Well known for its high-end smartphones, Oppo is in turn entering the Android tablet market with the Pad Air, an affordable model designed for family and multimedia use and already available in France.
Touch pads are once again of interest to manufacturers on the old continent. After Honor, which presented a tablet (the Pad 8) in early September for the first time in France, it’s Oppo’s turn to make its debut with the Pad Air. The repeated confinements have, it seems, motivated Europeans and in particular the French to reconnect with these devices which they had tended to abandon for years in favor of ever larger smartphones and lightweight ultra-portable computers. and easy to handle. And for its arrival on the French tablet market, Oppo breaks with the habits taken in the field of smartphones. To show its muscles, the brand generally tends to first present ultra high-end models, then declined in a more affordable range. With the Pad Air, it’s just the opposite. Oppo has no intention of chasing Samsung’s iPads and Galaxy Tabs, which have never abandoned the market. The Pad Air is thus presented as an entry/mid-range tablet with entertainment as its main ambition.
Oppo Pad Air: technical characteristics
For its first tablet sold in France, Oppo plays it safe. The Pad Air thus embeds proven components but retains some advantages to appeal to a family audience.
- Design For comfortable support, the Pad Air is quite thin with only 6.9 mm thick. Its edges are thus thinner than what we see on average on a smartphone. The device is also light with its 440g. We therefore appreciate the good grip without fatigue coming to be felt quickly. The finishes are clean with an aluminum chassis that does not take fingerprints. Always at the back, on the right edge (when the tablet is held vertically), a wavy coating brings a touch of elegance. The slices, flat but with rounded edges, also remain comfortable without marking the palms of the hands. On the front side, however, there are no surprises. The 10.36-inch screen is surrounded by 8 mm borders to accommodate the front camera (on the upper or right edge depending on whether the tablet is held horizontally or vertically) and also avoid bad manipulations. The whole exudes robustness but also comfort.
- Display Unlike Honor, which immediately put on a 12-inch screen for its first tablet sold in France, Oppo relies on a lighter mount with a 10.36-inch screen. No Oled panel at this price but LCD offering a 2K definition or 2000 x 1200 pixels for a resolution of 225 dots per inch. The result turns out to be quite correct. Refreshment peaks at 60 Hz. We are a long way from the 90 or even 120 Hz that are becoming widespread on smartphones to offer ever smoother games, but that is not a problem. In terms of brightness, on the other hand, we expected better. If indoors the tablet has very good readability, in direct sunlight, reading becomes less comfortable. Viewing angles also felt a bit narrow to us. It is better to be in front of it to take advantage of optimal light.
- Performance In this area too, Oppo plays it safe. The Pad Air is equipped with a Snapdragon 680 SoC that is mainly found on entry-level smartphones. Supported by 4 GB of RAM (Oppo does not offer more), the processor and its 8 cores (4 x 1.9 Ghz and 4 x 2.4 Ghz) deliver honorable performance for streaming movies, surfing the Web or play a little. No question, however, of running demanding games at the risk of being disappointed by the number of images per second that the device can display. Correct performance therefore, without loss of fluidity, which will satisfy everyday multimedia use.
- Autonomy No revolution on this ground either. The Pad Air has a 7100 mAh battery capable of holding the length with standard use. We can thus enjoy streaming movies for a dozen hours (provided we do not push the brightness to the bottom). A very decent endurance and in the standard of this template. For charging, Oppo provides an 18W USB charger. It’s a little light compared to what is practiced in the world of smartphones with chargers – when provided – climbing to more than 100W, but it can refuel in just under three hours.
- Photo It is clearly not on this that the Pad Air puts to make its hole. At the rear, the tablet is equipped with a single 8 Mpx sensor without great ambitions. It produces unattractive shots with washed-out colors and poorly controlled light. Defects that are however quite frequently encountered on touch pads. These devices have a troubleshooting photo module and are generally not designed for very advanced use. At the front, the camera offers a definition of 5 Mpx which will be suitable for video calls but no more.
- System It is Android 12 enriched with the ColorOS 12.1 house software overlay that drives this tablet. We appreciate the contributions offered by Oppo to simplify use and ergonomics. In landscape mode, for example, just slide two fingers from the top edge of the screen to split the display. It is also possible to make the window of an application floating in order to move it wherever you want on the screen. The keyboard also benefits from a mini mode to occupy only a small part of the screen if desired. Thoughtful and practical little functions.
- Ecosystem In addition, this is the trend now with many manufacturers, Oppo facilitates interactions with other brand devices, for example to copy and paste between a smartphone and the tablet or even display the smartphone screen on the tablet. . Finally, Oppo is planning one year of major Android update (it’s a bit short) and three years of security updates.
Oppo Pad Air: the test
We were able to use the Oppo Pad Air tablet for a few days. We were able to appreciate the lightness of the device and its good handling. The tablet does not slip and is comfortable, whether it is held with one or two hands. The coating on the back does not retain fingerprints, which is also appreciable. Visual comfort that is also found with the screen… provided you position yourself well in front. Indeed, the integrated LCD panel suffers from restricted viewing angles, which can be penalizing if several people wish to watch the screen simultaneously. In direct sunlight, the luminosity also remains a bit fair. In short, Oppo has progress to make on the display compared to the competition,
No pitfalls, however, on the performance side. The tablet was lively and responsive, even with ten applications open simultaneously. Movie playback remains comfortable and lag-free. The wireless connection with the Wi-Fi 5 module did not let us down. On the audio side, the four loudspeakers distributed on the upper and lower edges of the device offer a suitable and balanced rendering which does not attack the eardrums. Despite the famous promise of “sound immersion”, the Dolby Atmos mode does not add much, as is often the case with this type of device.
We very much appreciated ColorOS, which does not distort Android while providing some good ideas to simplify navigation and use of the tablet’s large screen. Finally, autonomy remains comfortable and can cope with long periods away from an electrical outlet. The Pad Air therefore does the job without revolutionizing the world of tablets. This is not the goal anyway with this first model signed Oppo to be released in France. We are curious to see if this first attempt will give rise to other models capable of cutting cruppers to the indestructible Apple iPad.
Oppo Pad Air: price and availability
Oppo offers its Tab Air in two versions. The first is a 4-64 GB model while the second doubles the storage capacity to 128 GB. Note that the device has a microSD slot capable of accommodating a memory card of up to 512 GB to expand the available storage space. A very appreciable advantage of Android tablets compared to Apple iPads whose storage space is frozen at the factory. The two models are marketed on the Oppo online store and exclusively, for the moment, at Boulanger at the respective prices of 299 euros and 349 euros.