The OnePlus Tab Go Is the iPad Air Competitor To Buy — if You Can Overlook Its One Flaw

When Apple introduced the iPad, they weren’t exactly sure how people would use it; and to this day, tablets are an odd category. The top-of-the-line “Pro” tablets, like the iPad Pro and Lenovo Tab Extreme, are extremely cool but they’re not as practical to use as laptops despite costing as much as them. On the flip side, most cheaper tablets end up just being used as YouTube screens for those too young to have their own laptops. If that’s all they’re being used for, why buy a new one?The most interesting tablet category, then, is the slightly more premium smaller tablet category led by the iPad Air. The premise of this category is simple: something larger than your phone to read articles or watch videos on, preferably while sitting on the couch but without the complexity of a laptop. These tablets are not trying to do everything; they’re just supposed to be nice to use. Though Apple has been the category leader, OnePlus has its own option in the Android-powered Pad Go. While it has its problems, it’s a compelling product.OnePlus Tab Go. Courtesy of OnePlusFor the unfamiliar, OnePlus made a name for itself by providing the best of flagship products at a far more budget-friendly price. The Pad Go continues that philosophy with the iPad Air. Whereas the Air comes in four colors and four storage size options, OnePlus saves cost by slimming it down to one skew in a signature “Twin Mint” green with 8GB of RAM and 128GB storage. That also comes with SIM support, which is a $150 upgrade on the iPad.OnePlus also saves on the chip. Apple fits the Air with their fast M2 chip, available in last-generation MacBook Pros. OnePlus goes for the fairly modest MediaTek Helio G99. This means you can’t run the top-tier complex applications of the iPad Air, but nobody uses an iPad Air for that anyway. In combination with an 8000mAh battery and OnePlus’s excellent Android skin, the Pad Go never feels slow and it lasts forever on a battery. OnePlus also saves money on the subpar rear camera, but taking photos in public with a tablet should be a capital offense, so I’m not bothered. Frankly, I would have been happy if OnePlus got rid of the rear camera entirely to make this even cheaper, particularly as the selfie camera is exactly as good as you need for video calls.All of this leads to a pretty astonishing price saving. The 11-inch iPad Air with 128GB is $599, and if you upgrade that to take a SIM card, it’s $749. Though US pricing hasn’t been announced for the Pad Go, the price in the UK is currently less than $350. For a fast, long-lasting tablet with pretty great speakers and good software, that’s incredible. However, the premium experience is sorely let down by the screen.OnePlus Tab Go. Courtesy of OnePlusWhereas everything else on the tablet is great if not good, the screen is just… fine. It’s fast enough at 90hz and its 2408 x 1720 pixel, 260PPI resolution is nothing to complain about, but it’s just far too dull. It maxes out at 400 nits, which is fine for reading an article where full brightness isn’t necessary but is noticeably dark for watching videos and — despite being called the Go — unusable outdoors. You don’t need to compare it to the incredible screen on the iPad to see it’s not up to snuff.However, OnePlus has a good thing going here, and for the right person, this is the best tablet you could buy in this category — particularly for the price. If you just want something to read articles and emails on the couch, and perhaps listen to music on its speakers, it’s an obvious buy over the iPad. But the screen brightness would annoy me every time I used it, and I hope they bump the quality for a second gen, even if it increases the price. If they want to pull in more customers, they should also offer it in more colors than green.OnePlus Tab Go. Courtesy of OnePlus

The OnePlus Tab Go Is the iPad Air Competitor To Buy — if You Can Overlook Its One Flaw

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