iQOO's 8.8-Inch Pad Pro Packs a Cooling Fan and a 9,020mAh Battery for 2,200 Yuan Less Than the Pad Ultra

The compact gaming tablet launched alongside the iQOO Neo12 on Wednesday night and went on sale right away at 4,299 yuan. Subsidies take the entry model to 3,249 yuan.

DONGGUAN, China - iQOO launched the Pad Pro 8.8, a compact gaming tablet with a built-in cooling fan, at its event in China on Wednesday night and put it on sale immediately. The base model, with 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage, lists at 4,299 yuan, according to iQOO’s official specifications page. A 550 yuan platform discount brings it to 3,749 yuan, and buyers who qualify for China’s national device subsidy pay 3,249 yuan, IT Home reported from the launch. iQOO’s launch slide says the discount runs through Nov. 13.

The tablet came out on the same stage as the iQOO Neo12 phone, and it follows the same idea: flagship silicon plus a fan, aimed at people who play long sessions of demanding mobile games.

iQOO’s launch price slide, with list prices, platform prices and subsidized prices for all five versions. Image: iQOO

There are five versions. The 12GB and 256GB model lists at 4,699 yuan, the 16GB and 256GB model at 5,099 yuan, the 12GB and 512GB model at 5,399 yuan and the top 16GB and 512GB model at 5,799 yuan. With the discount and the national subsidy, the range runs from 3,249 yuan to 4,749 yuan. The tablet comes in blue and gray.

The price is the real story. In size and shape, the Pad Pro is nearly identical to the iQOO Pad Ultra that the company released in September. Both measure 5.74 millimeters thick and weigh 298 grams, both use an 8.8-inch AMOLED screen at 2,304 by 1,440 pixels with a 165Hz refresh rate, and both carry a 9,020mAh battery with 66W charging, according to iQOO’s specifications for each model. The Pad Ultra starts at 6,499 yuan, so the Pad Pro lists for 2,200 yuan less.

A cutaway of the Pad Pro’s cooling system, with the fan and heat spreaders inside the 5.74-millimeter body. Image: iQOO

The main difference is the chips. The Pad Ultra uses a newer sixth-generation Snapdragon 8 Elite chip built on a 2-nanometer process. The Pad Pro steps down to the 3-nanometer Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the processor in the Neo12, paired with iQOO’s own Q3 gaming chip. It also tops out at 512GB of storage, where the Ultra offers 1TB.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and iQOO’s Q3 gaming chip, from the launch presentation. Image: iQOO

The fan stays. iQOO says it measures 30 by 30 by 3.5 millimeters, a size the company bills as industry-leading, with a maximum airflow of 0.94 cubic feet per minute and air intakes on both sides. Two vapor chambers and graphite sheets add more than 23,000 square millimeters of passive cooling area. In iQOO’s own test of an unnamed large open-world game at its highest quality and 60 frames per second, the tablet averaged 60.2 frames per second.

The Q3 chip handles three visual tricks iQOO is promoting: upscaling to 2K, full-scene ray tracing and frame interpolation, which several games support today. The touch layer samples at up to 500Hz in game mode, and iQOO says the gyroscope samples at up to 500Hz as well.

The 8.8-inch AMOLED display runs at up to 165Hz. Image: iQOO

The rest of the specifications are those of a premium small tablet. The Pad Pro runs OriginOS 7 HD and supports Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 and USB 3.2 Gen 2 through its USB-C port. It has a 13-megapixel rear camera that records 4K video and an 8-megapixel front camera, along with dual speakers. iQOO’s promotional images show it clipped into a gamepad-style controller, but a note on the company’s product page says the controller is sold separately. iQOO has not announced plans to sell the tablet outside China.