Ryan Haines / Android Authority
I like the OnePlus Pad 3 — in fact, it might be my favorite Android tablet right now. It’s big and powerful, yet light enough and slim enough for life on the go. There’s just one problem: It costs $700. The series didn’t always cost that much, but it does now, and there’s no good way around that. There’s also no good way to recommend another OnePlus tablet to someone who can’t afford the Pad 3, because OnePlus has a habit of retiring its older slates as soon as a new one comes out.
So, it’s time for something to change. It’s time for OnePlus to take its iPad inspiration to another level and try its hand at a multi-tablet, Apple-like lineup, and here’s why.
One size fits… some?
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
Before I get to why I think OnePlus needs to copy Apple — because that’s not usually my favorite thing to recommend — let’s take a quick look at how we got here. At first, OnePlus’s single-tablet strategy worked perfectly. The original Pad struck a pretty good balance of power and price, blending a Dimensity 9000 chipset with 67W wired charging for a decidedly mid-range $459. That’s about what the Galaxy Tab S10 FE costs, and I liked that tablet quite a lot.
Then, OnePlus stepped it up a level for the Pad 2. It jumped from MediaTek to Qualcomm with a more powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and expanded its display from 11.61 to 12.1 inches with an additional pair of side-firing speakers. Everything else remained the same — except for the price tag. After just one year, OnePlus bumped the price of the Pad 2 by about $100, bringing it to $549 right as it pulled the recently discounted Pad from shelves.
OnePlus makes its Pad better every year... but it's trading value for power.
Now, it’s done the same thing. Another generation, another set of upgrades, another steep price hike. Only this time, the price hike is even steeper and harder to swallow. Yes, once again, the Pad 3 is bigger, has more speakers, and has a more powerful chipset than before — all things I liked about it and would love to see on more Android tablets. It charges faster than before and will get more software updates than its predecessors, too.
However, at $699, the OnePlus Pad 3’s audience is entirely different from that of the original tablet. It’s no longer a tablet to take notes on during class or take on a plane to stream a few episodes of The Last of Us — it’s a laptop replacement that you have to think carefully about before buying. There’s also nothing else you can say to OnePlus fans on a budget, because once again, the older model is going away just in time for the new one to hit shelves.
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