OnePlus Pad 2: Full Review

Almost perfect. but, missed?

In the tablet market, there are 2 major brands in the premium category, Samsung and Apple. For many years this was the case, until last year OnePlus entered the tablet market with their OnePlus Pad 1.  OnePlus Pad 1 was their 1st generation tablet. Now this year, on 16th July. at the summer launch event in Italy, the OnePlus Pad 2 was launched. The OnePlus Pad 2, is the 2nd generation flagship tablet from OnePlus. Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, it’s a powerhouse. It starts from 39,999 for the 8GB/128GB variant and maxes at 12GB/256GB.

Table of contents:

1. Overview 
2. Specifications 
3. Display
4. Performance and benchmarks 
5. Performance in daily usage and tasks
6. Software Experience and AI features
7. Note-taking experience and OnePlus Stylo 2.
8. Cameras and document scanning.
9. The OnePlus Smart Keyboard. 
10. Miscellaneous 
11. Drawbacks
12. Conclusion

The Overview:

The tech world is enthusiastic as OnePlus unveils its latest creation: the OnePlus Pad 2. With a seamless blend of innovative features and exquisite design, this Android tablet promises to redefine the tablet experience. From its meticulously crafted metal unibody to the powerhouse performance under the hood, the OnePlus Pad 2 aims to be the ultimate companion for work, play, and creativity.

The Specifications:

Under the hood, the Snapdragon® 8 Gen 3 Chipset flexes its muscles. The Kryo™ CPU and Adreno™ GPU deliver lightning-fast performance, whether you are multitasking or diving into graphics-intensive apps. Gamers rejoice—the OnePlus Pad 2 is your new playground. The rest of the specs are below:

The Display:

The OnePlus Pad 2 comes with an impressive 12.1-inch display, it is an LDC with 144Hz refresh rate but does not let that fool you, the display is an NTSC 96%, DCI-P3 98% and ∆e≈0.7 making it colour accurate and great for photo and video editing. The display is a 3K resolution panel which is excellent quality. The display is bright and is fine outdoors, but it is a glossy display so reflections can annoy you. The display supports a stylus (OnePlus Stylo 2).

The touch response is also great, and videos and games look immersive on this thing. It is very sharp and with great colours, it is a delightful experience for the eyes! The aspect ratio is 7:5, perfect for productivity, multi-tasking, and note-taking. It will give letterboxing if you want to watch content as most videos are in 16:9 aspect ratio, so it is not the best for content consumption. The bezel around the display is symmetric and is of fair thickness. The corners of the display are rounded.

Performance and benchmarks:

The OnePlus Pad 2 is powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and is a OnePlus device so expect it to throttle like OnePlus in tests, not in real-life usage or while gaming. It does not throttle in usage.

Here are the benchmarks:

ANTUTU:

storage test:

ANTUTU Score:

it scores 1,776,617 in ANTUTU.

3D Mark Wildlife and Extreme:

CPU Throttle:

The Software:

Now, let us talk about the software experience. The OnePlus Pad 2 runs Oxygen OS 14.1 based on Android 14 out-of-the-box and has 3 years of Android Updates and 4 years of security updates. OnePlus also said that they have brought the Open Canvas from OnePlus Open to the OnePlus Pad 2 and yes, it enhances the multitasking experience. So, let us dive deep. When you first set it up, no bloatware, it is clean so that is the point.

Starting from the home screen:

The home screen has an iPad OS-like look, with an app dock (taskbar) at the bottom and apps and widgets on the rest of the screen and the status bar is the same as Oxygen OS. Here is a screenshot: 

As you can see, that is the home screen. And yes, I am fully committed to using the Pad 2 in landscape mode to test out how much OnePlus has improved the tablet experience.

Now, let us move to the system app experience, this is supposed to be optimized for the device, or else the purpose is failed, and to be honest, most of the system apps are well optimized for it which is great.

Will explore each of the main system apps one by one:

First up, the Settings app, the most important one, because well you will see when I start to show the features and all.

So, this is how it looks at first:

This is the split layout, which works great, is optimised, no issues. All the settings are on the left side and the further inner settings and menu are on the right-side panel, it is good and comfortable to use, not like a large phone where all things are just stretched from the centre. Not feeling like a phone earns this a point. Rest of course it is Oxygen OS 14.1, so you know the same settings you see on a phone, nothing different until you see the tablet-specific ones. What I mean by tablet specific is, multi-tasking, stylus, keyboard, touchpad, some gestures, and the ecosystem features related settings.

Now, as OnePlus said, they have added the Open Canvas from OnePlus Open to the OnePlus Pad 2 to enhance the experience and yes it does, the further you read, you will see how.

