OnePlus Pad Go hands-on review

Camera

The OnePlus Pad Go has a fairly basic 8MP camera on the back capable of 1080p 30fps video. On the front is another 8MP shooter.

The camera specs are fairly downgraded compared to the already basic OnePlus Pad. The 13MP camera on that tablet at least supported 4K video and even had a flash. The front camera also has a wider field of view and supports Limelight, which keeps you in the middle of the frame as you move around in a video call in select apps. The OnePlus Pad Go can't do any of that.

OnePlus Pad Go

Image quality, even in good lighting, is unimpressive. This is definitely not a camera for taking vacation photos but should be serviceable for scanning documents as long as there's enough light since there is no flash. The OnePlus Pad wasn't especially good either but easily comes out on the top in this comparison.

OnePlus Pad

The front camera quality is quite comparable between the two. The OnePlus Pad has a wider field of view but the quality does suffer because of that as there's not enough resolution to go with that lens. This means the OnePlus Pad Go front camera can actually look better at times.

Video quality is unimpressive and a far cry from the 4K output from the OnePlus Pad.

Competition

The OnePlus Pad Go's main competition in India is the Xiaomi Pad 6. While moderately more expensive, the Xiaomi Pad has a higher resolution, 144Hz display. It also has a much more powerful chipset and better cameras. Unless you have a preference for OxygenOS or want cellular connectivity, the Xiaomi Pad 6 is worth spending extra for.

As for OnePlus's own OnePlus Pad, we don't think it's especially worth spending that much more over the Pad Go unless you really value having pen support as well as support for the OnePlus Magnetic Keyboard. Those things really transform the OnePlus Pad from purely a consumption device into a creativity and productivity machine but if that's not appealing to you then you are better off with the Pad Go.

Conclusion

The OnePlus Pad Go is a pretty solid offering from the company and a good entrant in the mid-range tablet market. The design, display, speakers, and battery life are good and the OS offers some really useful multitasking capabilities. The addition of data connectivity also makes this significantly more convenient to carry around than its more expensive sibling.

The downsides are mostly the lack of any real GPU horsepower and the limited 8GB memory. But for the intended use cases, which are reading, watching, browsing, and a bit of productivity work, the OnePlus Pad Go is a perfectly capable device.

Pros

• Well-built, attractive design
• Good display quality and resolution, 7:5 aspect ratio ideal for portrait and landscape use
• Powerful speakers with Dolby Atmos processing
• Good battery life with reasonably fast charging
• Robust multitasking features
• Expandable storage and optional LTE connectivity

Cons

• Poor GPU performance
• Limited 8GB system memory
• No fingerprint sensor