OnePlus Pad 3: The Android Tablet King Returns! Is It Still the Best Value for Your Money?

OnePlus has done it again! After the impressive OnePlus Pad 2, the tech giant is back with the OnePlus Pad 3, a tablet that, while not a “massive upgrade,” is certainly a “refinement” and remains one of the best Android tablets you can buy today.

This in-depth review dives into every aspect, from its striking design to its powerful performance and revolutionary software, to help you decide if this is the tablet you’ve been waiting for.

First Impressions: Design & Build – A Blend of Good Choices

Right off the bat, the OnePlus Pad 3 impresses with its thoughtful design. It’s incredibly slim, measuring just 5.97 mm thick. To put that into perspective, it’s even slightly thinner than some flagship smartphones!

What’s truly amazing is that despite this incredible slimness, OnePlus has managed to pack a massive battery and a powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite processor inside – a true “feat of engineering”.

Naturally, with a bigger battery and a larger display, the tablet’s weight has increased slightly to 670g compared to its predecessor, the Pad 2. However, you won’t feel weighed down because OnePlus has done an “exceptionally well” job with the weight distribution. This ensures it remains comfortable for extended use.

One subtle but significant design change is the flattened edges. Surprisingly, this minor tweak makes the tablet “more comfortable to hold and use”.

You’ll also notice that the camera module has moved from the centre to the corners, which is a common and generally well-liked placement on most tablets.

But here’s the best part about the design and build: the inclusion of a proper Type-C Gen 3.2 port. Thank you, OnePlus, for ensuring super-fast data transfer speeds!

A Feast for Your Eyes: The Incredible Display

The OnePlus Pad 3 truly shines when it comes to its display, which is bigger than the Pad 2’s. You now get a massive 13.2-inch display with a super smooth 144 Hz refresh rate.

This ensures everything, from scrolling through web pages to high-speed gaming, looks incredibly fluid. It’s an IPS LCD panel, which is common in many devices, but OnePlus has tuned it exceptionally well.

One of the most interesting features carried over from the Pad 2 is the unique 7:5 aspect ratio. Why is this important? Because it’s “well suited for reading content”. So, if you’re like some users who “loves reading manga” or textbooks, this tablet will be an absolute joy to use.

While some might prefer super-slim bezels, the Pad 3 maintains slightly larger bezels. But this isn’t a drawback; in fact, it makes the tablet “easier to hold” without accidentally touching the screen. Plus, it allows for a very nicely centre-aligned camera on the top bezel when the tablet is placed horizontally, which is a thoughtful touch for video calls.

The resolution has also “gone up this year”, providing crisper visuals. While the typical and peak brightness metrics are the same as the Pad 2, it’s still “plenty bright indoors and outdoors”, so watching content won’t be a problem even under bright sunlight.

Moreover, OnePlus has done a fantastic job with colour accuracy, achieving a Delta E as low as 0.7. This makes it “one of the most colour accurate IPS LCD panels” in recent times. The only trade-off with IPS LCD, as expected, is that you might see a “visible colour shift” when viewed from extreme angles.

Gamers and general users will appreciate the instantaneous touch sampling rate of 540 Hz, which translates to “very good” touch response for buttery smooth interactions. The display is also Dolby Vision certified, offering enhanced HDR performance.

However, there’s a curious detail: you won’t get Dolby Vision playback on Netflix. OnePlus explained this is due to Netflix’s “very stringent processes for an LCD panel”, making certification difficult. Despite this, you can still download offline content to view HDR performance and play HDR videos on YouTube.

Immersive Multimedia Experience

Beyond the fantastic display, the OnePlus Pad 3 truly delivers an immersive multimedia experience. Its quad speaker system sounds incredible, featuring “four woofers and four tweeters”.

This combination produces sound that is “definitely leagues better than what we got with the Pad 2”, and the Pad 2 was already good to begin with! So, whether you’re watching movies, listening to music, or playing games, the audio quality will not disappoint.

For those who use wireless audio, the tablet also supports LDAC and LSDC codecs with your TWS (True Wireless Stereo) earphones, ensuring “absolutely fine” performance with high-quality audio.

Raw Power: Performance That Flies

Under the hood, the OnePlus Pad 3 is a beast, powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC. This is a flagship-level chip, usually found in top-tier smartphones. The tablet comes in two impressive variants:

• 12GB RAM with 256GB storage
• 16GB RAM with 512GB storage

Interestingly, the 12GB variant uses LPDDR5X RAM, while the 16GB variant uses slightly faster LPDDR5T RAM. Both variants also come with UFS 4.0 storage, ensuring “pretty fast” storage speeds.

In benchmarks, the Pad 3’s performance is “on par with most Snapdragon 8 Elite products”, which are mostly smartphones. This is notable as it’s the “first Snapdragon 8 Elite tablet” to be tested.

The real advantage here is the tablet’s size, which allows for fantastic heat dissipation and thermal control. During stress tests, the GPU stability remained at an astounding 99.9%, showing it doesn’t get hot or lose much battery under heavy load.

For gamers, this means serious performance. Games like BGMI run at a smooth 120 FPS, and even graphically intensive titles like Genshin Impact run smoothly at an average of 60.1 FPS on the highest graphics settings, without the tablet getting hot at all. This makes the Pad 3 a powerful machine for both work and play.

Battery Life & Charging – Power Through Your Day

With such a powerful setup, a big battery is essential, and the OnePlus Pad 3 delivers. It houses a “massive battery” that provides excellent endurance.

