For the last week, I’ve been testing the new OnePlus Pad Go 2, a reasonably low-cost new Android tablet which was announced alongside the OnePlus 15R. I’ve spent that time watching movies, gaming, and browsing YouTube – like most of the best Android tablets that don’t break the bank, entertainment users are the target audience here.
Just as the phone is a cheaper alternative to the OnePlus 15, the Pad Go 2 lets you enjoy some of the tablety goodness that the OnePlus Pad 3 offered earlier in 2025, but at a lower price. The Pad Go 2 price starts at $399.99 for the 8GB + 128GB model, which is $50 more expensive than the base iPad – although the OnePlus slate does offer up a bigger screen.
A few specs have been downgraded, but the fun apparently hasn’t; the tablet has quickly replaced my iPad Pro as the device I pick up when I want a quick game.
In part that’s because of the tablet’s own merits: its mid-range processor handles all of the titles I want it to, its screen looks pretty good and the quad speakers mean I don’t need to rely on Bluetooth headphones. But the Pad Go 2 beats the iPad in a few ways too; it’s lighter and so is easier to hold for long firefights, has a wider aspect ratio to give my battles a cinematic quality, and costs a lot less.
I’m still working on my full OnePlus Pad Go 2 review, but a week of testing has given me plenty of insights into how well it works. So before the full analysis is complete, let’s Go 2 see how well it handles its gaming and entertainment:
How the OnePlus Pad Go 2 runs games
The OnePlus Pad Go 2 packs MediaTek’s Dimensity 7300 Ultra chipset, paired with 8GB RAM and either 128GB storage (in the Wi-Fi model) or 256GB (in the 5G version).
This is a relatively new component, but we’ve seen its variants (including the Energy and suffix-less 7300) in the likes of the Motorola Edge 60, Poco X7, Oppo Reno 12 and Realme 14 Pro. Having enjoyed gaming on multiple of those handsets, I knew what to expect with the new tablet: enough power to play most games if you don’t need to bump all the settings up to ‘max’, but corners cut to ensure the gadget’s price remains cheap.
To double-check, I ran some benchmark tests, and received similar scores to those on phones I’d tested with the chip. These back up what I’d expected: this tablet offers middling amounts of power, well shy of premium slates (including the Pad 3), but a lot more than budget alternatives.
Because I’m a diligent tester, I went the extra mile and played a few different games on the Pad Go 2 including PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty: Mobile, Total War: Medieval II and the recent mobile port of Red Dead Redemption. I rarely witnessed any kind of stuttering or lagging that affected gameplay, and it felt buttery smooth. I could even enjoy higher graphics settings on certain titles without it taxing the tablet.
While the OnePlus Pad Go 2 doesn’t offer anywhere near the amount of processing power as the iPad Pro – or any modern iPad, or some of the top-end Android slates you can find – you often get diminishing returns with increased processing power. I rarely found myself wanting more juice.
The OnePlus Pad Go 2 is easy on the arms
Having become accustomed to my iPad Pro 12.9 for gaming, I was surprised by how light the OnePlus tab felt to pick up. Weighing 597g for the Wi-Fi model, or 2g more for 5G, it undercuts my similar-sized iPad by a good 80g.
This extra degree of portability made it easier to hold for extended gaming sessions. I’m not a controller user; as you can probably tell from my selection of games, I like using the touch controls and making the most of the screen real estate. So it’s important to me that I can hold the slate with one hand while tapping with the other, for long periods of time, and the OnePlus delivered.
I used the tablet alongside a sold-separately stylus and protective folio, and the latter went some way towards masking the fact that the Pad Go 2 doesn’t do much to differentiate itself from myriad other Android slates design-wise. It’s a large chocolate bar with a screen and some buttons around the edge.
The carry case has perhaps the weakest magnetic clasp I’ve ever seen, and when I put the stylus in the case’s holster, it blocked the volume buttons. Thankfully, I’m not reviewing the accessories.
Watching on the OnePlus Pad Go 2
The display is slightly smaller than an iPad’s, measuring 12.1 inches, with a wider and narrower aspect ratio of 7:5. I personally prefer the wide-screen look for gaming and movies, making content look more cinematic and removing onerous letterboxing. That’s all a matter of taste, though.
What’s not taste-dependent is the 2800 x 1980 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate, which give you more pixels and smoother motions than certain other affordable Android tablets.
I would’ve liked to see a higher max brightness than 600 nits, though; LCD panels like the one the OnePlus Pad Go 2 use, often struggle with color saturation and intensity, and bright panels can go some way in offsetting this.
There’s no getting around the fact that the Pad Go 2 doesn’t offer HDR, HDR10+ or a wide color gamut, but that’s forgivable for the price. If you’re picky about your tablet screen, though, many other options have OLED.
How long the tablet lasts
I was surprised to see that the OnePlus Pad Go 2 only supports 33W charging speed. OnePlus is a pioneer in fast charging, offering 120W powering on the OnePlus 15 and 80W on the Pad 3, but the new slate stays in the shallows alongside its predecessor. That’s despite a 45W charger coming in the box.
On more than one occasion, that meant I’d be twiddling my thumbs waiting for the tablet to charge if I wanted to game; for certain intensive titles, that speed barely offsets the power used when playing.
The battery itself has a 10,050mAh capacity, which is at least a sizable step up from 8,000mAh on the original Go. It’s certainly enough for most functions of the tablet like social media, streaming music or watching videos, but I was surprised by how quickly the battery percentage would drop from gaming.
After half an hour of playing the Red Dead port, the percentage had dropped by about 10%, and other titles had similar or increased rates over shorter periods. I’m used to that through iPad gaming, as Apple’s slates chew through battery, but it’s a slightly faster rate of burn than I usually see on Android tablets.
Android on a tablet
The OnePlus Pad Go 2 runs on Android 16, with the company’s Oxygen OS 16 laid over the top. The key features of this software lay in the realm of AI: generating writing, editing images, transcribing audio files and so on. I’m going to save testing most of these features for my full review.
Android tablet naysayers won’t be won over by the Pad Go 2, as the interface often feels like a smartphones’ that’s been stretched to fit a bigger screen. Few apps feel like they’re designed with tablets in mind, and that definitely extends to game controls schemes, which require some hand contortions to cover.
The tablet has one camera on the back and one on the front; both are 8MP. They seem perfectly well suited for scanning documents, and this is again another area I’m going to have to investigate when I write my full review.
OnePlus Pad Go 2 pre-orders are now open on OnePlus.com, and the Pad Go 2 release date is set for December 26 2025 on the OnePlus website. If you’d rather buy the tablet from Amazon or Best Buy, you’ll have to wait until January 2026 to pick it up.
