The Oppo Pad Air: enduring, multitasking and definitely well-intentioned
25.10.2022
Translation: machine translated
With the Pad Air, smartphone manufacturer Oppo has launched its first tablet. Without bells and whistles (but also without accessories), the device has been on the market for two months. Find out what the little thing can do and what I think of it here.
The new Pad Air from Oppo is hardly intended as a competitor to the Apple cosmos or the Samsung galaxy. The prices are also far apart. If I want to buy a tablet for my small purse and save space in my already overcrowded backpack, the Oppo Pad Air could certainly be an option. Is it a good travel companion with long endurance for leisure and small office work on the road?
Natural design meets handy size
The design appears calm and natural. The bluish grey tone and the narrow stripe on the back with shimmering waves remind me of slate stones flashing out of a clear mountain stream. In addition, the thin, 440-gram lightweight feels good in the hand and, with its elongated format of 245.1 × 154.8 mm, looks like an oversized smartphone. The 10.36-inch display has a pleasantly clear resolution of 2000 × 1200 pixels with a relatively smooth refresh rate of 60 hertz.
A bit of everything
Opo doesn't really talk about the camera. Rightly so, neither the front (with 5 megapixels) nor the rear camera (8 megapixels) are worth mentioning; we are currently used to better. However, taking photos with a tablet takes some getting used to and is impractical. The RAM and internal storage are modest, but I can expand them if necessary. Oppo offers 4 GB of RAM ex works with either 64 or 128 GB of SSD. I can expand the data storage by up to 512 GB with MicroSD. I can also use up to 3 GB as working memory. So everything is not particularly outstanding. Maybe it will look better with the rest of the hardware.
What the battery, speakers and display can do
The Snapdragon 680 processor is solid mid-range hardware and should perform well - for smaller office tasks as well as gaming. Oppo also promises a battery life of 12 to 15 hours, even during video calls - even though I tend to run out of breath after two-hour phone calls at the latest. So I test the performance with my favourite smartphone games and the preinstalled Netflix app. That way, I can get a better feel for the four Dolby Atmos speakers than with boring video calls anyway. What's annoying is that I don't have a case to set up the tablet in a way that's suitable for bingewatching. My laptop temporarily serves the purpose as a tablet stand. To experience the visual and sound power of the device, I need action: Jason Statham rushes to my aid. "Death Race" it is. What I notice right away: Oppo's elongated display makes the film format unnecessarily smaller. Almost half of it remains black. Too bad.
I can turn up the volume quite high for this. The sound is clear and reaches a surprising depth. The Dolby Atmos sound promises another dimension to Dolby Surround, which can reproduce raindrops or a helicopter more lifelike, for example. I'm a little undecided whether the tablet can actually reproduce this spatiality better. Otherwise, I am quite satisfied when I select the cinema mode as the sound setting. There I also find a music mode for a balanced sound and an extra gaming mode for a wider sound field. So you can get a lot out of the Dolby Atmos sound - as long as the sound is supported by the respective apps. Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime offer selected films and series with Dolby Atmos soundtrack. Apple Music and Amazon Music also support Dolby Atmos.
Since the display format reminds me of the Switch Light, I am curious about the gameplay. Like photography, gaming is a bit unwieldy on a pad, so I prefer to put it on the table. A card game like "Legends of Runeterra" runs quite smoothly, but "Star Wars Galaxy Of Heroes" crashes so often that the Dark Side has probably already won. Games that require more computing power are therefore rather unsuitable. The smartphone classic "Plants vs. Zombies" is also great fun on the larger display.
The battery keeps its promise: whether streaming, gaming or not using it for a few days, the battery is still half full. I could forget about that with my iPad Pro from 2018.
An oversized smartphone - from the shell to the core
It's not just the format that reminds me of my Oppo Find X5 in triple width. It's also the in-house ColorOS 12 operating system, which makes the Pad Air a pleasure to work with. This is ensured by a multitasking capability via split screen and the possibility to connect the smartphone. All Android smartphones that can split the screen are supported.
With the split screen, I finally get a lot out of the elongated display. To do this, I can take a picture of a QR code displayed for this purpose on the tablet with my smartphone and my smartphone is immediately mirrored on the tablet display.
I now want to take a picture of my smartphone on the tablet display.
If I now want to load a photo from the smartphone onto the tablet, I simply drag and drop the mirrored smartphone screen onto the desired tablet surface. I can also control my phone directly via the tablet. The possibilities are endless, as are the gimmicks.
I would like to use screen sharing to sign off pictures from my phone. But using a stylus is not yet possible in Europe because suitable accessories are missing. My attempt to test an all-rounder pen on the tablet - the Staedtler Noris digital Jumbo - has therefore unfortunately failed.
In addition to my joy of doodling, my love of the written word remains. So I'm curious to see how the tablet performs as a Kindle. Oppo has advertised an automatic blue light filter. At first I am undecided whether it will do its job. I therefore compare it with my iPad and, lo and behold, the Oppo Pad Air's display does seem warmer. Otherwise, however, I find it uncomfortable to read. The edges of the display seem a little darkened, which is exhausting when reading for a long time. On the positive side, the aspect ratio is pleasantly reminiscent of a book page - and the lightness of the tablet. However, the refresh rate of 60 hertz makes the pages falter slightly when turning. Once again, Oppo's ideas do not seem to have been consistently implemented on the display.
Conclusion: Space- and energy-saving, but for what?
I travel a lot on trains, enjoy reading and drawing, and even like to stream my favourite shows on a larger format while on the treadmill at the gym. So what is the Oppo Pad Air suitable for? Reading is uncomfortable with the tablet for a long time and drawing without a pen is unfortunately not possible. For 279 francs or 317 euros, it is an inexpensive entry-level model, but not outstanding in any respect. The hardware is good mid-range and more than minor office work doesn't make much sense without keyboard accessories. Those who prefer to stream films on a larger screen than on the smartphone and want to play simpler smartphone games will get their money's worth with the tablet. Where other tablets barely make it through the day or are too bulky and heavy in the luggage, the Oppo Pad Air can score. But you shouldn't expect more. In any case, I won't be happy with it.
In my world, Super Mario chases Stormtroopers with a unicorn and Harley Quinn mixes cocktails for Eddie and Peter at the beach bar. Wherever I can live out my creativity, my fingers tingle. Or maybe it's because nothing flows through my veins but chocolate, glitter and coffee.
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