iQOO Says Its 8.8-Inch Gaming Tablet Is 5.74mm Thick and Has a Fan

Illustrative photo: a Steam Deck handheld, not the iQOO Pad Ultra. Image: Pexels.

A fan spinning at 14,500 rpm inside a body 5.74mm thick is the sort of specification that makes you want to check the arithmetic. iQOO published both numbers in the same week of teasers, and if the Pad Ultra ships as described at the end of September, its advertised dimensions would undercut the two gaming tablets compared below. Those measurements do not yet tell us how it performs under load.

Flagship product manager Wang Kan pinned the launch to late September on 8 September, alongside the iQOO 16, and both devices opened for pre-order on vivo's China store the same day against a CNY 9.9 deposit, as tech-ish reported. China only, for now. iQOO has said nothing about other markets.

The teasers since have been unusually specific about cooling. The fan measures 30 x 30 x 3.5mm, drives a heat-dissipation area of 1,661mm², tops out at 14,500 rpm and moves a maximum of 0.94 CFM. iQOO's marketing name for the whole arrangement is a “breathing esports chassis”, which is doing a lot of work, but the underlying idea is straightforward: moving heat with active airflow. The teasers do not establish which other cooling components it replaces.

Two accessories were confirmed alongside it. One is a stretchable controller that clamps around the tablet, with its own USB-C port, micro-switches and a Hall-effect joystick. The other is a rear grip, which sounds trivial until you remember what 8.8 inches of glass feels like held in two hands for an hour.

A later teaser confirmed the screen size at 8.8 inches, the thickness at 5.74mm and the weight at 298 grams.

The 8.8-inch gaming tablet is not a new idea. Lenovo has been selling the Legion Y700 at that size since 2022, and Notebookcheck lines the Pad Ultra up directly against the current Legion Tab Gen 5 at 7.9mm and 360 grams, with an LCD panel. ZTE's RedMagic Astra 2 is the closer rival on screen technology at 9.06 inches of OLED, 6.9mm and 363 grams.

The advertised figures put the Pad Ultra 62 grams below the Legion and 65 grams below the Astra 2. RedMagic describes the Astra 2's cooling as a combination of circulating liquid, liquid metal and a large vapour chamber. iQOO is putting its fan at the centre of the pitch, but neither approach can be judged from a list of dimensions. Sustained performance needs testing.

tech-ish places the Pad Ultra between a phone and a full-size tablet, closer in use to a handheld console. That is a useful way to judge it: whether it is comfortable to hold while playing matters alongside the display specification. The clamp-on controller and rear grip offer different ways to hold the same device; neither tells us yet how well the tablet balances in the hand.

The unconfirmed specifications reported by 91mobiles and Notebookcheck draw on Digital Chat Station on Weibo; the certification report is separate evidence. These are not launch specifications. The rumoured panel is an 8.8-inch OLED with a centred punch-hole and narrow bezels, which would make the Pad Ultra dramatically smaller than iQOO's own 13.2-inch Pad 6 Pro. Battery is put at the 9,000mAh class, and a vivo tablet carrying model number iPA2691 has cleared China's 3C certification with 66W charging.

The chip is where accounts diverge. 91mobiles reports a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6. Notebookcheck describes a 2nm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro, and tech-ish has heard Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 on 2nm. The differing names are not proof of three separate chip variants. Until iQOO names the processor, it is safer to leave the specification unresolved. Leaked colours are Ender Black and a silver whose translated name lands somewhere between Star Silver and Star Armor Silver.

iQOO has confirmed none of it.

Fans in mobile devices are not new: 91mobiles points to the iQOO 15 Ultra and Oppo K13 Turbo line. What makes the Pad Ultra interesting is the combination of active cooling and the advertised thin body. Whether the fan permits a smaller heatsink, lowers surface temperatures or improves sustained frame rates has not been established by the teasers.

It also puts an intake and an exhaust in the chassis, and whatever iQOO says about dust and liquid ingress on stage is worth listening for. Then there is the harder number nobody has published: what the fan sounds like during a game. A reviewer needs to hear it, as well as measure the frame rate.

Sources: notebookcheck.net · notebookcheck.net · tech-ish.com · 91mobiles.com · global.redmagic.gg