity background.
Additionally, it is far less expensive than the OnePlus Pad, the company’s higher-spec tablet, which has a little better rear camera, a more potent CPU, and a better display.
There is less of a reason to choose the OnePlus Pad over the less expensive Pad Go, though, as we pointed out in our review of the tablet. It still lacks the power to be a productivity powerhouse.
SPECS
| Starting price | £269 |
| Operating system | OxygenOS w/ Android 13 |
| Chipset | MediaTek Helio G99 |
| Memory (RAM) | 8GB (LPDDR4X) |
| Storage | 128GB (UFS 2.2) non-expandable |
| Display | 11.35-inch 7:5 (2408 x 1720) LCD (LTPS) |
| Weight | 532g |
| Battery | 8,000mAh |
| Charging | 33W SUPERVOOC |
| Cameras | 8MP main, 8MP front |
DISPLAY
Additionally, it is far less expensive than the OnePlus Pad, the company’s higher-spec tablet, which has a little better rear camera, a more potent CPU, and a better display.
There is less of a reason to choose the OnePlus Pad over the less expensive Pad Go, though, as we pointed out in our review of the tablet. It still lacks the power to be a productivity powerhouse.
The screen is rather reflective, though, and this is especially apparent while viewing dark photos. One of the Pad Go’s greatest usability flaws is that this problem never goes away, regardless of your location or how you change the brightness settings. Watching movies with dimly lit scenes makes it a serious issue, and even utilizing dark mode increases reflectivity substantially.
The display also has an easy time picking up smudges, dust, and other contaminants. Additionally, the Pad Go lacks a fingerprint sensor, so your only options for security are a facial scan, PIN, password, or pattern.
DESIGN
The OnePlus Pad Go, which chooses a more rounded shape over Apple’s squared-off appearance, is incredibly thin and sleek, and the materials seem high-quality to the touch. However, the bezel that runs beside the camera is highly fingerprint- and smudge-prone, and you can feel the sharp join where it meets the chassis with your hands.
Furthermore, the sides have a sharp curvature that can make them feel unsteady and uneasy in the hand. Additionally, the test unit I was given had a tiny but apparent panel gap on one side of the chassis joint, indicating that it was not as well-built as its competitors.
The camera’s placement in the middle of one of the long sides is arguably the most problematic aspect of the design in my opinion. When holding the tablet in portrait orientation, makes it far too simple to clasp the lens with your fingers. Additionally, because the front camera is positioned in the same way, you must gaze directly into the lens when taking portrait selfies to avoid appearing off-center in the picture.
PERFORMANCE
The OnePlus Pad Go handles most standard tasks well, from productivity to media playback. The 8GB of RAM is sufficient, and so too is the 128GB of storage. The MediaTek Helio G99 chip is a step down from the OnePlus Pad’s Dimensity 9000, and neither tablet will be able to take the place of a laptop for professional workloads. The Pad Go only suffers from the occasional minor slowdown or stutter, but even with High-Performance mode enabled (which is buried in the settings with no shortcut available), I didn’t notice any discernible improvements.
Wi-Fi connectivity doesn’t seem to be the best either. As it happened, during my test I experienced a weak connection. However, my phone was still getting an internet connection, whereas the Pad Go failed to connect until I restarted it.
Overall, mobile games functioned fairly smoothly, though Call of Duty Mobile and FIFA Mobile did appear a little shabby even though I increased the graphics settings to the maximum (in FIFA Mobile, I was unable to select high or ultra settings because the game indicated my device was not compatible).
I never experienced any heating at all in the upper corner of the tablet, even though there were cautions that it could get hot when in Pro Gamer mode. But whatever option I selected, I could only achieve about 40 frames per second in Call of Duty Mobile, while the previously mentioned lack of device support limited FIFA Mobile to 30 frames per second. In my experience, Asphalt 9 performed better, running in the low to mid-50s, but once more, it did not seem like the various performance settings made a difference.
If you would rather not use a touchscreen and would rather use a gamepad, you can pair a wireless Xbox One controller using Bluetooth. Although the capability is restricted, in my experience, this functioned perfectly and even gave me control over several components of the main user interface. For productivity, I also utilized a keyboard and mouse, the former via Bluetooth and the latter through a USB-C connector. Once more, neither of these had any problems. This also held for wireless headphone connections.
Regarding audio quality, the quartet of speakers lacks noteworthy features. There is a noticeable lack of bass, and because abrupt volume peaks are not well handled, moderate distortion happens all too frequently. On the other hand, Dolby Atmos is a welcome addition. When using the typical built-in speakers, it is essentially unnecessary, but when watching movies with a decent set of headphones, it greatly enhances the stereo field and creates a sense of spaciousness.
BATTERY
I discovered that the Pad Go’s battery lasts more than a day when used informally. However, demanding activities like gaming would inevitably deplete the battery more quickly. With both pro gamer and high-performance mode enabled, the battery dropped from full to 85% after an hour of gaming.
When used exclusively for playback, OnePlus promises that the Pad Go will last 14 hours. However, I thought this number to be a little optimistic throughout my examinations because I could only score about 10.
Fast charging speeds are only sufficient; the Pad Go can only charge at 33 W, which is far less than the OnePlus Pad’s 67 W capabilities, which can charge the Pad from empty to full in two-thirds of that time. It took two hours to charge from 5% to full.
