A large tablet at a competitive price: this is what Honor offers with the Pad 9, a model which does not aim to compete with the iPad but rather to appeal to a wide audience looking for comfort at a lower cost. And it’s a success!

A large tablet at a competitive price: this is what Honor offers with the Pad 9, a model which does not aim to compete with the iPad but rather to appeal to a wide audience looking for comfort at a lower cost. And it’s a success!

During the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the trade show dedicated to telecoms held in Barcelona at the end of February, Honor occupied a very generously sized stand. A bit bigger even than that of Samsung located just opposite. This shows the ambitions of the Chinese brand which has continued to grow in popularity since its separation from its parent company Huawei. And the manufacturer was also among the rare exhibitors, mainly with Xiaomi, to have waited for this event to announce new products.

Thus, alongside its new premium smartphone the Magic6 Pro (of which we will publish the test very soon), Honor also unveiled its new Pad 9 tablet. Here, no technical sheet to jump to the ceiling, nor a luxurious design to put your eyes full, but a wise and very functional device, focused on the essentials and which fulfills its role perfectly. The main goal of the Pad 9 is to entertain in the best possible conditions and on a tight budget. A family tablet that we take great pleasure in handling and which we happily leave lying around on the living room coffee table for everyone to enjoy. Successful bet ? We were able to test the Pad 9 for several days. Here is our verdict.

Honor Pad 9: very neat finishes for the price

When opening the box of this tablet, we have some apprehensions. We say to ourselves that with the price so low, Honor hasn’t worked too hard on the design with plastic galore and a somewhat crude style. Well, that’s not the case. The Chinese brand makes a very good copy from which certain more high-end models could easily draw inspiration. On this tablet, we benefit from a metal (aluminum) chassis that is rather elegant and quite pleasant to the touch even if it is a little prone to fingerprints.

Still on the back of the case, the camera nestled in a fairly imposing island, is centered near the right edge (when the tablet is held vertically). An original approach that encourages using the tablet horizontally. Those who prefer to keep it vertical most of the time will be at their expense. You will have to find the right place to position your fingers and not be embarrassed.

As with most smartphones today, the Pad 9 has very flat edges. The chamfers can be a little protruding and leave nice marks in the palms of the hands when using the tablet for a long time. The edges accommodate the power button (no fingerprint reader, too bad) and volume button as well as eight speakers. No jack for wired headphones is present.

Equipped with a large 12.1-inch screen, the tablet necessarily adopts a fairly imposing size with its 278.2 x 180.1 mm and 6.96 mm thickness. The weight is appropriate at 555 g. A beautiful baby that is better to rest on your knees during long sessions of use (to watch a film or series for example). It nonetheless remains pleasant to handle and fits easily into a bag to carry it everywhere.

Honor Pad 9: a large, comfortable screen but lacking punch

12.1 inches. This is a screen diagonal in 16:10 format that is very comfortable when it comes to watching a film or series. But not only. The IPS LCD panel has a 2.5 K definition or 2560 x 1600 pixels for a resolution of 249 ppi with a refresh rate that can go up to 120 Hz. This is more than sufficient for most of the uses to which the Pad 9 is intended. To surf the Web, work, read documents… this screen lends itself readily to the exercise. The contrasts are very present and the colorimetry respected. On the brightness, however, it is a little less good. Honor indicates a peak at 500 nits, which is a little weak outdoors, especially since the screen benefits from minimal anti-reflective treatment. It will be better to find a corner sheltered from the sun to maintain good readability.

Nice surprise on the sound side. The eight onboard speakers deliver a good performance. Obviously, the Pad 9, like most tablets, struggles to produce deep bass. Nevertheless, the sound environment remains pleasant for viewing a film or series in good conditions with the volume pushed high enough without it becoming unpleasant.

Honor Pad 9: decent performance for the price

Technical sheet

To animate its tablet, Honor turned to Qualcomm and its Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 SoC. A mid-range processor engraved in 4 nm composed of eight cores (4 Cortex-A78 2.2 GHz and 4 Cortex-A55 1, 8 GHz) which has the advantage of being sufficiently efficient in most tasks and quite energy efficient. It is supported by an Adreno 710 graphics processor (GPU), 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage space, the only configuration available for this Pad 9. A light but effective frame for the use for which the tablet is intended. As the benchmarks we subjected it to show, it’s not a racing beast but it does well.

We didn’t notice any slowdowns or latency. Navigating the interface is smooth and hassle-free. In gaming, the Pad 9 makes short work of casual titles to pass the time. She encounters a little more difficulty with demanding games but does not stay on the sidelines either. With our reference title, Genshin Impact, we were able to play at a frequency of 60 frames per second with a level of detail set to medium. This is very satisfactory and many smartphones are not capable of this.

On the interface side, this Pad 9 runs with Android 13 and the in-house MagicOS software overlay here in version 7.2. We find the usual elements found on the brand’s smartphones but we would have appreciated a little freshness. The customization possibilities are numerous but sometimes confusing. Above all, Honor only plans one major Android update and three years of security patching. This is far too short when we estimate the lifespan and operating life of a tablet at several years, much longer than a smartphone.

Let’s quickly move on to the camera which, as on almost all tablets, acts as a backup device when you have nothing else on hand. The Pad 9 thus has a 13 Mpx (f2.0) wide-angle module on the back and an 8 Mpx (f/2.2) selfie camera on the front. Whatever the light conditions, the photos appear very dull. The sharpness is absent and the contrasts are quite flat. On the front, the selfie camera offers a decent performance for video calls with its ultra-wide-angle module.

Honor Pad 9: good battery life but too slow charging

Powered by an 8300 mAh battery, the Pad 9 has good battery life. Subjected to our video streaming playback test with Netflix, it was able to last a good dozen hours before turning off. That’s pretty good for a tablet of this price. With more intensive use mixing several activities, the autonomy reaches just over 9 hours.

On the recharging side, however, it is not a panacea. It took us almost two hours (117 minutes precisely) to refuel the tablet from 0 to 100%. Without a charger provided in the box – this is unfortunate – we connected it to a 100 W Anker charger. After half an hour we recovered 30% of the battery. After an hour of charging, 58%. It’s very, very long.

Honor Pad 9: should you go for Honor’s large, affordable tablet?

Honor delivers a good copy of its vision of the touchscreen tablet. We appreciate the large 12.1-inch screen, which is very comfortable on a daily basis. Its slight lack of brightness is compensated by very good definition which makes the device very versatile for reading text, viewing photos and watching videos. The Pad 9 is pleasant to live with and relatively efficient for the majority of tasks that can be entrusted to it. In addition, autonomy is there. But we can’t help but point out a few elements that dampen the mood. Tracking software updates turns out to be far too short. Only one year of major Android update, enough to just upgrade to Android 14 (released in fall 2023) since the tablet comes with Android 13. This is really too tight for a device that is due to be renewed well less often than a smartphone. The cooldown is also cringe-inducing. Long trips without stops to recharge may seem even longer. Nevertheless, the Pad 9 presents very good value for money for family use.