OnePlus Pad

OnePlus' first tablet is an absolute stormer. It combines a reasonable price point with snappy performance, excellent battery life, a great display and speakers and a lovely design. We think it’s one of the best Android tablets you can buy.

Xiaomi Pad 5

The Xiaomi Pad 5 impressed us in almost every regard, it has superb battery life, a nice 120Hz display and an attractive and slender design. Its performance isn’t quite up there with OnePlus, but at its current price, it’s an excellent deal.

The OnePlus Pad has finally arrived, and it’s an impressive debut, with some stand-out features that are a first for this product category, including an unusual 7:5 screen ratio.

The question is, how does it fare against the competition? We’ve dug into the specs to see how it compares to a formidable rival, theXiaomi Pad 5.

Xiaomi’s tablet is arguably the best Android-basediPadalternative in its price range, offering great performance, a gorgeous display, and an attractive price point.

Let’s take a look at how they compare.

Specs, availability and price

The Xiaomi Pad 5 has been around for a while now, we first got our hands on it in October 2021, and it’s available in most regions at a price of around $389. The OnePlus Pad is currently available to preorder from OnePlus at a price of $479 and should be shipping around mid-May.

The OnePlus Pad has a more premium design, with an all-aluminium CNC machined back, whereas the Xiaomi Pad 5 has a plastic rear and an iPhone-eqsque aluminium bumper.

However, the OnePlus pad’s design is more distinctive, which could limit its appeal somewhat. It’s only available in a colourway that the brand calls Halo Green, with a circular pattern that radiates from the tablet’s central camera module.

The Xiaomi Pad 5, on the other hand, plays it safer with simple dark grey and white colour choices. We’re quite fond of the OnePlus Pad’s design, but we can equally imagine people being turned off by the colour. In that scenario, the best you can hope for is a case that will cover it up.

Both tablets are pretty lightweight, especially considering their size. With only 10 grams difference in weight, in practice, you’re unlikely to notice a difference.

Display and speakers

The OnePlus Pad is the first tablet to feature a screen with an almost-square 7:5 aspect ratio. OnePlus calls it ReadFit, and says that it offers the best reading experience of any tablet, owing to the additional height. This means that whether you’re browsing the web or reading an ebook, the OnePlus Pad should be able to fit more information on the screen.

The Xiaomi Pad 5 has a more traditional 16:10 aspect ratio, and while it won’t have the same benefits mentioned above, it will make better use of the screen during video playback - as 16:9 content will have smaller black bars.

The OnePlus Pad is also the first tablet to feature a speedy 144Hz refresh rate display, which will make system navigation buttery smooth as well as improve gaming experiences. That said, the Xiaomi Pad 5 is no slouch, either, offering 120Hz, which will give much of the same experience.

Both displays support HDR content andDolby Visionplayback, and both tablets have quad speaker arrays, which supportDolby Atmostoo. The OnePlus has the edge with audio, though, as its proprietary Omnibearing Sound Field tech automatically adjusts the left and right channels to match the display orientation. The speakers offer great clarity, and a surprising amount of bass response, too.

Hardware and specs

The OnePlus Pad offers far superior performance to the Xiaomi Pad 5. The MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC is much faster than the humble Snapdragon 860, and it’s a bit more efficient as well.

This means that the OnePlus Pad is far better suited for running graphically intensive Android games, and feels a bit more snappy and responsive overall. OnePlus has also put a lot of effort into battery management, and you may leave it on standby for a whole month without draining the battery, which is not the case with the Pad 5.

When it comes to the battery capacity and charging speed, the upcoming OnePlus is again victorious. It has a significantly larger battery pack and also benefits from67W SuperVOOCcharging, compared to 33W on the Xiaomi Pad 5. It’s worth noting, though, that no charger is included in the box, at least in the UK, so you might need to shell out for a compatible charger.

Accessories

With both devices, the accessories are sold as optional extras. The Xiaomi Smart Pen retails for €99.90/£89 and the keyboard cover, which doesn’t seem to be in stock anywhere in Europe, will also cost around the €100 mark. The OnePlus Stylo is sold for a similar price, costing $99 in the US or £99 in the UK. The magnetic keyboard cover goes for $149.

It’s worth noting, however, that there are special OnePlus Pad preorder discounts that allow you to either claim a free accessory or get serious money off, depending on your region. You’ll need to be quick, though, as we can’t imagine these deals continuing when the Pad hits general sale.

We haven’t been able to test the Xiaomi accessories ourselves, but we can say that the OnePlus accessories are quite impressive. We especially enjoyed using the stylus, but the keyboard is definitely useful when you need to get some work done. In either case, the accessories offer roughly the same functionality and are priced fairly similarly.

Conclusion

The OnePlus Pad is the superior performer, but it also costs significantly more than the Xiaomi Pad 5. If you have demanding workloads, or you like to use a tablet for gaming, we’d certainly steer you in that direction.

Source: OnePlus

However, the Xiaomi Pad 5 is still an extremely capable tablet, and at a price of €399 / £369, it’s pretty great value, too. If you’re on a tighter budget, we’re sure that you’d be pleased with the Xiaomi tablet, it’s almost certainly the best performer in its price range.

As always, the right tablet for you depends entirely on your needs. If you’ll mainly be using your tablet to watch videos, you might prefer the Xiaomi Pad 5, with its 16:10 display. However, if you’re gaming or video editing, the extra horsepower and higher specifications of the OnePlus Pad will be worth the extra outlay.