A tablet thinner than most laptops just landed in India, and it comes from a brand that has not made one in years. ASUS is back in the tablet business with the Pad T3201, and after spending time with the unit ahead of its India sale, one thing is clear: this is not a half-hearted comeback.

At just 6.5mm thick, the ASUS Pad feels more like a slab of premium glass than a typical Android tablet. Its display is genuinely brighter than most laptop screens you would place it next to, and that alone makes the unboxing worth talking about before we even get to the spec sheet.

What You Get In The Box

Open the box and the first thing that stands out is how deliberately ASUS has packaged this tablet. Along with the ASUS Pad itself, you get:

  • A protective folio case made of silicone, transparent in parts, that folds the same way Apple’s own iPad cases do
  • A 45W ASUS fast charger with a Type-C to Type-C cable
  • A SIM ejector pin
  • Instruction booklets

The case deserves a special mention. It is not a cheap bundled accessory; it has a fold mechanism that turns into a stand, and a Hall sensor built into the tablet means the screen wakes up automatically the moment you open the cover, no power button needed.

Design And Build Quality

The ASUS Pad weighs just 523 grams and uses a fiberglass back panel, giving it a look that feels far removed from typical plastic-backed Android tablets. The metallic silver sides paired with the white fiberglass rear create a premium finish that photographs well and feels even better in hand.

Physical layout is clean: the power button and volume rocker sit on one edge, the microSD tray sits nearby, and the microphones are tucked in discreetly. Four speaker grilles, two on each side, hint at what is arguably the tablet’s strongest feature after the display.

The Display Is The Headline Act

ASUS built this tablet around a 12.2-inch 2.8K dual-layer OLED panel running at a 144Hz refresh rate, with a 92 percent screen-to-body ratio. For anyone unfamiliar with the term, OLED panels light individual pixels rather than relying on a backlight, which is why blacks look truly black and colours look richer than on an LCD screen of similar price.

What makes this particular panel stand out is brightness. ASUS rates it at 600 nits typical brightness and up to 2,000 nits peak brightness, a figure usually reserved for flagship phones, not budget-friendly tablets. In practical terms, that means the screen stays clearly readable even under harsh sunlight, something most tablets in this price bracket struggle with.

The panel also covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, the same benchmark used for cinema-grade colour accuracy, and it carries TUV Rheinland certification for low flicker and reduced blue light, both of which matter if you plan on using this tablet for long reading or streaming sessions. ASUS Pen 2.0 and newer styluses are supported for handwriting and sketching, though the pen itself is sold separately.

Sound That Matches The Screen

Complementing the display is a quad-speaker system tuned for Dolby Atmos 360-degree sound. ASUS worked directly with Dolby’s audio engineers to tune this setup, and the difference shows during movies and games, where dialogue stays clear even as background effects swell around it.

Performance And Everyday Use

Under the hood sits the MediaTek Dimensity 8300, an octa-core chipset clocked up to 3.35GHz, paired with 8GB of LPDDR5X memory. During testing, an AnTuTu benchmark run returned a score in the region of 15 lakh points, a healthy result that comfortably handles multitasking, video editing apps, and demanding mobile games without stutter.

Storage comes in 128GB and 256GB UFS 3.1 options, and a microSD slot lets you expand that by up to 1TB, useful given how expensive high-capacity storage has become. WiFi 6E support means faster, more stable connections for cloud gaming or downloading 4K content on the move.

Cameras And Software

The ASUS Pad carries a 13-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front camera with face unlock support. Neither is designed to replace a phone camera, but the front unit handles video calls well, and the rear camera is more than capable for document scanning.

On the software side, the tablet ships with Android 16 out of the box and includes ASUS GlideX, a cross-device tool that lets the tablet mirror screens, share files, and sync notifications with Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android devices. It works best paired with another ASUS device but functions across platforms regardless.

Battery Life That Should Last The Day

Powering all of this is a 9,000mAh battery paired with 45W fast charging, which ASUS says can take the tablet from empty to 50 percent in around 30 minutes. In a device this thin, fitting a battery this large is genuinely impressive, and it comfortably stretches past a full day of mixed use.

ASUS Pad T3201 Specifications

SpecificationDetails
Display12.2-inch 2.8K (2800×1840) dual-layer OLED, 144Hz, 3:2 aspect ratio, 600 nits typical / 2000 nits peak
ProcessorMediaTek Dimensity 8300, octa-core, up to 3.35GHz
Memory8GB LPDDR5X
Storage128GB / 256GB UFS 3.1, expandable up to 1TB via microSD
Rear Camera13MP
Front Camera5MP with Face Unlock
SpeakersQuad speakers with Dolby Atmos 360-degree sound
Battery9,000mAh with 45W fast charging
ConnectivityWiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, USB 3.0 Type-C with DisplayPort 1.4 and PD 3.0
BuildFiberglass back panel
Dimensions271.1 x 182.4 x 6.5mm
Weight523g
OSAndroid 16
In The BoxProtective folio case, 45W charger, Type-C cable, SIM ejector pin
ColourPure White

Price And Where To Buy It

The ASUS Pad T3201 is priced at Rs 45,990 for the 8GB plus 128GB variant, and Rs 49,990 for the 8GB plus 256GB variant. Sales open on 6th August 2026 at 12 Noon, and the tablet will be sold online through Flipkart and the ASUS eShop, with offline availability at ASUS and ROG stores, Reliance Digital, and authorised ASUS retail partners.

Check ASUS Pad T3201 listing on Flipkart

Accessories Worth Considering

If you are planning to pick up the ASUS Pad T3201, a few accessories are worth having on hand from day one.

AccessoryWhy You Might Need ItWhere To Check
Stylus for note-taking and sketchingWorks with ASUS Pen 2.0 and compatible styluses for handwriting and drawingView options on Amazon
microSD card (1TB)Makes full use of the tablet’s expandable storageView options on Amazon
Screen protector (12.2-inch)Protects the OLED panel from scratches during daily useView options on Amazon
Bluetooth keyboardTurns the tablet into a lightweight productivity deviceView options on Amazon

Buy The ASUS Pad T3201?

For a company re-entering a category it stepped away from, ASUS has not played it safe. A 2,000-nit OLED display, a 9,000mAh battery in a 6.5mm body, and a genuinely useful bundled case are hard to find together at this price point. The real test will come once units are in customers’ hands after the 6th August sale, but based on this first look, the ASUS Pad T3201 looks like one of the more compelling Android tablets to launch in India this year.

By Rajeev Rana

Founder and Chief Editor - gogi.in