OnePlus Pad 3

There is a new flagship model in town from OnePlus. It packs a punch with a Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU with a built-in Adreno 830 GPU chip, a 13.4" display at 3.4K resolution (3392x2400), giving 315 PPI, 12-bit colour depth, and 144Hz. They don't mention that it's an LCD and not an OLED screen. I didn't understand how the image quality was still so good, until I saw that DeltaE is around 0.7 and the DCI-P3 coverage is 98%. That said, the colours appear slightly oversaturated and warm, but it's still far better than I've seen on the LCD front in quite some time.

On the other hand, it's designed for multitasking and uses OnePlus' own AI system. The storage uses UFS 4.0, and it's worth noting that the RAM configuration is not the same: the 12GB version has LPDDR5x at 4266 MHz, while the 16GB version uses LPDDR5T at 4800 MHz. I don't understand how this makes sense in terms of production. It's not a new RAM standard, it's two and a half years old, but it has higher bandwidth, however, I doubt that it really makes a difference to ordinary users.

The design is very clean and industrial, and the thickness is less than 6 mm. The camera is 13 MP, and there is an 8 MP selfie cam, but let's be honest, how often is that used? The images are quite okay for home use, but they are a long way from what the phones from OnePlus can achieve.

All in all, it feels like a relatively hardcore gaming tablet, but with a 120Hz touch screen refresh rate, it's quite a long way from the more dedicated gaming mobile phones. The screen brightness is fine: 600 nits normal, 900 peak. It's one of the few tablets I've tested where I don't have to run it at 100% constantly.

The OnePlus Pad 3 is currently in an introductory offer phase, and as we know it with many mobile phones, there are several types of discounts, student offers, and free gifts in the form of other OnePlus 3 products, as well as half price on accessories. This makes the real price of the product difficult for anyone to figure out, but on the other hand, it only comes in a blue-grey colour, and right now, a 16/512 version costs the same as a 12/356, namely £529 without discounts and free gifts.

The accessories include a pen for £99, a keyboard for £160, plus a case for £59. We have borrowed these items, and although they are a little expensive (or rather, they are not when you look at what other brands charge for the same items), both the pen and keyboard are surprisingly good, but the Folio Case is probably the must-have accessory. Unfortunately, keyboards sold in the EU are not allowed to have built-in batteries, so we are forced to keep it attached to the tablet during use.

There is no charger included, so you have to pay extra for an 80-watt charger. However, this is completely unnecessary. The battery lasts well and is over 12,000 mAh, so even a slow USB charge from your computer will be enough to keep it permanently alive.

OnePlus boasts about the eight speaker units, but to say that it has 4 "bass units" is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, as you can't get much bass out of such a small device. However, the sound is vastly superior to most other mobile phones and tablets we have tested. And a big thank you to the person who decided to support LDAC, LHDC, and AptX HD. More people should do that. Just because you stream your audio from a tablet, you shouldn't be forced to accept poor sound quality or run it as Wi-Fi playback.

Where OnePlus really stands out is that it uses the same processor as some smaller laptops, and their OnePlus Open system for using multiple windows, but without a distinct division, is quite good. And it is somewhat easier to understand than many other similar systems. Similarly, it can be used as an external display. It works, but perhaps not quite as smoothly as one might wish, but updates are reportedly on the way. As expected, the tablet has a reasonably advanced cooling system based on the evaporation chamber principle.

OnePlus also has ultra-optimised synergy if you have a OnePlus phone. We didn't have that available, but even though the idea isn't new, it's always positive that the option is there. For everything else, there's O+, and it works surprisingly well.

Whether you're just watching YouTube, drawing, browsing, or playing games, this is clearly a solid premium tablet. However, I would like to see a smaller and slightly more handheld version available, e.g. 9". It's a big plus that it can actually replace an Ultrabook laptop or similar if you use the keyboard, but it's a good idea to work cloud-based, as there isn't unlimited storage space.

A really solid product, but unfortunately for this type of product, at a steep price.