ASUS Pad Challenges Samsung and Apple’s OLED Grip in India

ASUS confirmed on July 17 that its ASUS Pad tablet goes on sale in India on August 6, ending a ten-year gap in the category. The headline feature is a 12.2-inch dual-layer OLED screen, the same stacked panel design Apple uses in the iPad Pro. Until now, Samsung and Apple were the only two brands selling OLED tablets in India, and neither sells one cheap.

ASUS still has not named a price. A product listing spotted by Beebom Gadgets a day earlier put the starting figure at Rs 62,990 (roughly $650 at the current rupee to dollar rate), while other outlets covering the same announcement expect something closer to Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000. Both numbers cannot be right, and ASUS is not saying which one is.

A Decade-Long Gap Closes on August 6

ASUS’s last tablets, called ZenPad, arrived in India way back in 2016, and since then the company shifted focus to gaming-oriented 2-in-1 devices. The Pad T3201 marks a deliberate return, not a side project.

The way consumers work, learn and entertain themselves has changed over the last few years, creating demand for devices that can seamlessly adapt to multiple lifestyles. With ASUS Pad, we are excited to re-enter the Indian tablet market and further strengthen our consumer ecosystem.

Arnold Su, vice president of consumer and gaming PC at ASUS India, said the launch reflects changing consumer habits around work, learning, and entertainment. The device officially launches in India on August 6 at 12 noon, with its price set to be announced closer to the launch. ASUS previewed the same hardware at Computex in June, where early coverage of the tablet’s tandem OLED pulling down a price tier set up exactly this kind of market entry.

The Panel Doing the Heavy Lifting

Numbers That Beat the iPad Pro on One Metric

ASUS Pad is built around a 12.2-inch 2.8K dual-layer OLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate for optimum visual quality. The screen carries a 3:2 aspect ratio and a typical brightness of 600 nits, while it also supports HDR10+ playback, brings 100% DCI-P3 coverage and can reach a peak brightness of 2,000 nits. Add a 92% screen-to-body ratio and TUV Rheinland eye-comfort certification, and on paper this outguns the panel it is chasing. Apple’s own tandem OLED, the stacked structure that lets its iPad Pro tablets hit 1,600 nits peak HDR brightness and 1,000 nits full panel brightness, still leads on sustained full-screen output. The ASUS panel wins on peak numbers; the iPad Pro wins on everyday brightness.

From Car Dashboards to Tablets Under a Lakh

Tandem OLED was first developed by LG Display in 2019 for automobile heads-up displays, built to survive the lifespan of a car. The iPad Pro became the first consumer tablet to use it in 2024. From there it jumped to laptops, and by 2026 Samsung Display was branding its own multi-layer architecture Penta Tandem for premium monitors and TVs. Two years after its consumer debut in a tablet that started near $999 globally, the same layered panel design is heading into an Indian tablet expected to sell for well under a lakh rupees.

The pattern is a straight line from a low-volume automotive niche to a mainstream Android tablet in under seven years.

A Flagship Screen Rides a Mid-Range Engine

The ASUS Pad is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 8300 octa-core processor with a maximum clock speed of 3.35GHz, paired with 8GB of LPDDR5X RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, expandable via microSD. ASUS’s own global spec sheet also lists a 16GB memory configuration alongside the 8GB tier, though nothing confirms India gets that option. The same Dimensity chip already powers a Lenovo tablet that sells for a fraction of what ASUS is likely to charge. As one review of the launch put it, this pairing makes the Pad “a media-consumption device, not a performance workhorse.” A flagship-grade screen sitting on mid-tier silicon is not necessarily a flaw. It is a trade-off, and ASUS is betting Indian buyers care more about the display than the chip inside it.

Who Actually Owns India’s OLED Tablet Lane?

Samsung and Apple, in that order. Samsung controls nearly half of India’s tablet market and Apple sits a distant second, and until this launch those two brands were the only ones putting OLED screens inside Indian tablets at any price.

