Earlier this year, Oppo unveiled the Pad Air alongside its Reno 8 series smartphones. It is not the brand’s first tablet, but it is the first to be released in the United Kingdom and Europe.
It’s a low-cost option, costing around £239 / €300, but it comes with a premium design and a large high-resolution display.
As a result, the Pad Air is an appealing option for those looking for a low-cost Android tablet. We were curious to see how it performed in practice, so we’ve been putting it through its paces over the last few weeks.
Oppo Pad Air Review: Design
As we mentioned earlier, this is a very inexpensive device, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at it. Throughout, the design appears and feels premium.
With its angular aluminium edges, it has an Apple-inspired design, but it does have a textured panel along one side that helps set it apart. Oppo refers to this as a 3D dune texture, and we like it. When the light hits it from different angles, it looks nice, and it feels nice on your fingertips when you’re not using a case.
The design is similar to the Realme Pad, but we believe the Oppo has a little more personality due to the textured finish. It’s small and portable, but it has enough screen space to give it an advantage over larger smartphones. It’s slightly smaller and lighter than the iPad Air, with a 10.3-inch display and a weight of 440 grams.
There is no case included, but our review unit came with the optional Flip Cover, which costs around £30 separately. This case snaps over the device’s back and has a front cover that magnetically closes to protect the display. It functions as a kickstand and has two levels of height adjustment. We thought the case was pretty unremarkable, but it does the job and is reasonably priced.
There’s a power button and volume controls on the edges, as well as plenty of speaker cut-outs. There’s a USB-C port as well as a microSD card slot in the form of a SIM tray that requires an ejection tool to open.
Because there is no headphone jack or LTE version, you must rely on Wi-Fi and hotspots to connect to the internet.
Oppo Pad Air Review: Cameras, speakers, and display
The display is large and sharp, with good contrast levels, making it an excellent companion for watching YouTube or Netflix at home or on the go. It’s not the brightest panel, at 360 nits, so it’ll struggle in direct sunlight, but it’s plenty bright enough for indoor use. There is no HDR support, which is understandable for a device in this price range.
Because of the 60Hz display, swiping around the home screen is less fluid than we’re used to. It works fine; it just looks a lot rougher than the 120Hz panels found on the vast majority of modern smartphones. This has never caused any problems with content consumption.
The color rendering has some configurability; you can choose between cooler, standard, and warmer color temperatures. This is convenient, but it will not satisfy more discerning users.
Overall, we were very pleased with the display; our only major complaint is that it attracts a lot of fingerprint smudges. If you’re bothered by such things, you’ll find yourself wiping it down frequently. We wondered if a good screen protector could help, but we weren’t able to put this to the test.
This device’s speakers are very impressive, with plenty of clarity and good stereo separation (when held in landscape mode). It’s great for watching movies and TV shows because the dialogue is clean and clear, and there’s a good sense of space. As is customary, there isn’t much low-end, but the Pad Air outperforms most laptops and we were pleasantly surprised with the performance.
The tablet has a front and rear camera, both of which can record 1080p video at 30 frames per second. Neither is particularly impressive, but they’ll suffice for video calls and the occasional snap. For the most part, you’ll want to stick with the cameras on your smartphone, as they’ll almost certainly outperform the Pad Air’s modest snappers.
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Oppo Pad Air Review: Battery life and performance
The Oppo Pad Air is powered by the Snapdragon 680 SoC, so it’s not a powerhouse. This is the same chip found in low-cost smartphones like the Redmi Note 11, and its performance has never blown us away.
As a result, if you’re a multi-tasking power user, this isn’t the tablet for you. However, if you have more basic requirements, the humble 680 will suffice. It’s ideal for someone who just wants something cheap with a big screen to browse the web and watch videos on.
We were pleasantly surprised to discover that the tablet had no trouble playing high-resolution videos from YouTube and other streaming services. It’s also great for web browsing, as long as you keep the number of tabs to a minimum.
We were also pleased to see that the Pad Air comes with a very clean Android installation, free of the bloatware that frequently comes with low-cost Android devices. At the time of writing, it was running ColorOS 12, which is based on Android 12. It’s light skin with some useful features that don’t deviate too far from the stock Android experience.
Gaming is possible, but you should limit yourself to less demanding titles. More demanding games, such as PUBG Mobile, will require you to use the lowest graphics settings to achieve playable framerates.
Throughout our testing, the battery life was excellent, easily lasting a few days of average use. Oppo claims the Pad Air can last up to 10 hours of continuous video calls; we didn’t try it ourselves, but we believe its claims are reasonable.
When it comes to charging, the Pad Air supports 18W fast charging and comes with a power adapter. This will charge the device from zero to full charge in under three hours. By today’s standards, it’s not the fastest, but it’s also not too painful to live with.
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Recap on oppo pad air review
The Oppo Pad Air’s performance isn’t going to blow anyone away, but it does provide excellent value, excellent build quality, and a lovely display for content consumption. It’s an excellent choice for the less demanding user.
FAQs
Is there an OPPO tablet?
The Pad Air is Oppo’s most recent mobile device. The tablet was released on May 23, 2022. The tablet has a 10.36-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 2000 x 1200 pixels. The Oppo Pad Air is equipped with an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 processor and 4GB of RAM.
Are Oppo tablets good?
Oppo’s latest ColorOS 12, based on Android 12, unites the entire room by providing advanced multitasking features that should work well on the 5:3 display. But it’s not all about specs and hardware, especially when it comes to tablets, so there’s a lot more to discover beneath the surface.
Is oppo a trusted brand?
According to TRA’s Brand Trust Report 2019, OPPO climbed up seven ranks to secure this year’s third spot in the top 10 smartphone brands in India.