Let us dive deep into the multi-tasking related settings:

First up, a ton of gestures!

Yes, this one. There are 5 settings for multi-tasking.

The Taskbar:

As you surely would have guessed by its name and relating to Windows, yes, it is a taskbar with a start menu-like thing that shows all the apps!

Now see the above image, that is the taskbar you get when you are using something (shows up when you long-press the gesture indicator), and on the home screen it is like so:

The files shortcut in the taskbar:

As you can see, the app list, file, and shortcut dock are present there, which is sometimes helpful. It can be used to switch between multiple apps, open them, and open apps in a split screen and floating window.

You must drag and drop things around and you can also use the Smart Sidebar to get things done. 

Smart Sidebar:

The smart Sidebar is a utility that comes up when you swipe from the position you have set, it can have a file dock, some AI features, a bunch of shortcuts, and app shortcuts.

The sidebar is handy for multitasking and quick access to things. It is also helpful when watching videos. In the future, it will have shortcuts to access some AI features.

Now let us move to some multi-tasking-related features.

The Multitasking Features:

For multitasking, OnePlus has provided many features, and Open Canvas, which is good, and the experience is particularly good. Here is a screenshot to give you some ideas.

All this, the taskbar is something we talked about already, now for the rest.

Quick Return:

When you leave an app during certain scenarios (such as leaving a ride-hailing app while waiting for a car or leaving a game while waiting for your character to respawn), a Quick Return tile for that app will appear. More apps and scenarios are being added.

Say for example BGMI:

You are waiting for say starting of a match or respawning etc., it can be sent to a quick Return window so that while you wait you can do what you want and then when you respawn, quickly resume the game. You can resize, hide, pin, or collapse it so that it does not hinder and is easy to get back.

See there, BGMI, in one tap, I can get back and it will be full screen.

The Split Screen:

For opening apps in split screen, managing them, and returning to full size, OnePlus has given quite a lot of gestures. I personally like them and help me a lot to do things faster rather than having to always go to the task manager to manage things.

Here I demonstrate them:

There are 3 of them as you can see, The first is to swipe 2 fingers from top to down to split screen, then drag an app from the smart sidebar to open in split screen and the third is to open 3 apps in split screen by opening 2 and then dragging the third.

We have talked of the smart sidebar already above so now let us move to floating windows.

The Floating Window:

Floating windows are a part of multi-tasking. Useful when the app needs to be opened in a smaller part of the screen or we need it to be somewhat transparent or say we need 4th app when 3 are split or you want a Windows-type experience or you want to put your game in a pop-up for doing something while waiting.

Now, many gestures exist to open an app in a floating window.

Demonstration:

1. With all five fingers, pull in, which opens the current in-focus app in a floating window. 
2. You can open an app from the smart sidebar in a floating window.
3. You can resize the floating window or drag it to open in a split-screen view.
4. You can drag an app to recent but straight to the top to open in the floating window or drag some notifications to the floating window.

This is handy when multi-tasking or when you need to open an app quickly in a floating window.

Here we are done with multi-tasking features..

Software Summary:

The software is optimized and much improved than the OnePlus Pad 1, and it has many features. Multitasking is made extremely easy because of the features and the gestures.

The AI Features:

So, as you have heard at the summer launch event the OnePlus Pad 2 comes with a few AI features.

Quoting from the event:

“You don’t need an entire Galaxy to experience AI features.”

And so that is true!

The AI features available are:

1. AI Eraser 2.0 (Removes unwanted objects, people, etc. from the images)
2. AI Smart Cut-Out 2.0 (cutouts part of images, ex objects to be used as sticker or saved as another image)
3. AI Recording Summery (summarises the voice recordings into text)
4. AI Toolbox
5. Scan Document

Let us dive into each of them one by one.

AI Eraser 2.0:

The AI Eraser 2.0 is a feature that uses AI to remove unwanted objects, people, etc. from images.

Let us say you have an image that has unwanted people, just select AI Eraser, remove unwanted people, and bam! It is free from unwanted people.

AI Smart Cutout:

The AI Smart Cutout is a feature that uses AI to cut out an object from an image so that you can save it as a separate image, use it as a sticker, or use it as an overlay in social media apps.

AI Recording Summary:

The Recording summary generates a summary and audio transcript of a long recording. It is useful when you have let us say recorded an interview or say a podcast, then it can quickly summarise things and save you time.

