Vivo cannot stay silent when its competition is claiming a piece of the gaming tablet business. The brand has finally launched its first-ever gaming tablet under its sub-brand iQOO, called the iQOO Pad Ultra.
Billed as the new breed of gaming tablet, iQOO’s flagship gaming tablet [CH] is powered by the 2 nm-process Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chip, bolstered by a self-developed Q4 gaming chip, a super-high GPU clock speed of a whopping 1,450 MHz (1.45 GHz), and, wait for it, a so-called ice dome five-layer air-cooling system featuring an oversized active cooling fan with dual-direction intake and a 23,253 mm² total heat-dissipation area to keep things chill even in the heat of the (virtual) battles.
This makes iQOO the second brand to rock an active fan on a gaming tablet after Redmagic’s Astra/Nova (a.k.a. Gaming Tablet Pro) gaming tablets.
The gaming performance is further bolstered by fast LPDDR5X Ultra memory, UFS 4.1 storage, and iQOO’s next-generation Monster Engine. The latter promises buttery-smooth gameplay when pushing the device to its absolute limits. It combines a self-developed performance scheduler, an energy-efficiency controller, and a dedicated Monster Mode to lock in insanely high frame rates without turning the hardware into a toaster.
Thanks to the Q-series chip, the tablet supports ray tracing, super-resolution gaming, as well as super frame rates. iQOO claims that in real-world testing—even while playing a fast-paced 5v5 shooter at 165 FPS, charging, and live-streaming all at the same time—the system held a steady 164.3 FPS average while keeping surface temperatures right around a comfortable 41.3°C. It’s essentially a deep system-level tuning suite designed to eliminate frame drops and thermal throttling during heavy marathon sessions.
Fronting the device is a 165 Hz 8.8-inch 2K OLED gaming display with extra-narrow bezels for that extra screen real estate without bumping up the physical dimensions. Then again, as a sub-8-inch tablet, it is really a mini tablet, which means it is just about as handy as a tablet can get without sacrificing the viewing experience.
Speaking of the display, the new iQOO Pad Ultra promises ultra-responsive touch controls and an ultra-sensitive gyroscope to give you an edge in gaming. And then there’s, of course, immersive audio.
With this tablet, Vivo/iQOO is giving Redmagic Astra 2 a run for its money with multiple ways of enjoying handheld gaming, including PC gaming using an emulator, PC game streaming, as well as AAA cloud gaming—in addition to the usual native mobile/tablet games. Mind you. We are talking about Android tablets, not Windows gaming slates.
Other notables include a 9,080 mAh (typical) battery, 66 W wired charging, an 8 MP front-facing camera, a 13 MP rear-facing camera that supports 4K video recording, dual-band Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi 7, USB 3.2 Gen 2 with a USB Type-C interface, Bluetooth 5.4, face unlock, and the usual suspects among sensors (gravity sensor, ambient light sensor, linear vibration motor, physical gyroscope, and Hall sensor).
It runs on a tablet-optimized version of OriginOS 7, called OriginOS 7 HD, which is built on Android 17.
The iQOO Pad Ultra was launched in China last month. It is available in the Chinese market in four configurations: 12+256, 16+256, 16+512, and 16+1 TB, with prices starting at 6,499 yuan [CH] (about US$973).
Images: Vivo [CH].