OnePlus has launched the Pad 3, the first tablet outside of China powered by the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. It’s been upsized since the Pad 2, with a larger 13.2-inch display, but that’s allowed OnePlus to make it impressively thin at just 5.97mm.
That big screen is LCD, rather than OLED, but the 144Hz refresh rate and 3.4K resolution are impressive. Combined with a keyboard and stylus — sold separately — it should make the Pad 3 running Android 15 a pretty capable laptop replacement. It’s a bit less portable than its predecessor thanks to the bigger screen and an extra 90g (around 3oz) of weight, though that’s offset by the fact that it’s actually thinner than the latest iPad Air, albeit not quite as slender as the 13-inch iPad Pro, which is double the price.
The 8 Elite is backed up by 256GB of storage and either 12GB or 16GB of RAM, with a fairly sizable 12,140mAh battery. 80W wired charging should fully charge the tablet in a little over an hour and a half. OnePlus has also tweaked the tablet’s rear design, ditching the central, circular camera that was a bit of an eyesore on the first two generations in favor of a simpler pill-shaped module in one corner.
The other big changes are on the software side. OnePlus has leaned into its popular take on multitasking, upgrading it with streamlined split-screening and smoother ways to drag and drop. OnePlus phone owners will also benefit from direct file-sharing between their devices, smarter notification syncing, and data sharing that allows the tablet to piggyback on your phone’s connection, but only when it needs data — theoretically saving phone battery life compared to leaving a hotspot on the whole time.
The O Plus Connect software I saw on the Oppo Find N5 foldable is also included here. That means easy wireless file transfers between the tablet and a Mac or Windows PC, though Mac owners get an extra bonus: direct remote control of their Mac from the Pad 3. That really could make this a laptop replacement, though bear in mind that OnePlus says all these software features are coming to the Pad 2 eventually, too. As for the Pad 3’s updates, it’s been promised three generations of OS updates and six years of security support.
The Pad 3 is available to order now in the UK and Europe, hitting shelves on June 19th. It costs €599 / £529 (about $685) for a model with 12GB of RAM, rising to €699 / £599 ($800) for 16GB. The Smart Keyboard costs €169 / £169 ($193), and the Stylo 2 is €99 / £99 ($113). It’s set for a US release too, but we won’t know the price until later today.
