Android Tablets need to be more solutions oriented to excel in sales – What OnePlus could do

For anyone serious planning to buy a tablet, the obvious choice is iPad.  But then there are users who for various reasons don’t want to embrace the Apple ecosystem.  Especially the ones who have an existing android smartphone and are extremely happy and satisfied with it. The options for them, until recently were very limited.  But now after the smartphone players like Xiaomi and OnePlus have forayed into tablets category, there is a hope that finally that the category will see some expansion which has otherwise been hovering under 5 million units a year.

Whatever said and done, Tablet is still primarily a content consumption device.  This is something that the android tablet makers have to accept and admit.  Of course, you do offer accessories like keyboard and stylus for creators to leverage but focus more on the content consumers and make tablet as a holistic offering for them.

Here are some of the recommendations for the tablet makers, especially OnePlus which has always maintained a premium line across its products.  I am not saying that these are not relevant for others also, but perhaps these can go well with the typical target audience of OnePlus.

1. The tablet can take its genesis from smartphone, but it cannot be just its expansion.  There is a need to innovate a bit adding ease to this form factor.  For instance, to power off the tablet one must use the combination of power and volume keys just like in any smartphone.  Now imagine, how inconvenient this is.  Its not a device which can be held in one hand and a user can use this combination of keys to switch it off.  There must be another way to switch off tablets, may be a dedicated physical button, just like OnePlus slider on its smartphones.
2. OnePlus primarily is for premium users or the users looking for a premium experience.  So, it makes no sense to preload the device with applications that mean nothing to the target audience.  There is no addition in the experience by preloading WPS Office suite.  Believe me, your user will already be on either Microsoft 365 or Google suite. The preloading of applications should be well thought to add to the experience.  Agreed that a user can simply remove the unwanted applications. But that also sends out a message how best you understand your users.
3. Please make me understand and convince me with one strong logic of having a primary (back) camera in the Pad.  On one side, you all talk about the strong integrations within the ecosystem, which you all have done across various devices.  So, why wouldn’t a OnePlus user take a picture with a better option, OnePlus smartphone in this case and then transfer the image on the Pad for further use. Times have changed, you can simply do away with the back camera.  Yes, you can always add to the performance of front camera as that is of immense utility in video calls, etc., using the Pad.
4. Finally, Pad has to be offered as a solution and not just another hardware that a user needs to figure out.  For the content consumer segment, which will comprise of the majority of such tablet users, bring out strong integrations with reputed content providers. In this case, the content does not only mean OTT entertainment apps.  The audience of OnePlus is an evolved one.  They would love to have subscription integrations from reputed digital publications like HBR, Economist and even some from India like Mint and ET Prime.  OnePlus could form special packages in partnership with them for its consumers.  In fact, OnePlus could go for some deeper integrations with such publications by optimising the reader experience of such apps on the Pad.

The Tablet or Pad as many of these OEMs name their product as has to be offered as a solution rather than a standalone hardware device.  There are broadly three segment of users – content consumers, creative content producers and professional content producers.  There can be sub-segments even within these. For instance, within content consumers we can have gamers, OTT consumers, etc.  If a Pad has to add some value to a potential consumer, then we need to align our offerings as per these user segments.  Among all these, for OnePlus content consumers who read a lot of serious stuff would be the largest opportunity for Pads.  This is what they need to nurture through some specific interventions, some of which are enumerated above.

The Tablet category is emerging as an interesting extension in the smart gadgets community, however, it can be made more interesting and engaging if we look at it from a solutions mindset and offer the potential consumers the experience they are looking for.  Hope OnePlus starts thinking in this direction and brings out some differentiation in this category which is otherwise heading to another specs war game.