In heavy usage scenarios, including constant video watching and gaming, you can expect about 7 hours of screen run time. For lighter usage, such as school or office work and casual content consumption, this can extend to an impressive 9 to 10 hours.

What’s even more impressive is the charging speed. Despite its large battery, the tablet can charge from 1% to 100% in just 90 minutes, thanks to the 80W charger included in the box. This ensures you spend less time plugged in and more time using your tablet.

Connectivity & Other Features – What’s Missing?

The OnePlus Pad 3 supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.42, ensuring the latest and fastest wireless connections. However, there’s one notable “miss”: there is no 5G variant of the tablet, and it doesn’t even offer eSIM compatibility.

This means you’ll always need to rely on Wi-Fi or your phone’s hotspot for internet access on the go, which might be a drawback for some users.

When it comes to cameras, the tablet features a 13MP main camera and an 8MP selfie camera. The review wisely advises against using them for serious photography, as “cameras on tablets are mostly pointless” for capturing pictures.

However, they do a “fairly good job” for scanning documents or taking video calls. For security, you can use face unlock with the selfie camera, but there’s no fingerprint scanner. The reviewer suggests embedding a fingerprint scanner with the power button as a useful addition.

Oxygen OS 15 Tablet Edition: The Software & Ecosystem Advantage

Perhaps the most beloved aspect of the OnePlus Pad 3 is its software experience and the entire ecosystem play. It runs on Oxygen OS 15 Tablet Edition based on Android 15, promising 3 plus 6 years of OS updates – a significant commitment from OnePlus!

The tablet edition of Oxygen OS brings fantastic features. You get a persistent dock that can be invoked from “any app”, allowing for quick access to apps and multitasking options like split-screen mode. Open Canvas is highlighted as “one of the coolest multitasking implementations”.

It allows for three split screens and one floating window simultaneously, all running smoothly without “any lag anywhere” thanks to the powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite. The system is intuitive; for example, it can even “suggest that maybe you want to put this in like a split screen” if you’re frequently switching between two apps.

For users who own a OnePlus phone, the ecosystem features are incredibly seamless. You can simply tap your phone on the NFC section of the accessory keyboard to pair it instantly. This allows for:

• Screen mirroring
• Access to your File Dock for easy content transfer
• File Sync
• Making and receiving calls directly on your tablet (which is super handy given the lack of 5G support!)

But the true game-changer is O+ Connect, a feature that bridges the gap between the OnePlus and Apple ecosystems. By downloading O+ Connect on your Mac, you can connect your OnePlus Pad and Mac, allowing you to access your tablet’s files on the Mac and, more importantly, remotely control your Mac from the tablet. This works by mirroring your Mac screen to the tablet, and you can control it using the tablet’s keyboard and mouse.

In 2025, no software experience is complete without AI features. Oxygen OS on the Pad 3 comes packed with them, including:

• AI Summary
• AI Writing Tools
• AI Speak (which reads out screen content)
• AI Detail Boost for photo editing
• AI Reflection Eraser and AI Eraser for image manipulation

These features are “feature-rich” and can “definitely go toe-to-toe with Samsung’s Galaxy ecosystem”, showing OnePlus’s commitment to a comprehensive software experience.

Accessorize Your Experience

The OnePlus Pad 3 offers some great accessories to enhance its versatility:

• Keyboard Attachment & Stand: This isn’t a single “Magic Keyboard” style unit like Apple’s, but rather two separate pieces: a keyboard and a stand. OnePlus chose this design to maintain wireless functionality, allowing you to place the tablet anywhere with the stand and use the keyboard from a distance. The typing experience on this membrane keyboard is “one of the nicer tablet keyboard attachments” with “decent key travel” and “nice key spacing”. Interestingly, it even has a dedicated AI button that brings up Gemini functionality, similar to the Copilot key on Windows laptops.
• Stylo 2: The Pad 3 is compatible with the Stylo 2, the same stylus that launched with the Pad 2 (Stylo 3 hasn’t arrived with the Pad 3). This stylus works “really well” and offers 16,000 pressure points, making it “one of the nicer styluses” for drawing, note-taking, or general navigation.

Specs Table: A Quick Look at the OnePlus Pad 3

Pricing & Final Verdict: Is It Value for Money?

As of this review, there are no official pricing details for India, as sales are expected to happen much later. However, the reviewer offers a strong recommendation based on anticipated pricing:

• If the OnePlus Pad 3 comes under ₹50,000, it’s an “extreme value for money” and an “immediate recommendation”.
• Even under ₹60,000, it’s considered a “very, very good tablet for that price”.

The reviewer doubts “any other Android brand will be able to achieve this pricing for a Snapdragon 8 Elite tablet”, highlighting the potential value proposition.

In conclusion, the OnePlus Pad 3 isn’t a “generational leap” like the Pad 2 was over the Pad 1. Instead, it’s a significant “refinement” over the Pad 2. The larger display is seen as a “good addition” because it makes the tablet a serious contender for being your “primary machine instead of a laptop”. While it might not completely replace everything you do on a laptop, its “powerful chipset inside” certainly makes it a strong consideration.

For anyone looking for a top-tier Android tablet that blends powerful performance, a stunning display, excellent software, and a robust ecosystem, the OnePlus Pad 3 should definitely be on your shortlist. It solidifies its position as one of the best Android tablets available today.