OnePlus Pad Go 2 Review: Does it beat Xiaomi & Samsung?

The OnePlus Pad 3 is one of our top picks, so I was particularly curious to see how the significantly cheaper OnePlus Pad Go 2 performs. For this review, I compared the $350 tablet against the Samsung Galaxy Tab A11+, Redmi Pad 2 Pro, and Honor Pad 10. And in one aspect, the OnePlus beats all competitors, but unfortunately it’s far from perfect.

Design & Build Quality

The OnePlus Pad Go 2 is 6.83mm thick and weighs 599g. Although the tablets back is made of plastic, the frame is made metal, so I didnt feel like i was holding a cheap tablets. In fact, it feels quite premium, mostly because the transitions from the body to the frame and display are well designed.

A fingerprint scanner is missing, but unfortunately, that’s common in this price range. There’s also no headphone jack and no MicroSD slot, but there is space for a SIM card if you get the 5G version. Sadly the USB-C port is just a USB 2.0 port without video output. So you can’t connect external monitors.

Display: The Best In Its Price Range

The display is definitely one of the highlights of the OnePlus Pad Go 2. We get a 12.1-inch LCD with a resolution of 2800 x 1980 pixels, a 120Hz refresh rate, 600 nits standard brightness, and 900 nits in High Brightness Mode. This makes it one of the brightest displays in its class, and it’s easily readable outdoors.

Colors look saturated, the contrast is very decent for an LCD, and the viewing angles are very wide. It stands out particularly in comparison to the Galaxy Tab A11+: The Samsung looks pixelated and has much narrower viewing angles. The OnePlus is even a bit brighter than the Honor Pad 10, which has a great display. And compared both to Honor and OnePlus, the Redmi Pad 2 Pro’s display is significantly weaker.

The aspect ratio is also interesting: OnePlus opts for a 7:5 format, which leans more towards an iPad or Surface tablet. That means: more space at the top and bottom, which I love for browsing the web and Office apps. But unlike with the 16:10 aspect ratio of Samsung, Redmi, and Honor tablets, you’ll see black bars at the top and bottom when watching movies.

Netflix runs in Full HD and HDR10 is supported. And it looks really good here. Better than the Redmi Pad 2 Pro, where HDR content looks very dark. However, HDR content looks a bit better on the Honor Pad 10.

Speakers Comparison

The OnePlus Pad Go 2 has four speakersand they do a really good job. At maximum volume, the tablet sounds more pleasant than the Galaxy Tab A11+, which quickly sounds harsh at high volume. The OnePlus is also a bit louder than the Honor Pad 10, though the quality is similar here.

So for series, YouTube, and games, the sound is really good, especially in this price range. More expensive tablets like the OnePlus Pad 3 offer much better sound, though.

Hardware & Performance

Let’s get to the internal hardware. Inside sits the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Ultra chipset with 8GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of storage. A 5G version is also available.

The performance is great for common apps like Chrome, YouTube, Gmail, or Office apps. Multitasking runs smoothly and I didn’t experience any crashes.

In the Geekbench 6 benchmark, the Go 2 is on the same level as the Galaxy Tab A11+. They actually use the same processor, even though the Galaxy Tab is a bit cheaper. The CPU also performs similarly compared to the Redmi Pad 2 Pro and Honor Pad 10, though the graphics performance is a bit better on those.

The 3D Mark benchmark comparison shows exactly the same, it’s measuring graphics performance and provides a rough preview of our gaming test.

Let’s look at some games. Asphalt Legends always automatically adjusts the graphics quality to the performance, and by default, the game looks quite pixelated. You can crank up the graphics a bit in the settings, and while it doesn’t look as good as on the OnePlus Pad 3, it looks significantly better than before and then it is a lot of fun on the Pad Go 2.

Roblox doesn’t cause any problems and runs smoothly for the most part, but no wonder—it runs even on devices with very weak hardware.

Minecraft performs terribly at the highest settings; it lags way too much. But if you prioritize performance in the settings and turn everything down accordingly, you can play it well.

Fortnite is the biggest surprise. With Epic settings and maximum graphics, it runs at 20 to 25 FPS and looks great. Sure, those FPS are too low, but if you turn down the settings, you can play it very nicely with an average of 40 FPS. That’s great for a tablet in this price range.

Stylus & Keyboard

OnePlus offers a stylus for the Pad Go 2 which costs an additional $80, although sometimes you can get a bundle in which the pen is included with the tablet. Unfortunately, my pen was defective and only worked sporadically. I’m currently in the process of getting it exchanged.

As soon as the new pen arrives, I’ll add my review of it.

There’s no official keyboard cover for this tablet. That’s a shame, because there are good keyboard cases for the Redmi Pad 2 Pro and Honor Pad 10. And if you’d like to have a tablet with a keyboard, definitely check out our list of the best tablets with keyboards. You’ll find the link in the description.

Software: Android 16 & OxygenOS 16

The OnePlus Pad Go 2 runs OxygenOS 16 which is based on Android 16. The software feels pleasantly uncluttered and there’s hardly any bloatware installed, which I find great. According to a support staff member, there will be three major Android updates and five years of security updates. That isn’t as good as Samsung or Apple are, but it’s still okay for this price range.

Cameras

The 8-megapixel main and front cameras are okay and good enough for Zoom and other video chats in a normally lit room. But I wouldn’t want to record YouTube videos with them, for example, because the quality isn’t good enough for that. Selfies are especially heavily sharpened by the front camera.

Battery Life

With its 10.050 mAh battery, the OnePlus Pad Go 2 reaches 7 hours of runtime in our standard test. As always, I run an HD YouTube video at maximum brightness in an endless loop for this.

These 7 hours aren’t the best result ever, but totally fine, especially considering the bright display.

You’ll easily get through the day with normal use, and longer if you’re frugal.

By the way, it’s pretty cool that it supports bypass charging thanks to a software update. This protects the battery and ensures less heat if you play a game and hook the tablet up to the power adapter while doing so.

OnePlus Pad Go 2 Review: My Verdict

The OnePlus Pad Go 2 is really good in some aspects. Especially the display, the speakers, the build quality, and the clean software are excellent for around $350.

It’s a shame that there isn’t an official keyboard cover, and we won’t know how good the stylus is until later. It’s also important to know that you get exactly the same performance for $100 less with the Galaxy Tab A11+. But its screen is much worse than the one of the OnePlus.

If you’re in the US, the OnePlus Pad Go 2 is a great tablet. But if you’re outside the US, you can get a bit better performance and otherwise similar features with the Honor Pad 10. In all cases, make sure to check out our best Android tablets you can buy right now. In that article you’ll learn which ones are best in all price ranges.