OnePlus Pad 3 review: strong iPad Pro competiton at a great price!

Phone Arena

a day ago

OnePlus has returned to the premium Android tablet scene with the new OnePlus Pad 3 – its most powerful and feature-packed slate yet. Building on its predecessor, the Pad 2, this third-generation device pushes the envelope with an even larger, 13.2" display, cutting-edge Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, new software features, and reworked accessories. However, are all the changes OnePlus has made for the better?
The star of the show is the 13.2' LCD display – OnePlus's largest and sharpest yet. I know what you're thinking: LCD, seriously? I wouldn't be concerned about that, however, as the LCD displays OnePlus employs for the Pad line are pretty great. With a 7:5 aspect ratio and a spectacular 3.4K resolution, this screen is amazing for for multitasking, media consumption, and productivity. But what's equally impressive is the humongous battery packed into the thin chassis. Despite measuring under 6mm in thickness, the OnePlus Pad 3 houses top-tier internals, including an enormous 12,140mAh battery, which OnePlus argues is strong enough to start a car!
The OnePlus Pad 3 is priced competitively considering its powerful hardware, capable software features, and the available accessories. The price starts at just $699 – much lower than Samsung and Apple's $1000+ premium tablet offerings. And, the great news is, you can also score some lovely deals (like a free Smart Keyboard case) if you pre-order early. Let's take a closer look at what makes this Android tablet a true heavyweight contender in 2025.
Design
Display
Camera
Performance
Software
Battery
Audio
Summary
At just 5.97mm thick, the OnePlus Pad 3 is the thinnest tablet OnePlus has ever made – and among the slimmest on the market. However, it's definitely not the lightest one with its 675g. I used the OnePlus Pad 2 for a quite a while, and one of the few things I didn't enjoy about it was the considerable weight of about 580g. While I hoped OnePlus will make the Pad 3 lighter, it's sadly gone in the opposite direction, adding another inch to the screen and another 90 grams or so to the weight.
Aside from that, the design is modern, sleek and minimalist, and this year it comes in two colors: Storm Blue and Frosted Silver (the latter being India-exclusive). The Storm Blue color is rather original and good-looking.
The bezels are sufficiently slim, and the rear camera has been moved to the corner, giving it a more conventional and modern look. This is a change I definitely welcome, because the center-positioned rear camera of the OnePlus Pad 2 made it difficult to write on with the stylus, due to all the unpleasant wobbling. This problem is now reduced to a minimum, thanks to the rear camera's new position in the corner.
As expected from a premium tablet, there's a hardware keyboard accessory available (costs $200). It's very similar to last year's model, where there's a magnetic back cover that doubles as a kick-stand, and an attachable keyboard part. While the Pad 2's keyboard accessory attached seamlessly and without any interference with the magnetic back cover, this is not the case with the new accessory for the Pad 3 – where attaching the keyboard is a bit more fiddly. It's the same thing that Huawei did with its keyboard for the MatePad Pro 13.2, where you need to slightly open the kickstand, in order to slide in the magnetic attachment of the keyboard. I'm not sure what necessitated this downgrade, but it's there.
The hardware Smart Keyboard also has a large trackpad, which has great response and fluid tracking. Its pointer acceleration (to the extent there's acceleration at all) feels a bit weird, but it's not too bad and not hard to get used to. I think it's best for tablet manufacturers to tune these trackpads in a way that would make pointer behavior similar to what users experience on Windows and Mac – this will make switching between the tablet and a PC feel way more natural. Unfortunately, there is no support for two-finger tap to call up the context menu (i.e. a right mouse click). If the hardware keyboard case is overkill for you, there's a simpler cover case of the origami type ($50) – you can manipulate it in various ways to achieve different viewing angles.
The OnePlus Stylo 2 stylus returns this year, which isn't the best news, because the writing experience with the Stylo 2 on the Pad 2 wasn't up to the best standards in terms of response and accuracy. Having tested the Stylo 2 with the OnePlus Pad 3 now, I feel like accuracy has been improved a little, but writing with it just isn't as responsive as it should be, especially on such a high-performance, 144Hz display. Apple's Pencil, Samsung's S-Pen and Huawei's M-Pencil all feel more responsive compared to the OnePlus Stylo 2. At $100, the Stylo 2 isn't a bad option – it'll definitely get the job done, but it'll take some getting used to, which isn't ideal.