• 47%: Samsung’s share of India’s tablet market in Q1 2026, according to Counterpoint Research
• 20 to 22%: Apple’s share over the same quarter, its closest rival
• 76%: year-on-year growth in the 12 to 12.9-inch screen segment, the exact size bracket the ASUS Pad occupies
• 20%: growth in average tablet selling prices in India, as the category leans more premium

Apple ranks as the second-largest tablet vendor in India, holding a strong 20% to 22% market share, and generally trails only Samsung, which leads the market with nearly 47% share, per Counterpoint Research’s Q1 2026 tablet tracker. The category is growing even as phones stall. India’s tablet market grew 5% year on year in Q1 2026, even as smartphone shipments declined 3% in the same quarter, marking the weakest quarter for smartphones in six years, according to a Business Standard analysis of the same Counterpoint data. Larger screens are doing the pulling: devices above 13 inches recorded the highest growth at 338% year on year, followed by the 12 to 12.9-inch segment at 76%. Beebom Gadgets, reviewing the same India-bound spec sheet ASUS confirmed, called it special because “the only OLED display tablets in India are Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S series and Apple’s iPad Pro models” and neither comes cheap.

A Leaked Number ASUS Has Not Confirmed

Here is where the story gets messy. Beebom Gadgets reported that a since-updated India product page showed a starting price of Rs 62,990. Gizbot, covering the same launch, expected something lower: a starting price anywhere between Rs 40,000 and Rs 50,000. Sangri Times went further, pegging it at around Rs 40,000. Gizmochina, reporting closer to publication, said flatly that pricing remains under wraps, even though the tablet is already official and its specifications are known from its global unveiling last month. Technosports agreed: pricing will be revealed closer to launch. News of the launch spread quickly after Beebom’s own account posted the August 6 date and spec sheet to its followers.

If the higher figure holds, the ASUS Pad still undercuts Samsung’s and Apple’s OLED tablets in India by a wide margin. It would not, however, be the aggressive price disruption some early estimates promised. Whatever the final number turns out to be, buyers will find it in a narrow set of places.

• Online, exclusively through Flipkart and the ASUS eShop
• Offline through ASUS and ROG brand stores
• Reliance Digital outlets
• Authorized retail partners nationwide

The ASUS Pad launches in India on August 6 at 12 noon, available exclusively online on Flipkart and the ASUS eShop, and offline via ASUS and ROG Stores, Reliance Digital, and authorized retail partners. The screen is settled. The number attached to it is not, and ASUS has three weeks left to close that gap itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the ASUS Pad support 5G or cellular data in India?

Nothing in the specification sheets ASUS has published so far mentions a cellular modem. The tablet runs Android 16 and supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, which points to a Wi-Fi-only device, at least in the configuration confirmed for launch.

Will the ASUS Pad come with a stylus or keyboard in the box?

No. The tablet is compatible with the Asus Pen 2.0 stylus and supports a smart keyboard, but both are sold separately. Only the protective folio case ships in the box.

Does dual-layer OLED actually cut down on screen burn-in?

That is the point of the design. In tandem panels generally, two layers of light-emitting pixels each emit roughly half the light needed, combining for full output, which lowers the risk of burn-in while also helping power consumption. ASUS is applying the same principle rather than inventing a new one.

What did global analysts expect the ASUS Pad to cost before Indian pricing surfaced?

Ahead of any India-specific news, one outlet’s analysts pegged worldwide pricing at $400 to $600, which would put it well below the iPad Pro’s entry point and in direct competition with Samsung’s mid-range Android tablets. That range roughly lines up with the lower Indian estimates now circulating.

How fast is the Dimensity 8300 chip inside the ASUS Pad?

The same chipset appears in the Lenovo Idea Tab Pro, where it scored around 1.2 million points on AnTuTu V10 in one outlet’s own testing, on a tablet that currently retails for about $339. That gives a rough sense of what to expect: smooth for video, browsing and note-taking, not built for heavy gaming.