Apple has owned the compact premium pill section for years, however there’s a brand new contender available in the market that runs on Android and takes on the iPad mini for the whole lot it stands for.
Unveiled alongside the Discover X9 Extremely, the Oppo Pad Mini comes with an 8.8-inch 2.5K OLED panel (2520 x 1680 pixels) in a 3:2 side ratio. This is similar, near-square side ratio that makes the iPad mini splendid for studying, note-taking, consuming content material, and different productive workflows.
Oppo
What makes the Oppo Pad Mini price evaluating to the iPad mini?
The pill’s bezels are remarkably skinny at 2.99 mm, and the display screen can obtain as much as 1,600 nits of peak brightness with a variable refresh fee between 60 and 144 Hz. There’s an non-obligatory matte model of the pill that mimics a paper-like floor, one thing that the iPad mini doesn’t provide.
The place Apple places an A17 Professional inside its mini, the Oppo Pad Mini comes with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 (3nm) chipset paired with as much as 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage, which, for my part, is a succesful mixture.
For these questioning, the Snapdragon chip offers higher multi-core efficiency, however its single-core efficiency matches that of the A17 Professional. As well as, the kind of reminiscence and storage ought to make the Oppo pill really feel extra responsive and snappy.
Oppo
How does it maintain up when it comes to portability and battery?
At simply 5.39mm thick and weighing 279 grams, the Oppo Pad Mini is designed for portability, to the extent that it might probably slot in comparatively bigger pockets and small luggage. The iPad mini, by comparability, weighs 293 grams and measures 6.3mm.
The 8,000 mAh battery helps 67W wired charging (full cost in round an hour), one thing that the iPad mini lacks. Pricing begins at CNY 3,199, which is round $470 for the baseline variant with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, rising to round $590 for the variant with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
Whereas the gross sales for the iPad mini different start on April 24, 2026, it received’t be accessible in the US, no less than for now. To me, Oppo’s entry into the premium small-screen pill section indicators that Android OEMs are taking the class significantly.
Prakhar Khanna / Digital Tendencies
For now, the Oppo Pad Mini isn’t a direct competitor to the iPad mini, primarily as a result of it isn’t accessible in the US. Nonetheless, if and when the product arrives within the area, it may simply take up an excellent chunk of iPad mini’s gross sales, offering Android customers with a top-notch expertise in a smaller kind issue with out paying a hefty worth.
