After about a year, OPPO Philippines has finally released a new tablet in the country. This time, we have the OPPO Pad Neo, and as the name suggests, it’s yet another budget-friendly tablet much like the Pad Air that came before it.
You’re probably here because you’re looking for your next tablet, be it for work, school, or entertainment. The question is: is this tablet from OPPO the one for you? We’ll help you decide in our OPPO Pad Neo review.
OPPO Pad Neo Specs
- Android 13, OxygenOS 13.2
- SIM slot (LTE models)
- 11.35-inch 2.4K LCD display, 2408 x 1720 pixel resolution, 260ppi
- 90Hz refresh rate, 180Hz touch sampling
- 400 nits peak brightness
- 2.2GHz MediaTek Helio G99 octa-core processor
- 8GB RAM
- Mali-G57 MC2 GPU
- 128GB internal storage
- 8-megapixel front camera
- 8-megapixel rear camera, EIS
- Quad speakers
- Face unlock
- HSPA+, 4G LTE (optional)
- WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band
- Bluetooth 5.2
- USB Type-C
- Dimensions: 255.1 x 188 x 6.89mm
- Weight: 532g
- Color: Gray
- 8,000mAh non-removable battery, 33W SUPERVOOC charging
Design and Build Quality
I immediately liked how thin, light, and compact the OPPO Pad Neo was the first time I held it. It’s only 6.89mm thin, which is substantially thinner than most phones today. It’s also light, weighing only 532g. It also has curved sides and edges that make it even more comfortable to hold, even for an extended period of time.
It is only available in Gray, so there’s nothing to choose from. Personally, I find it slick and eye-catching with its two-tone look. The rear predominantly has a matte texture to keep it clean from fingerprint marks and smudges.
However, the top portion has a glossy surface. It adds a nice contrast and premium look to the device, but it easily gets dirty from fingerprint marks. Fortunately, during the weeks of testing the device without a case, neither of the two textures suffered from scratches.
Aside from the two-tone back, another thing that contributes to the distinct design of the OPPO Pad Neo is the camera placement, which is located in the middle. Oh and if this design looks familiar to you, that’s because the Neo is actually a rebranded OnePlus Pad Go.
The Pad Neo also feels robust with sturdy structure integrity. Sadly, as with most budget tablets, it doesn’t have an official IP rating for dust and water resistance. We also didn’t see any seal in the SIM tray.
Taking a tour on the front, it has a reasonably sized 11.35-inch IPS display. Not as big and intimidating as 12-inch and 14-inch tablets, but lets you do more than smaller 8-inch devices. Bezels are noticeably thick, which we prefer as it gives our fingers enough room to hold the device while watching content.
In a landscape orientation, you have the 8-megapixel selfie camera on the top bezel.
On the top of the device, there’s the microphone and the volume controls. It’s close to the lock/power button on the top left, so your index fingers can access all physical buttons with ease.
Joining the lock/power button on the left are the two speaker grills and the SIM tray that can hold a single nano SIM and a microSD card.
The two other speakers are on the right, together with the USB-C port, the Dolby Atmos logo, and another microphone. The bottom part of the device is clean.
Display and Audio
The OPPO Pad Neo has an 11.35-inch 2.4K IPS display with a 2408 x 1720 resolution for a decent 260 pixels per inch. It has a smooth 90Hz refresh rate, 180Hz touch sampling, 400 nits of peak brightness, 10-bit color, low blue-light emission for eye protection, and uses a dedicated sensor to match the screen’s color temperature based on your surroundings to lessen eye strain.
Users have the ability to adjust the screen color modes and temperature, eye comfort and sleep features, and the display size to go from Standard, or scale everything by going small or large. You can also use the said ambient color temperature sensor by enabling the feature called Nature Tone Display within the display settings.
