OPPO Pad 2 all-round tablet review: audio and video, entertainment, light office, all in one

In 2010, the tablet computer was born under the conception of Steve Jobs. Amid the public's ridicule of the "large iPhone", the iPad opened up a new battlefield between mobile phones and PCs with its advantages in web browsing, email, video, games, and e-books.

However, it should be noted that at that time, the screen size of smartphones was still very small, and laptops were still very thick and heavy. Later, as the size of smartphones continued to break through, ultra-thin laptops became more and more portable, and the situation of tablets was once a little embarrassing.

However, the positioning of tablet computers is expected to be redefined. As the software and hardware ecosystem is gradually improving, tablet computers not only have a greater advantage in audio and video entertainment, but can also replace traditional PCs in many light office scenarios. For students and practitioners in the writing and creative industries, the rich software and unique hardware can even make the tablet experience far better than laptops, becoming a "magic tool" to improve efficiency and bringing consumers a new learning, work, and entertainment experience.

As one of the top five smartphone brands in the world, OPPO has a very clear strategic layout for tablet computers. Its fifth smart screen will be a key link in leading users into the "Internet of Everything" ecosystem. Under the positioning of "not seeking speed" and "not seeking to make money", it will continue to strengthen its product strength in scenarios such as audio and video, cross-terminal interconnection, and light office.

So, given the current technological capabilities, what should an "all-round" tablet look like?

On March 21, OPPO officially released its third tablet computer, OPPO Pad 2, in an attempt to once again break users' inherent perception of Android tablets. It not only significantly improved the hardware configuration and performance, bringing a more comprehensive smart touch keyboard, but also strengthened the tablet's cross-terminal interconnection capabilities at the software level, allowing users to deal with complex scenarios more easily.

So, what upgrades and evolutions has this OPPO "all-round" tablet had, and in what scenarios can it replace PCs and smartphones? Fortunately, we got the OPPO Pad 2 media review machine, so let's take a look.

Star track rotation, light and thin body highlights the design aesthetics

As usual, let’s start with the packaging.

OPPO Pad 2 uses a white, simple flat packaging, and the silver metal star-track matte pattern on the front is also the design theme of the OPPO Pad 2 back panel.

It is worth mentioning that the color of the cover product does not correspond to the real product. The OPPO Pad 2 in my hand is in Light Feather Gold color, but the cover host is in Nebula Gray color.

After unpacking, the OPPO Pad 2 is quietly lying inside, with an 11.61-inch full screen that is quite visually impactful. The front of the OPPO Pad 2 adopts a full screen design with equal width on all four sides, which looks very good.

Take out the host, and you will find a 67W VOOC flash charging power adapter and a Type-C data cable randomly attached to the bottom.

The back design is a highlight of OPPO Pad 2. The all-metal integrated body with exclusive star-track matte process has a delicate texture and is not easily stained with fingerprints.

The thickness of OPPO Pad 2 is only 6.54mm, and the weight is 552g, which is very light and thin for a tablet of this size. The 2.5D grinding glass and the fit of the frame make it very comfortable to hold.

During the review process, I held the OPPO Pad 2 for a long time to play games, and it didn’t feel uncomfortable or heavy at all. It even feels better than some phones with right-angle metal frames. I won’t name them!

Judging from the direction of the front camera placed on the side and the logo on the back panel, it is not difficult to find that the official believes that OPPO Pad 2 is a tablet computer that can be used horizontally and is positioned as a productivity tool.

Golden ratio, large screen area helps efficient office work  

I wonder if you have noticed the screen ratio of this tablet. Is it a bit weird?

If so, then you are right, because this is the 7:5 golden ratio that OPPO Pad 2 pioneered on a tablet. This ratio is closer to common paper carriers. Compared with other 16:10 screens of the same size, the display area is increased by nearly 10%.

For rectangles with the same diagonals, the closer the proportions are to a square, the larger the area. This is a simple mathematical principle.

Therefore, when you open a table, document or web page in landscape mode on the OPPO Pad 2, more content can be displayed above and below.

In addition, when playing games such as "Honor of Kings", you can also display an extra part of the map up and down, which is a physical plug-in!

