Most people buying an entry-level tablet just want a bigger screen for watching shows, browsing, or scrolling through YouTube. Basically, a media machine.
OnePlus thinks their Pad Lite, starting at around ₹13K with discounts and bank offers, is the perfect fit for this niche. But does it actually live up to the hype, or is it just another budget tablet in a sea of options?
Display & Audio
Let’s start with the display, because that’s what really matters for a media machine. The OnePlus Pad Lite comes with an 11-inch FHD+ LCD panel with a peak brightness of 500 nits and a 90Hz refresh rate.
For the price, it’s decent, but honestly, it hasn’t blown me away. The pixel density isn’t great, but that did not sour my experience that much. The bezels are also properly proportioned, and you need them to be this thick, otherwise holding the tab becomes a challenge.
And because this is a 16:10 display, instead of the usual 7:5 panel that OnePlus has been using so far, we get far smaller black bars when watching videos.
Now, there’s no HDR, and since it’s an LCD, the colours don’t pop like they would on an OLED. That said, for the price, the colours and contrast are pretty good.
Outdoor visibility isn’t great but that's mostly due to the glossy finish which doesn’t help with reflections.
Budget tablets often cheapen out when it comes to audio, but this is where the Pad Lite impressed me is though. It gets a set of quad speakers which are Hi-Res audio-certified, and they are they’re fantastic for casual use.
Sure, you won’t get that thumping bass, but for regular day-to-day use, they get the job done. You also get support for some serious codecs, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, LDAC, and SBC codec over Bluetooth 5.4. I wish OnePlus had included a 3.5mm headphone jack, though.
Design
If the Pad Lite looks familiar, that’s because it basically picks up where the OnePlus Pad Go left off. We get the same plastic sides, dual-tone finish on the aluminium alloy back panel and honestly, it feels pretty nice in hand. The Pad Lite is slim at 7.39mm, weighs around 530 grams, and comes in just one colour—blue.
Now, just like the Pad Go, there’s no official keyboard folio or stylus support. Plus, you don’t get pogo pins, and no palm rejection either.
There's also no fingerprint scanner on the power button, and face unlock is pretty basic since it only uses the front camera.
Performance
Performance is what you would expect from an entry-level tab. We get the MediaTek Helio G100 SoC, which is a pretty decent chip, but from 2024. OnePlus could have gone for the G200, which launched earlier this year.
Our LTE model comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Cellular connectivity at this price is nice to have, though I really wish 5G had made the cut. Then again, 5G in this range is still rare, so it’s hard to complain too much.
If you’re considering the Wi-Fi-only version, keep in mind that it drops to 6GB of RAM and there's also no expendable storage option for any model.
I ran some benchmarks, and the results were pretty much what I expected.
In Antutu Lite, I got a score of 4.3 lakhs. Geekbench wasn’t great either, 718 on single-core, 1924 on multi-core. 3DMark scores were weak too. In the Wildlife Extreme Stress Test I got 98. per cent stability, but the best loop score was just 378.
In day-to-day use, though, it’s fine for stuff like browsing, videos, and light gaming, as long as you manage your expectations.
In gaming, I averaged 58.8 fps in BGMI, but the visuals were poor. In CoD Mobile, I averaged 39.7 fps on low graphics. Both were definitely playable, but were very underwhelming.
What’s weird is, when I would watch a video on YouTube, it would often default to a super low stream. If I bumped it up to 1080P 60fps, it took a while for the tablet to catch up. And in 1440P 60fps, it started stuttering. Hope OnePlus pushes an update to fix this.
Cameras
As for the cameras, it packs a 5MP main camera that shoots 1080p videos at 30fps, and a 5MP selfie cam that does an okay job in video calls. But really, who’s using a tablet to snap photos?
Software
You get OxygenOS 15, which brings a ton of OnePlus ecosystem features, so you can easily share photos between your phone and tablet using Clipboard Sharing and Shared Gallery. Plus, there’s O+ Connect, so you can even share stuff with Apple devices.
I also really liked the OpenCanvas feature—it makes switching between apps or going split-screen super easy.
And of course, since it's 2025, you get some AI features from Google Gemini for basic text generation and photo editing. For the price, it works pretty well. As for updates, OnePlus told us that the Pad Lite will recieve 4 years of OS updates and 6 years of security updates, which I think is pretty great for this segment.
Battery & charging
Coming to the battery life, I had no complaints. The 9340mAh battery easily lasted me a couple of days with normal use.
But there is a catch - the Pad Lite supports 33W charging, but OnePlus decided to include a 15W charger in the box. So, yeah, expect it to take well over two hours to top it up fully.
Verdict
So, is the OnePlus Pad Lite worth it? For casual users, yes. It’s great for watching videos, browsing, and light gaming.
The display is decent enough, the audio is surprisingly good, and battery life holds up well.
But if you’re chasing serious performance, you’ll probably need to stretch your budget past ₹20,000. Most tablets under ₹15,000 are running on very similar hardware, so there’s only so much speed you can squeeze out of this segment.
Starting at ₹13,000 with offers, the OnePlus Pad Lite is a solid pick for media consumption. Just don’t expect high-end multitasking or gaming. For the basics, it gets the job done without much fuss.