The OnePlus Pad 3 features a truly massive 13.2' LCD display with a 3392 x 2400 resolution and a balanced 7:5 aspect ratio, which makes it neither too wide, nor too squarish – great for a variety of scenarios like multitasking, working with documents and watching movies. With 12-bit color, vibrant color gamut and a 144Hz adaptive refresh rate, this screen is both beautiful and easy on the eyes. While it's not OLED, the display looks excellent, and the high brightness of up to 900 nits in high brightness mode makes it very usable in bright environments.
Cameras aren't the main focus here, but is there even such a thing nowadays as a device without at least 2 or 3 cameras on board? With the OnePlus Pad 3, you get a 13MP rear camera with support for 4K video recording at 30fps, and an 8MP front camera for selfies and meetings. The selfies camera maxes out at 1080p / 30fps for video.
While not groundbreaking, the camera setup is perfectly functional for the tablet's use cases. Both the rear camera and the selfie one perform very well, especially in good lighting conditions. The video footage from the selfie camera is workable, but I expected a bit more out of it.
Powering the OnePlus Pad 3 is the Snapdragon 8 Elite – Qualcomm's most powerful chip to date. And it screams! It easily surpasses Samsung's chipset of choice for the Tab S10 Ultra, the Dimensity 9300+. Only Apple's hyper-powerful M4 chipset pulls ahead of the 8 Elite.Coupled with either 12GB or 16GB of fast LPDDR5T RAM (depending on whether you get the 256 or 512 storage options), I didn't notice any serious performance issues. OnePlus has also worked on improving the tablet's cooling, reporting lower temperatures while gaming. Higher performance and lower temperatures, that's what I call a win-win!
The Pad 3 runs OxygenOS 15 (Tablet Edition), which brings several tablet-optimized features like the fan-favorite Open Canvas for multitasking, and smart split-screen suggestions. The latter feature subtly suggests that you might want to use split-screen mode, in case you happen to be frequently shifting between two different apps. OnePlus' Android platform is sleek, swift, and satisfyingly customizable – definitely one of the more polished Android tablet experiences. AI features also take the spotlight this year, but you knew that already. There's an AI Toolbox that helps with writing, translating, and summarizing documents. You can also 'Circle to Search' on any screen and quickly launch Google Gemini via holding the power key or the dedicated AI key on the keyboard accessory.Adapting the functionality we first saw on the Oppo Find N5, OnePlus has also added file-sharing and remote control features for better integration with Mac computers. OnePlus Pad 3 Battery
The OnePlus Pad 3 features a massive 12,140mAh battery – the largest ever in a OnePlus device. It supports 80W SUPERVOOC charging, going from 0 to 100% in just over 90 minutes, which is faster than the competition – only the Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 comes close in this aspect. The PhoneArena Battery Test reveals a rather respectable showing on the OnePlus Pad 3's part. The tablet's results in video and gaming battery life are absolutely competitive against the top-tier iPad Pro or Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra. Where it really shines is the general use / browsing test, where it smokes the competition with a result of 15 hours.
OnePlus Pad 3 Audio quality
Audio is another area where OnePlus has stepped things up. With a total of eight speakers – four woofers and four tweeters – the Pad 3 delivers truly impressive stereo sound! The OnePlus Pad 3 speakers manage to output incredibly deep tones, with a nice, heavy, deep bass. They are also quite powerful, so you can definitely have fun listening to music on these. They are even probably a bit too bass-heavy when on max volume, which is great, because it means that at moderate volumes, the sound will feel just right, and most of the time you won't be listening at max volume. The speakers could benefit from a tiny bit of clarity, but this can easily be achieved with some very light EQ. I'm nitpicking, of course, the audio performance is very convincing right out of the box. This is also great from gaming perspective, as even if you aren't using earbuds, the experience will still be very satisfying and immersive with these speakers.
The OnePlus Pad 3 is absolutely one of the best and most polished premium Android tablets around. From its sharp, massive display and powerful performance to the useful accessories and welcome AI features, it covers all the bases for both play and productivity.
There are still some minor quirks, such as the imposing weight and the Stylo 2 pen, which is in need of a revamp, but the value proposition is definitely strong here, especially at the price of $699. If you want a big-screen Android tablet with flagship power and smart extras, the OnePlus Pad 3 belongs at the top of your list.