Unfortunately, there’s no adaptive refresh rate feature. You have to manually set it to 60Hz (Standard) if you want to save battery or 90Hz (High) if you want extra smoothness. It depends on your needs, but if you’re just using it for web browsing and entertainment, 60Hz is enough. For gaming, I suggest switching to 90Hz.
The display quality is good. HD streaming on Netflix was possible. There’s no Dolby Vision support, but I guess that would be asking too much considering the price.
Colors are okay for an IPS screen, but we definitely miss the contrast and depth of an OLED panel. We also wish it had a sharper resolution, but we easily got used to it. It’s really not bad considering most PC monitors today are still on Full HD. Overall, a decent display for the price.
For audio, the quad speaker setup provided powerful sound. The trebles are clear and the bass is solid, providing a full sound that you can appreciate whether it’s a movie character doing a monologue or intense action scenes.
You can also pair it with a compatible external audio output to enjoy the Dolby Atmos and Hi-Res audio features.
Hardware and Performance
The OPPO Pad Neo is powered by a 2.2Ghz MediaTek Helio G99 octa-core processor. It’s one of the most popular and reliable budget chips around. Plus, it brings 4G connectivity on the device. It also has an 8GB of RAM, which isn’t the most impressive capacity for the price. The 128GB of storage is also not the biggest we’ve seen, but the device does have a microSD card slot for storage expansion.
OPPO Pad Neo Benchmark Scores
Overall performance, is just okay with occasional lags. We noticed stuttering even when we were just scrolling on Facebook and Instagram, web browsing, as well as switching and opening apps. It’s not that bad but it’s kind of annoying if you’re used to flagship-level performance.
In more basic tasks, the Helio G99 did pretty well — tasks that most people are using a tablet for. That includes editing documents on Google Docs, replying to emails, and of course, watching content on platforms like Disney+, Netflix, and YouTube.
For the gaming experience, Genshin Impact was playable under the Lowest settings, which makes visuals very blurry on a large screen like this. Even with the graphics turned down, expect lags and stutters as this is one of the heaviest games on mobile right now. On the other hand, Call of Duty and Mobile Legends ran fine under the highest settings available for the device.
PUBG Mobile and Farlight84 were okay on medium settings, while Asphalt 9 was smooth at the highest possible settings. Overall gaming was fine as long as you set your expectations right.
| Game | Graphics Settings |
| Call of Duty: Mobile | • Graphics Quality: Medium • Frame Rate: High |
| Farlight84 | • Graphics Quality: Smooth • Frame Rate: High • Resolution: Medium |
| PUBG Mobile | • Graphics Quality: HD • Frame Rate: High |
| Genshin Impact | • Graphics Quality: Lowest (Default) |
| Mobile Legends: Bang Bang | • Graphics Quality: High • Frame Rate: High • HD Mode: On |
| Asphalt 9: Legends | • Visual Quality: High Quality • Frame Rate: 60 |
Software and User Interface
Instead of the newer Android 14-based ColorOS 14 software, the OPPO Pad Neo still runs on the last generation’s ColorOS 13.1, which is based on Android 13. While we do wish it ran on the latest operating system, the user experience is still satisfactory. Let’s hope OPPO provides at least 1 major software upgrade on this tablet, even if it’s entry-level.
To take advantage of the large display, there’s a split screen mode that lets you run apps side by side. Swiping with your two fingers from the top of the screen, while an app is open, shows a cool animation that lets you open a second one.
You can also open a third app via a floating window. Useful if you want to play a movie in the background or to keep a group chat open while working.
OPPO has also included a tasks bar that lets you drag select apps to enable a split-screen view, see a small window for all your apps and recent files, and currently running apps.
A Smart Sidebar is also here, which you can access anywhere you are in the UI. It gives you quick access to recent files, screenshots, screen recordings, and access to any app of your choosing.
Since it’s OPPO, the Pad Neo uses Google Keyboard by default. The layout is similar to a smartphone keyboard. There’s also a shortcut button for the tablet mode that splits the keyboard in the middle, so your thumbs can easily press them for a more convenient typing experience.