The screen has a resolution of 2.8K and displays clear and delicate images. The PPI reaches 296, which is retina level. In professional mode, it has undergone movie-level color adjustment, has 10-bit 1.07 billion colors, covers 97.4 of the DCI-P3 movie color gamut, △E<2, and has extremely high color accuracy.

OPPO Pad 2 also supports an ultra-high refresh rate of 144Hz, which is compatible with many mainstream popular games.

For example, games such as "Cross Fire" and "Brawl Stars" already support 144Hz high refresh rate, and games such as "Honor of Kings", "Game for Peace", and "Minecraft" are adapted to 120Hz high refresh rate.

This screen has been doubly certified by Germany's TÜV Rheinland and the National Ophthalmology Engineering Center. The low blue light eye protection can effectively reduce eye fatigue. Official data shows that it supports 2048 levels of intelligent backlight adjustment, and the automatic adjustment function can adapt to different lighting environments.

To be honest, the quality of this screen is far superior to many so-called gaming monitors. It’s really too curly!

In terms of sound, OPPO Pad 2 is equipped with four symmetrical stereo speakers, which have excellent performance in all frequency bands, clear layers and wide sound field. It supports Dolby Atmos technology and Dolby Audio decoding, which can bring excellent sense of presence and immersion when listening to music and watching movies.

Whether it is volume or sound quality, for a mobile device, OPPO Pad 2 has excellent performance. When you use OPPO Pad 2 to watch "iQiyi" after work, it will definitely meet your expectations for mobile audio and video entertainment.

Flagship Dimensity, powerful performance that can be both salty and sweet

For users who buy the device with “productivity” in mind, how does OPPO Pad 2 perform?

First of all, in terms of performance, OPPO Pad 2 is equipped with Dimensity 9000 chip, using UFS3.1 flash memory + LPDDR5 high-speed memory

And with the 4nm advanced process, the main frequency of the super core reaches 3.05GHz.

We have tested this chip many times in other devices. I believe that friends who are familiar with the digital circle will not be unfamiliar with it. Its performance can easily handle daily office and even heavy gaming scenarios.

When testing the high refresh rate of the screen, OPPO Pad 2 achieved an ultra-high refresh rate without compromising on game quality and resolution.

In "Honor of Kings", OPPO Pad 2 can enable ultra-high frame rate, ultra-high resolution and water surface reflection effect. Enter the game, adjust the buttons in the operation interface closer to the edge, and this 11.61-inch tablet can play "Honor of Kings" happily.

The game feel is not uncomfortable or abrupt. In actual game experience, the game frame rate can be stabilized at around 120 frames. In fierce team battles, the frame rate may drop to 80 or 90 frames, but the game experience is not unsmooth or stuck. And after continuous testing for many times, the back of the tablet is only slightly warm.

MediaTek, YSE!

The powerful performance makes OPPO Pad 2 both salty and sweet, and is also crucial for productivity.

OPPO Pad 2's ColorOS has been optimized for large tablet screens. It supports multi-tasking functions such as floating windows, small windows, split screens, etc., and can be operated through simple gestures such as two-finger swipe down and four-finger pinch, fully unleashing the production potential of the large screen.

Users can display four window pages on one screen at the same time, making it easier to deal with complex office scenarios.

In addition, OPPO Pad 2 also released a matching "Smart Touch Keyboard", which does not require additional pairing and power supply, and can be used directly by magnetic suction. The keyboard connection can directly wake up the tablet.

This keyboard is made of ultra-clear aviation foam material and weighs only 360g. When combined with a tablet, it is much lighter and thinner than a thin and light laptop. You won’t feel burdened at all when taking it out for entertainment or work.

The keyboard feels light, and due to its size the key travel is short, but the feel is clear and distinct, and you can quickly get started after a simple adaptation.

The touchpad measures 81.3x43.0mm, and can realize global touch and ColorOS's special gestures. You no longer need to raise your hand frequently to control the touch screen, which greatly improves your work efficiency!

Of course, there is another reason why tablet computers are popular among students and white-collar workers today, which is because stylus pens are more convenient and practical than keyboards.

The stylus is also present on the OPPO Pad 2.

OPPO Pad 2 supports an ultra-low latency smart stylus, and its packaging adopts the same style as the host. The smart stylus is pearl white in color and has a matte texture.