AI Toolbox:

AI toolbox is a set of features made to make your usage and multi-tasking experience better. It is not available as of now, but it consists of the following tools:

1. AI Speak: AI Speak is a feature that can help with multitasking or read-aloud things, ex: text.
2. AI Summary: It can summarise lengthy content to save time, by making it into key points.
3. AI Writer: with this, you can generate original content based on images, text input, etc.

Scan Document:

Scanning documents is crucial for transitioning from paper-based to digital records. The OnePlus Pad 2 simplifies this process by utilising AI technology to enhance scanned documents, apply a black-and-white filter, and save them as PDF files with a single tap. Additionally, it is a reliable tool for creating electronic backups of essential files.

That is my handwritten stuff, do not judge guys!

Let us move to the note-taking experience, which is the most asked part!

The Note-Taking Experience:

Note-taking experience is great but, you will get to know what I mean as you follow along.

Now there are two factors affecting the note-taking experience, the OnePlus Stylo 2, and the Notes app, and then comes the 3rd party note-taking apps like Notion, goodnotes, etc.

First, let me introduce the OnePlus Stylo a bit, details in the accessories part later.

The OnePlus Stylo 2:

The OnePlus Stylo 2 is the stylus accessory from OnePlus for the OnePlus Pad 2. It has been upgraded from the OnePlus Stylo 1. It comes in black, has a chalk-like texture, has a flat side near the bottom (near the tip) and is touch-sensitive for various gestures. The style weighs as much as a fountain pen and is comfortable to hold and write with. The tip is of excellent quality and glides smoothly on the display glass.

Now to the writing part, it has 16,000 levels of pressure sensitivity. It has haptics that mimic the selected tool if you use the default Notes app. For example: if you choose a pencil, you will hear pencil-like sounds and have the same vibrations as if you are handwriting on paper, if you scratch with the pencil tool, it will make such sounds and give haptic feedback.

Let us move to the Notes app, the first-party, default, and pre-installed one.

The Notes App:

The Notes app is mediocre and lacks many options, tools, and features compared to the Notes app on the other two tablets in this segment, namely the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 and Apple iPad 10th generation.

Now, I own a Samsung Tablet. It is an old one but has the latest Notes app anyway and has most features of it. It is the Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 (SM-T510), which does not have the AI features, as the flagship ones but has all the basics right. It runs One UI 3.1 based on Android 11, I will not even compare it with the Galaxy Tab A8 running One UI 6.1 based on Android 14 or the Galaxy Tab S8, but you will see it is very lacking.

The Notes app looks like this:

A split layout, notes on one side and To-dos on the other, when you open a note, it opens in full screen, but you can open in split screen mode if you want to the list of notes.

Now, you have opened a note, here is the look:

This is for typing text, you can add images, to-do lists, voice notes, and apply a skin if you want.

This is the layout for notetaking or drawing with the Stylo, you can also do so with the finger by enabling the option from the 3-dot menu in the tools panel. 

Now the tools available are:

1. Pen
2. Ink pen
3. Pencil
4. Highlighter
5. Lasso tool
6. Eraser.

That is it, no more no less.

This is the colour selection menu, there is the grid and ring, an option to vary transparency level, and a dropper tool to pick colour.

This is the option to draw with a finder and turn on and off pencil sounds and stylus settings (will be covered in the accessories part).

This is the to-do part:

Now you have seen the app and had an introduction to Stylo 2, let us talk about the note-taking experience.

Note-Taking Experience in Notes App:

See typing is simple, use an on-screen keyboard, use the stylo’s scribble mode, or use the smart keyboard or any external keyboard. That is not a big deal, there are some text formatting options and options to add images and annotate them, all great.

The notetaking with Stylo 2, is a different story altogether.

First comes the comfort of holding and writing:

The Stylo 2 is comfortable to hold and write, the weight is fine, no issues, writing for long may cause issues because the stylo weighs as much as a fountain pen.

Then comes the palm rejection:

The palm rejection is good most of the time but sometimes if your hand goes near the tools bar, it might change the selection and cause issues rest is great, with no issues.

Writing:

The tip is smooth enough to glide without issues on the glass, it has enough friction. While writing the grip on the stylo is also great, doesn’t slip, is not slippery, and has a leather-like texture.

The haptics it gives, and the gestures are on point, it took me a while to get used to the gestures and haptics, but it is good, what is not good is that the haptics do not work in 3rd party apps, which is a missed opportunity for OnePlus. Even the sounds are exceptionally good.

Now it is time to talk about the bad, the lacking part of the notes app.

The Bad Part of Notes App:

The Note’s app lacks many things and does not fully utilize the capabilities of the hardware.

The Notes app has tools for notetaking great, but if you remember the Stylo 2 has 16,000 levels of pressure sensitivity and is fine it works for pen, pencil, etc. but if you notice there is no brush tool!

