I use an expensive Android tablet from ZTE with a 3D display, and it’s one of the weirdest products I’ve ever tested.
It uses 3D technology similar to the Nintendo 3DS to create a “glasses-free” 3D effect on images and videos.
Confusingly, the Nubia Pad 3D is also sold as the Lume Pad 2 from a company called Leia Inc. The box in which I received the product for review was branded Leia and said “development platform ” on the side.
If the Nubia Pad 3D is indeed aimed at developers, professionals or businesses, then maybe I understand – after all, that’s the approach Acer and Asus have mostly taken with their recent 3D-enabled laptops. But ZTE has decided to sell this large, bulky and buggy 3D screen tablet to consumers for $1,199 / £1,149.
That’s more than the $1,099 12.9-inch iPad Pro M2 in the US, and not far off Apple’s £1,249 UK price. It’s hard not to compare the two and conclude that while 3D is fun, that’s really where it ends for the tablet-buying public.
Dimensional Challenge
The main attraction of Nubia Pad 3D is the 3D compatible applications that only this device can run. Just to confuse even more, these are all Leia branded: LeiaChat (3D video calls), LeiaCam (take 3D photos and videos), LeiaTube (convert videos to 3D) and LeiaViewer (view 3D models).
LeiaViewer is the most impressive of these apps because it’s where 3D works best and with little to no blurring. There were 3D models pre-installed on my review device that were fun to play with, and if you work with 3D models, you can import them into the app to display them in 3D on screen.
Henry Burrell / Foundry
I’ve walked through an animated model of a mini-city, studied a leather shoe up close, and watched a rendering of a mythical scene played out in statue form, but to what end? 3D visualization adds no function on top of a 2D screen – professionals design 3D models on 2D screens all the time. Being able to view in 3D is cool, but it doesn’t add anything useful.
The 2560 x 1600 IPS LCD screen cannot display a 3D image by itself – the technology works much like on Nintendo’s old 3DS handheld, where the screen projects a different image for each of your eyes and uses the dual front cameras to track where your eyes are, creating a 3D illusion.
The display’s 120Hz refresh rate ensures menu and 3D app animations are smooth and fluid, and most of these apps allow you to switch between 2D and 3D through screen technology.
But with that big screen, four cameras, four speakers and a big battery, this is a thick and heavy device compared to the best tablets on the market.
It weighs 780g, considerably more than the 684g 12.9-inch iPad Pro, and despite the difference it doesn’t feel far off the 1.29kg MacBook Air M1 that I use every day for work. For a single tablet without a keyboard, the Nubia is heavy.
It’s also thick at 8.4mm, thanks to an extra layer under the screen to achieve the 3D effect, which adds to the thickness of the device – the iPad is just 6.4mm.
Henry Burrell / Foundry
I’ll leave the iPad comparisons alone now because I know ZTE isn’t trying to clone the Apple tablet here, but this is a stiff, heavy tablet with rounded corners on the frame but not the screen, which is rectangular.
You need to hold it in landscape mode and see 3D content up close. Turn it off on the right axis and the images or video turn into splintered, blurry chaos.
Limited call
One of the tricks the tablet can perform is to convert existing 2D videos to 3D using the LeiaTube app. It’s like you can search all of YouTube and choose any video, but the limited reality is that it presents you with a grid of YouTube and Vimeo videos and no search function.
You can sort by category, and I soon discovered that there aren’t many videos you can watch or convert. Even when you do, it’s like a proof of concept on a tablet that feels like a prototype.
It’s not good 3D as you might have seen with 3D glasses in an IMAX cinema, or even in the LeiaViewer app. It’s 3D without glasses. Videos look better in 2D.
I took photos using the LeiaCam app and got similar results – images that looked solid in 2D, then had ghosting around the edges of objects as the tech tried to render the 3D picture.
Henry Burrell / Foundry
The Pad 3D runs the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, a 5G-enabled chipset that you can take advantage of through the SIM card slot. The 888 debuted in 2020, so it’s a bit annoying that a $1,000/£1,000+ tablet in 2023 is using it. The Xiaomi Pad 5 uses the Snapdragon 860, a chip not far off the capabilities of the 888, and costs just £369.
That said, most things I did on it ran just fine, and it didn’t stutter when playing 3D videos or converting images to 3D.
There’s also the LeiaChat 3D video call app, but I couldn’t test it because it only works fully with other Nubia Pad 3D tablets. ZTE says you can chat with people on iPhone and Android using the LeiaChat app, but at the time of writing, it’s not in the Apple or Google app stores.
Henry Burrell / Foundry
Despite the relatively unique technology inside, I can recommend the ZTE Nubia Pad 3D to precisely zero people who have that much money to spend on a tablet. The iPad Pro (or any iPad for that matter) is a best buy for everyone with more than a grand to spend, or if you must have Android, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 is a comparative steal at 699 $ / £649.
The only possible reason I see for you to buy the Nubia Pad 3D is if you want to develop an application for its 3D technology, which has limited practical use for consumers in the first place. I thought we solved this problem a few years ago when the popular Nintendo 3DS was considered a curiosity.
I owned this console, and I turned off 3D. A decade later, I disabled it on this tablet as well. File the Nubia Pad 3D under “curiosity” and move on.