The side of the pen is relatively flat, making it easy to magnetically attach it to the side of OPPO Pad 2 for pairing and wireless charging.

The front end of the stylus supports double-clicking, which can be set to switch erasers, or bring up color palettes and other functions.

The OPPO Pad 2 smart stylus supports 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity, with a latency as low as 2ms. It supports 0-60 degree side-edge writing, and the tilt can adjust the line effect, making it closer to real strokes.

If you happen to have a smartphone running ColorOS 13.1 or above, you can also experience OPPO's seamless communication sharing function. After the mobile phone and OPPO Pad 2 are logged in to the same account, they do not need to be in the same local area network. As long as the mobile phone is nearby, the tablet can seamlessly connect to the mobile phone's 5G network and share the mobile phone's communication function, enabling Internet access, making and receiving calls, sending and receiving text messages, and receiving mobile phone application push messages.

I use a tablet to entertain my office. When I receive a message on my phone, I can process it directly on the OPPO Pad 2. I don’t need to take out my phone frequently to check messages. (I won’t tell you that many times when I received a call while writing, I would spend half an hour browsing Zhihu and Weibo!)

In addition, with OPPO's seamless communication sharing function, you can use 5G "iQiyi" and "productivity" anytime and anywhere when you are out and about without Wi-Fi. And compared to simply connecting to a mobile phone hotspot, OPPO's seamless communication sharing can reduce power consumption by about 30%. You no longer have to worry about the embarrassment of taking your tablet out and turning on the hotspot but the phone is out of power first.

In terms of battery life, OPPO Pad 2 has a large 9510mAh battery packed into its thin and light body. Official data shows that under normal conditions, you can watch 1080P high-definition movies on Bilibili while playing barrage, and you can achieve up to 16 hours of worry-free viewing.

In actual tests, when playing the 4K high-bitrate movie "Your Name" on Bilibili, with the brightness and volume set to medium and barrage turned on, the 106-minute movie was finished and the battery level dropped from 90% to 75%, with a battery consumption of 15%. It can be calculated that a full battery can provide about 12 hours of playback; "Honor of Kings" was turned on to the highest level of supported special effects, a multiplayer match lasted about 12 minutes, and the battery consumption was 3-4%. A full battery can provide about 5-6 hours of gaming; "PUBG Mobile" also had the highest special effects turned on, a game lasted about 30 minutes, and consumed about 10% of the battery, so a full battery can provide about 5 hours of gaming.

In terms of charging, the OPPO Pad 2 is equipped with a 67W charger. Starting from the low power shutdown, it takes 5 minutes to charge 12% and 10 minutes to charge 23%. It takes 26 minutes to charge to 50%, 52 minutes to charge to 80%, and a total of 1 hour and 22 minutes to fully charge.

Summarize

To sum up, OPPO Pad 2 is a high-performance, high-value, multi-functional flagship tablet with an ultimate audio-visual experience and powerful office capabilities. It is very suitable for people who pursue mobile audio-visual entertainment or have light office needs.

Compared with expensive flagship phones, OPPO Pad 2 can provide a more powerful audio-visual gaming experience, as well as more practical split-screen multitasking capabilities. It can also provide productivity that replaces PCs to some extent. If you feel that your old phone is a bit weak recently, or plan to buy a thin and light office notebook, or are simply considering whether you need a tablet, OPPO Pad 2 is worth considering. Because nowadays, a good tablet can really replace smartphones and PCs to a large extent.

Judging from the current sales trends of PCs, tablets, and smartphones, in the near future, PCs may become dedicated equipment for specific medium-computing industries, becoming increasingly distant from ordinary consumers, while tablets will become increasingly popular in office, design, entertainment, the Internet of Things and other fields.

From the current perspective, with the advantages of the smartphone ecosystem, tablets already have advantages far beyond PCs in audio and video entertainment and mobile games, and already have the hardware foundation to carry more complex functions, but they are still slightly behind in the adaptation of professional software.

However, brands such as OPPO and Apple are gradually changing the public's perception of tablets. I believe that with the joint efforts of sincere products such as OPPO Pad 2, we will soon say goodbye to those bulky and difficult-to-use laptops and desktops.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.