Is the Oppo Pad Air the Budget Tablet King?
The Indian market is flooded with budget tablets, but most are focused on providing big displays and batteries at the expense of performance. However, the recent pandemic has shifted tablets from mere media consumption devices to essential tools for learning, video conferencing, and more. The Oppo Pad Air, Oppo’s first tablet in India, seeks to stand out by offering superior build quality and a focus on style. But with so much competition, is it enough to capture the hearts of budget-conscious consumers? We’ve put the Oppo Pad Air through its paces, and here’s our in-depth verdict.
A Premium Look on a Budget
The Oppo Pad Air punches above its weight when it comes to design. It feels substantial and well-built, suggesting it can withstand the occasional drop. The sleek unibody construction boasts a metal case with an attractive anodized finish that surprisingly isn’t slippery. The flattened sides with rounded corners add to its elegant look, and there are no sharp edges to irritate your hands.
At only 440g, it’s remarkably lightweight and compact for its 10.36-inch display, making it easy to handle with one hand. The only protrusion is the camera, which doesn’t make the tablet wobble on flat surfaces. A plastic strip across the back with a wave-like pattern adds visual interest and improves signal reception.
The display is framed by thin bezels, with rounded corners that match the tablet’s frame. Four speaker grilles on each side provide impressive audio, and a USB Type-C port sits on the right edge. While Oppo offers a Life Smart Stylus Pen as a separate accessory (at Rs. 3,999), the Pad Air is only available as a Wi-Fi model, leaving no need for a SIM card slot.
Under the Hood: Performance and Features
Powering the Oppo Pad Air is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 SoC, built upon a 6nm fabrication process. The combination of 4GB LPDDR4X RAM and up to 128GB UFS 2.2 storage provides ample space for apps and data, with expandable storage supported for cards up to 512GB.
Oppo also includes a 3GB of extended RAM feature, which, while theoretically improving multitasking, did not drastically enhance performance in our experience.
Connectivity options are standard for a budget tablet, including Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.1, but GPS is absent (relying on Wi-Fi connectivity for positioning). The tablet also features basic sensors, including an accelerometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope, and magnetometer. While it lacks a fingerprint reader, a 2D face unlock system is included but proved unreliable in our tests.
The Oppo Pad Air operates on ColorOS 12.1, based on Android 12. The software feels familiar to anyone using Oppo’s smartphones, and surprisingly, Oppo has included an array of static and dynamic wallpapers. However, these wallpapers can be resource-intensive.
Additional customization options include a wallpaper color-picking feature, automatically matching the interface’s accent color, widgets, and keyboard to the selected wallpaper. While impressive for a budget tablet, ColourOS consumes about 14GB of internal storage (plus up to 3GB of extended RAM), leaving just 47GB for apps, games, and photos.
Multitasking: A Mixed Bag
Oppo has integrated a Floating window feature, allowing you to open supported apps in a smaller, resizable window alongside a full-screen app. While this works well on the Pad Air, it’s limited to just one floating app at a time. There is also a Dual windows feature for split-screen functionality, but the window size cannot be adjusted manually. It works reliably when initiated from the recents menu.
Performance-wise, the Pad Air delivers decent, albeit expectedly slow, software performance with occasional lag. Multitasking is a bit of a struggle, even with the expanded RAM feature, as every fourth app retrieved from the recents menu requires restarting. However, these apps load quickly.
Benchmarks and Gaming
Benchmark results were unsurprisingly unimpressive, especially in graphics tests. The Oppo Pad Air achieved 2,53,080 points in AnTuTu and 384 and 1,618 points in Geekbench’s single and multi-core tests respectively. GFXBench scores were notably underwhelming, registering 37fps, 14fps, and 7.6fps in the T-Rex, Manhattan 3.1, and Car Chase tests respectively.
While the Pad Air isn’t aimed at gamers, we did test Asphalt 9: Legends. At default settings, textures appeared pixelated, and the game was playable but suffered from skipped frames and stuttering. Casual games like Subway Surfers ran smoother.
Displaying the Good and the Bad
The Oppo Pad Air sports a 10.36-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 2,000×1,200 pixels, a pleasantly high resolution compared to many budget tablets that offer 720p panels. The display provides decent sharpness, with text and images looking good indoors. Colors appear natural, but the display struggles under direct sunlight, leading to washed-out colors and a reflective cover glass.
The Widevine L1 certification enables full-HD video playback on the Pad Air, with standard definition content looking sharp. However, black levels don’t live up to expectations. The quad-speaker system proves its worth with loud, impressive audio, negating the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Taking Pictures: A Missed Opportunity
Camera performance is underwhelming on the 8-megapixel rear camera. Pictures appear dull and lack detail even in daylight. The 5-megapixel selfie camera performs better, making it sufficient for video calls. Video recording quality from the primary camera is disappointingly poor.
Battery Life and Charging
The Oppo Pad Air houses a 7,100mAh battery, which easily lasts for a day and a half of moderate usage, extending to up to two days with mostly offline movie watching. In our HD video loop test, the Pad Air lasted an impressive 18 hours and 40 minutes.
Charging with the included 18W charger takes about two hours and 34 minutes.
The Verdict: A Solid but Not Spectacular Budget Tablet
Oppo’s debut in the Indian tablet market with the Oppo Pad Air is a respectable attempt. It delivers average everyday performance at a reasonable price point, boasting good build quality. The absence of 4G/LTE connectivity and a headphone jack might be deal-breakers for some, but the expandable memory and 128GB storage option compensate.
The Oppo Pad Air fits the bill if your needs are confined to movies, web browsing, and social media, but it’s not a suitable choice for demanding gaming or productivity tasks.
However, the Realme Pad, offering comparable features and form factor at a lower price point, including a 4G/LTE variant, makes it tough for the Oppo Pad Air to stand out. The Lenovo Yoga Tab 11 represents a more expensive option but boasts a fantastic design with a built-in kickstand, and superb speakers for an immersive entertainment experience. Ultimately, the best choice depends on your budget and priorities.
