Well known for its smartphones and laptops, Honor has just marketed the Tab 8, a large 12-inch Android tablet with a very attractive price/quality ratio. The first of the brand to be available in France.
Separated from the giant Huawei since 2021, Honor feels growing wings. Unlike its former parent company, the brand is not subject to American sanctions: it can thus use Google’s services without constraints and continue to produce smartphones and tablets without forcing its users to take detours to take full advantage of their device. And for this new school year, Honor is stepping out of its usual territory by offering an Android tablet for the first time in France – a range of products hitherto reserved for the Chinese market. And the Pad 8 – that’s its name – does not lack assets to seduce, with a beautiful 12-inch LCD panel, a flattering finish, a very reasonable weight and practical functions with the in-house Magic UI software overlay, the all at a contained price.
Honor Pad 8: a tablet cut out for multimedia
For its entry into the French market, Honor has chosen to offer a serious mid-range tablet, with solid technical characteristics and a wise price. And, without competing with the otherwise more expensive high-end models from Apple and Samsung, the Tab 8 immediately makes a good impression. Thus, if the borders of the screen are a bit conspicuous – which is not really a defect, since it avoids accidentally pressing on the screen when it is held in hand – its flat sides recall the design very appreciated by iPads, which is not unpleasant, especially since it benefits from an aluminum alloy body. Its large size does not prevent it from being comfortable in hand: it is thus rather thin (only 6.9 mm thick) and quite light (520 g), which remains reasonable for this size.
In fact, despite its name, the Pad 8 (the 8 corresponding to the 8th generation) has a large screen (12 inches) based on a beautiful 2K LCD panel (2000 x 1200 pixels). A very comfortable definition, suitable for both web browsing and streaming video viewing. Moreover, under its hood, the Tab 8 embeds a Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 octa-core processor – a SoC which equips many recent smartphones, such as the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11, the Oppo Reno 7 or the Samsung Galaxy A23 – supported by 4 or 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. A configuration which opens wide the doors of multimedia to comfortably read films for example. To make a difference in this field, it even has eight speakers and Hi-Res Audio certification. Honor has added its two cents to it with its Histen technology, which simulates sound spatialization. In short, the Tab 8 promises to be well suited to video evenings on the sofa. Especially since it has a battery with a comfortable capacity of 7250 mAh, capable of ensuring, according to the manufacturer, 10 hours of streaming video playback. It even comes with a fast charger (22.5 W).
But one of the major assets of the Pad 8 is its software overlay, Magic UI 6.1, which is superimposed on Android 12. Indeed, it has an original and practical multi-windowing mode which makes it possible to display and simultaneously up to four windows open on the screen, while managing their size and position, much like on a computer. A real plus in daily use compared to conventional mobile devices which are most often satisfied with a single full-screen application. And still in terms of the interface, it offers an electronic book mode that switches the display to black and white with an anti-blue light filter: a very practical function for reading e-books and transforming the Pad 8 into a reader. On the other hand, if it is well equipped for multimedia and relaxation, the Pad 8 will not be comfortable with demanding games for which its performance will be somewhat limited.
As we can see, the Pad 8 does not come to hunt on the land of iPads, but rather places itself in the field of good quality new generation Chinese tablets, such as the Oppo Pad or the Xiaomi Pad 5. Already available, it is also sold at a very reasonable price, around 350 euros in the 6 GB – 128 GB version – much more accessible than Apple’s prices… Last important detail, Honor indicates that the Pad 8 will benefit from two years of updates major system updates and three years of security updates. Enough to ensure a decent lifespan.