I had no idea they still built displays this awful until I used the OnePlus Pad

Along with Google’s push for new software, which began in 2021, Android tablets are reportedly making a comeback. New Android tablet hardware is being released in waves. The OnePlus Pad, a mid-range tablet with a $479 price tag that appears to be directly targeted at the entry-level iPad, is arguably one of the most anticipated. OnePlus likely hoped that the eye-catching 144 Hz LCD at this pricing would persuade some customers, but a good 144 Hz display is not available at this price. The OnePlus Pad’s display is smeary and unsightly, and as soon as I picked it up, I wanted to put it down.

If nothing is moving, the display appears to be fine, but as soon as you scroll anywhere, everything blurs together. The text on the screen is a streaky, hazy mess while scrolling, making it difficult to read smaller letter sizes until scrolling stops. During scrolling, smaller text becomes noticeably thinner and lighter in color, typically changing from solid black to a shimmering gray. It appears that either OnePlus’ software uses an odd anti-alias effect while scrolling, which looks different from a stationary image, or the display has an odd subpixel architecture that doesn’t look good in motion.

Whatever happened, the point is that reading text while navigating a page on the OnePlus Pad is challenging and frequently physically uncomfortable. This utterly negates everything else going on and is a deal-breaker as one of the main applications of a tablet. Because of its size, Apple often enjoys lower component prices. Given that the $449 iPad’s entry-level model still comes with a smaller (10.9-inch), lower resolution (23601640) display, the OnePlus’s decision to bump the spec sheet to an 11.61-inch, 144 Hz, 28002000 panel appears to have required fully sacrificing image quality. Large displays are costly, and I don’t believe this display stat line is currently viable at this pricing.

There isn’t much software that operates at 144 Hz, according to the “Show framerate” display in the Android Developer Panel. The Play Store is restricted to 90 frames per second for some reason, the base OS and the majority of apps are locked to 120 frames per second, and YouTube is restricted to 60 frames per second even when you aren’t watching a video. Nothing about this is usual; with a Pixel, for instance, every app runs at its highest frame rate.