 A brush tool is useful to paint as if it is a painting, different brush sizes, and various levels of pressure, it can be used for shading, colouring, painting, or colouring a large part of the page in some colour. It is missing!

Look at Samsung Notes, it has so:

Samsung Notes, has way more tools, as you can see in the screenshot above! From pen, pencil, blending tool, crayon, oil brush, glow tool! OnePlus did not bother and yes Samsung Notes also has a ruler and shapes, and if you enable the option, it can automatically convert the shapes drawn with the s pen to proper shapes!

Leave that, it can convert the handwriting written into text!

Even the handwriting experience on the Samsung Notes app has a handwriting aligning function which helps to align handwriting properly!

In OnePlus’s Notes app, you cannot change the colour of the page such a basic feature is missing! 

I want OnePlus to improve on this!

The Samsung Note app can handle Images, PDFs, text files, and PowerPoint presentations (even Apple keynotes, etc.)

Good luck annotating PDF files in the OnePlus Notes app! It does not support it!

I stop here. I hope this is taken positively.

Let us move on to Note-taking in 3rd Party apps.

Note-Taking in third-Party Apps:

There are many 3rd party note-taking apps available but here I will talk about only 3 of them, Notion and Goodnotes and OneNote.

Notion:

The notion is a top-rated note-taking app, many of you reading might be using it already. It is available on major platforms like Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and on the web. On a Tablet, the notion looks like the web/desktop version, there is no stylus support, and you must type things just like web/desktop. So, this ends this part.

Here is an image of it:

Goodnotes:

Goodnotes, a well-known and used note-taking app, surely iPad users knew this and have been using it for a long time, now it is available for Android and Windows too. Now, Samsung has partnered with Goodnotes, so all those S Pen features work on Samsung Tablets, but OnePlus does not yes, the Stylo 2 works great, an incredibly good note-taking experience but the gestures and haptics do not work. 

The best part of Goodnotes is that it is very feature-rich, with a lot of tools, features, and synchronization across platforms (paid, coming soon). From writing to drawing, making shapes, typing in it, a very premium experience I would say.

Microsoft OneNote:

Microsoft OneNote is another exceedingly popular and widely used note-taking app. 

With the familiar UI (seen in Microsoft Office apps), and feature-rich app, it has a lot of text and page formatting tools, and various writing and drawing tools. The notebooks and pages are good to use and manage and it is included in the Office Suite, which makes it great. The stylo 2 does work, the pressure sensitivity also works, haptics and gestures do not but the writing experience is far superior to the default Notes app. I like the office-like ribbon making it easy to use on a Tablet as well as a Desktop.

The Cameras:

Well, it is a Tablet, but the cameras are good enough for scanning documents and meetings (video). The mics are also good.

ATTACH SOME PHOTOS.

The cameras take decent photos, good images in daylight, HDR is ok, and night shots are just ok. But what do you expect from a Tablet whose focus isn’t cameras?

It has a 13MP Rear and 8MP Front camera if you ask.

The Battery and Charging:

The OnePlus Pad 2 has a 9510mAh battery, which gives me 5-7 hours of SOT and lasts 2 days for me on moderate usage. Idle drain is 1% or so, no issues there. But what impressed me is the Charging speed, this thing charges damn fast, like 0 to 100 in around 90 mins or so, faster than my phone. The 67W SuperVOOC charging is good; after using this, I cannot use an iPad for sure.

The battery page has some battery settings and stats.

The Accessories:

The first-party accessories consist of 2:

1. OnePlus Stylo 2.
2. The OnePlus Pad Smart Keyboard.

The OnePlus Stylo 2:

The OnePlus Stylo 2 is the first-party stylus for the OnePlus Pad 2. It comes in black (I checked on the OnePlus Store and only Black colour shows). 

The box comes with the style and an extra tip.

Now, the style has a leather-like texture which makes griping easier. It is not slippery. 

The tip of the style is not too soft nor too hard, it is right in the middle which is perfect for writing. It charges and attaches magnetically on the top side of the tablet (the side that has the front camera). The magnet is quite strong, so it does not fall off easily. 

Now it has 16,000 levels of pressure sensitivity, which is great for drawing and sketching.

Now, I would like to praise it for doing one thing well, haptics. The haptics are on point and are seriously good, I loved them so much that I almost miss them in third-party apps where they do not work. 

I have no idea how long it lasts or how fast it charges because when not in use, I attach it to the tablet, and it gets charged. 

The Stylo 2 has a few features which I would like to show:

This is its settings page:

Here you can see the battery, and framework version. Set the double tap gesture and swipe from the top right corner gesture. You can turn on a screen-off note to start taking notes without the need to unlock.

