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OnePlus announced its first tablet, the OnePlus Pad, back in February. You can now secure one for yourself as long as you’re willing to fork over a $99 deposit and you’re comfortable not knowing how much it’s ultimately going to cost you when it ships.

Even stranger is the fact that OnePlus has published the date that the price will be revealed. They’re going to make that announcement on April 25. Anyone who put money down will then have until the 28th to pay off the remainder, whatever that turns out to be.

OnePlus does thoughtfully throw in a free gift if you don’t mind taking a calculated risk. Your $99 up-front payment secures you either the magnetic keyboard folio cover or the OnePlus Stylo (you choose which one).

If you opt for the keyboard OnePlus will also let you snag the Stylo for $49.50, which is half off the sticker price.

Still not ready to part with your hard-earned cash? Maybe a hefty discount on a pair of the slightly aged but well-reviewed OnePlus Buds Z2 with active noise cancelling will convince you. They currently sell for $99.99 on Amazon, but OnePlus will let you have a pair for just $31.99 if you put down a deposit on the OnePlus Pad.

All these freebies and discounts are nice, but it really would be nice to know how much you’re going to end up spending on the tablet when it’s ready to ship. Speaking of when it’s ready to ship, that’s scheduled for May 8th — not March 8th as the official listing shows. As 9to5Google notes, that’s pretty clearly an error.

Pre-ordering curiosities aside, the OnePlus pad is still a very intriguing tablet. One of its more interesting features is the 144Hz, 500 nit 2800 x 2000 display. The 7:5 aspect ratio, OnePlus says, makes for a more comfortable reading experience.

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Lee Mathews

Computer tech, blogger, husband, father, and avid MSI U100 user.

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  1. “You can now secure one for yourself as long as you’re willing to fork over a $99 deposit and you’re comfortable not knowing how much it’s ultimately going to cost you when it ships.

    Even stranger is the fact that OnePlus has published the date that the price will be revealed.”

    I don’t know, is that even legal? Or is there a way to back out and get a refund if you change your mind aside from doing a charge back? Either I’m reading this wrong, or the title of this article is click baity, or what they’re doing is shady.

    1. 9to5google says it’s “fully refundable”. If there was something illegal about this, then that might imply there was something illegal about Tesla taking reservations for the vaportruck. Or it’s illegal but not being enforced for some reason.
      That doesn’t mean this tablet isn’t overhyped.

  2. Why is anything even remotely related to OnePlus now just a bunch of gimmicks? They spent all that time and money with the Hasselblad partnership and cheaper phones still had better photos than their flagship. Then the stupid “Nothing” phone spinoff with a dumb name: painfully average phone that was supposed to wow people with a bunch of LEDs on the back plate. And now they literally want people to basically gamble on how much they will finally spend for a device? Could it be 500? Could it be 800? I’m sorry but no, OnePlus. Your 5T was a fairly competent phone and I was excited to see a similar formular applied to newer models but instead it’s all mostly just lame gimmicks.

    1. Nothing is not even remotely affiliated with OnePlus. They are only connected because Carl Pei was a co-founder of the latter brand. The Nothing phone was supposed to be an upper mid range device, and has a few premium features other mid range phones at the same price don’t.
      OnePlus has always relied on marketing gimmicks and hype. The first phone was only available by invite just to build hype. The 9 series and the 10 Pro were pretty over priced, but the 10T and 11 are IMO a return to flagship killer territory. The 11 competes with the S23+ and Pixel 7 Pro for hundreds less, and has far more reliable hardware than the Pixels do. The 10T can be had for $425 right now and far outperforms the Samsung and Google phones from 2022.

      1. Had they announced this tablet back in the days of the OnePlus 3t, it would’ve been a different deal. That was their highpoint imho.

        They were different then. Things started to change after that, as Oppo got more and more involved with that spinoff. Then later they evolved to copy both Apple and Samsung, bringing consumer-hostile practices to their brand.

  3. 99$ is already generous considering the unflattering pics of the garbage tablet above. 1$ for the same deal and maybe I would waste my time to click on the cookie malware links out of curiosity. If I wanted junk for my garbage can to consume I could have already bought a $50 Onn. tablet. I don’t care if this trash above has better “specs” it is still trash worthy.

    1. “I don’t care if this trash above has better “specs” it is still trash worthy.”
      I guess subjectivity is more powerful than objectivity.

  4. I’m really interested in this, because it’s the closest any recent Android tablet has come to the 4:3 ration that I consider to be the best format for reading. But this deposit nonsense makes me suspect that the sticker price is going to be absurdly high. They want people to think something like “I’ve already given them $100, what’s $600 more?”

    1. I agree, the sunk-cost fallacy seems to be what they’re going after.

      I am also really interested in this for the same reason. There are no decent 4:3 tablets on the market right now.

      1. Nah, if you don’t pay up the difference you’ll get a refund. It’s not really sunk cost if you can get it back.

        1. Yeah, that’s the basis of the sunk-cost fallacy. Despite being able to back out, people feel committed to the purchase and are less likely to back out.