If you plan on writing long documents, I suggest you use an third-party external keyboard, as OPPO didn’t bundle a dedicated accessory for this one. We tried connecting ours using a USB-C to USB-C cable and it worked instantly. A Bluetooth keyboard should work fine, too.
Tablet Manager is similar to the Phone Manager app found on OPPO smartphones. It lets you optimize the system with a press of a button by clearing the memory, checking for viruses and risks, and more.
The rest of the UI elements look the same as the smartphone version of ColorOS, only with the benefit of a bigger screen allowing you to get to things faster.
For those worried about storage, you could get a microSD card, especially if you like playing different games. During our review, we installed about seven triple-A games, which already took 89GB of storage. With less than a hundred photos taken, the System eating 12.5GB of space, and the Other system data weighing 6.49GB, we were only left with 20GB of space.
RAM Expansion is here, which was set to 4GB by default. Considering the lags we were experiencing, we maxed it out to 8GB, which did provide a little boost, but didn’t solve the issue completely.
Cameras
The OPPO Pad Neo is equipped with 8-megapixel cameras in front and back, with an f/2.0 aperture, and a slightly wider 78.2-degree field of view for the selfie snapper (the rear has 78-degree).
Shots from the rear camera are decent. It’s not meant to take your next best Instagram post, but it’s there in case you need to take quick snaps of, say, your teacher’s lecture, impromptu moments, and more.
Details, as expected, are a bit mushy. The colors look a little pale while the contrast is passable. Low-light shots are also usable if you need it, but don’t expect exceptional quality.
The front camera is fine for video calls and selfies. However, skin tones are a little off, especially in low-light.
Like most tablets, the OPPO Pad Neo is not meant to take great photos. Still, the sensors it has are good enough to use for most people.
Battery and Charging
The OPPO Pad Neo has an 8,000mAh battery, which is decent for the price. It is paired with a 33W SUPERVOOC charger.
It might only have decent battery capacity on paper, but the actual performance is better. In PCMark’s battery loop test, it lasted for 14 hours and 9 minutes. That’s the average score we get from this test — and that’s on smartphones. This test loops the synthetic workload until the battery drops to 20%. We did it with the WiFi and Bluetooth off and the brightness and volume at 50%.
In real-world use, we were able to continuously play games for about an hour or two and spend the rest of the battery streaming 1080p videos on YouTube. Under those heavy, continuous workloads, the Pad Neo lasted for 9 hours and 6 minutes.
For charging, the 33W SUPERVOOC did fast enough job of charging the device. A quick 15-minute plug-in already provided 20% of juice, with a full charge taking less than an hour and twenty minutes. See the full test results below:
- 15mins: 0-20%
- 45mins: 62%
- 1hr 15mins: 96%
- 1hr 19mins: FULL
Verdict
The OPPO Pad Neo offers a complete experience for those looking for a tablet at an affordable price tag. But for the chipset and OS it’s running on, we wish it was a bit cheaper.
Still, the Pad Neo is an enjoyable tablet to use. The large display, powerful speakers, and good battery life are great for those who consume a ton of content. The software, while outdated, provides enough features for multitasking. For those who are always on the go, the 4G LTE connectivity is a big plus, so you don’t have to always look for WiFi.
OPPO Pad Neo pricing and availability in the Philippines
The OPPO Pad Neo has a price of Php15,999 for the sole 8GB/128GB model. It’s available in a bunch of physical stores, kiosks, and partner retailers nationwide. Online, you can get it at Lazada and Shopee.
Pros
- Thin, sturdy, comfortable build
- Large display
- Powerful speakers
- Useful multitasking features
- Good battery life with fast charging
- 4G LTE connectivity
Cons
- Occasional lags
- Still on Android 13, weak processor
- Only 8GB/128GB
- No proprietary keyboard accessory