There is scribble mode, which lets you write in text fields using the stylus.

There are haptic feedback settings to set its intensity.

The double tap gesture and the haptic feedback only work in the OnePlus Notes app, not in any other app.

There is a presentation mode which lets you use it as a virtual laser, or annotation tool, or turn pages with it.

All the gestures work by taping and swiping on the flat side.

The OnePlus Smart Keyboard 2:

The other accessory for the OnePlus Pad 2 is the Keyboard+Foilio case, the OnePlus Smart Keyboard 2.

It comes in two parts, the keyboard, and the folio (kickstand). Now the kickstand can be used to mount the tablet on a surface at a suitable angle. The case has a leather-like texture, both the kickstand and the bottom of the keyboard, so it will not slip. It weighs around 500G and the OnePlus Pad 2 + OnePlus Stylo 2 + OnePlus Smart Keyboard together weighs around 1 kg! 

The keyboard is a low profile one, with chiclet keys, and low travel distance. Comfortable to type, but not for me, I use a mechanical keyboard with a higher profile so it causes pain in my hands, but for most people, it should be fine.

It has an extra row of function keys that add much functionality, like controlling media, volume, and brightness, turning on and off the touchpad, and invoking Google Assistant or Gemini. It also has a key which is like the Windows key (or command key) and can be used in combinations for shortcuts. 

The touchpad is large and smooth. It puts the touchpads of budget Windows laptops to shame with its size! And you can press it for a right or left click and it supports multi-finger gestures.

The keyboard connects via POGO pins at the bottom of the tablet and even connects via Bluetooth so there is no need to have it attached all the time.

It charges via the POGO pins.

Ecosystem Features of the Smart Keyboard:

The OnePlus Keyboard has an NFC Pad, where you can tap your OnePlus phone to enjoy a few ecosystem features.

The first one is Touch to case and the other is Touch to relay.

Touch to cast is when you tap your phone on the NFC area, and your screen gets mirrored to the tablet.

Touch to relay is when you tap your phone to the NFC area, and it gives you the option to use an app simultaneously on the Phone as well as the tablet.

The Missed:

OnePlus, you have missed so many opportunities to utilize the hardware of the excellent tablet!

Here are a few:

1. Gesture support for Stylo 2 in third-party apps.
2. Haptics of Stylo 2 working in third-party apps.
3. Made the notes app extremely basic, instead should have had more tools and PDF support.
4. Underutilize the stylus, with no brush option to fully utilize the press sensitivity!
5. Did not collaborate with apps like Goodnotes which so many people use or any other app!

What could have been better:

There are a few things that could have been better:

1. The mentioned in The Missed. 
2. It could have an OLED Display instead of an LCD, this is because its competitor Samsung, offers OLED display.
3. The Stylo could have been included in the box, like Samsung. It will affect sales.
4. The storage could have been UFS 4.0, instead of 3.1 for 256GB or higher.
5. The storage options could have been more up to 512GB.
6. SD card support would have been great.
7. A 3.5mm Audio jack, if it were there, could be highly appreciated.

The Good:

These are the pros of it.

1. An exceptionally good and colour-accurate display, with a 144Hz refresh rate.
2. 67W SuperVOOC charging is crazy fast.
3. The thermals are good.
4. The USB Type C port is 3.1 Gen 2, highly appreciated.
5. The device is rounded and is comfortable to hold.
6. All metal body feels very premium.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, The OnePlus Pad 2 is a great tablet for productivity and multitasking. It is a well-rounded device from OnePlus and is a massive upgrade from the OnePlus Pad 1. Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the latest flagship chipset, a 144Hz 3K colour-accurate display with stylus support, makes for a great productivity machine. It has six very rich-sounding speakers for the best audio and is Hi-Res Wired and Wireless certified. It has a 9510mAh battery easily lasting 1-2 days on a full charge, paired with 67W SuperVOOC fast charging, it recharges within 90 minutes! It has good software and Open Canvas makes the multitasking experience excellent.

It is packed with some AI features which are useful and will be available soon. The Tablet is around 550g in weight and with all accessories, it is 1 kg. 

The Stylo 2 is a great stylus with 16,000 levels of pressure sensitivity and on-point haptics. It supports gestures too. The Smart keyboard is a good keyboard with a low profile, and it has a large touchpad. The keyboard has an extra row of function keys.

The Stylo attaches and charges magnetically, at the top of the device and the keyboard attaches via POGO pins at the bottom and charges the same way, but you can connect it with Bluetooth and use it detached too.

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