Honor MagicPad 4 review: Anything but mid

Finest Costs In the present day: Honor MagicPad 4

You possibly can’t actually blame Samsung for turning out incremental updates to its prolonged pill household 12 months on 12 months. It’s nailed the system, and continues to supply the very best non-iPad {hardware} within the enterprise.

That’s the usual line, at the very least, and it’s one which Honor would likely prefer to problem. With the MagicPad 4, it’s providing a particularly highly effective, well-equipped pill that’s pretty much as good at productiveness duties as it’s for media consumption.

Better of all, it manages to drag all this off at a vastly aggressive mid-market worth.

This 12 months’s mannequin reinstates an OLED show and amps up the efficiency whereas dramatically lowering bulk. It’s a reasonably formidable package deal. In the event you’re in search of a Galaxy Tab or iPad Air different, this is perhaps it.

Design & Construct

• 4.8mm thickness, 450g weight
• 93% screen-to-body ratio
• Stylus and keyboard case out there

The Honor MagicPad 4 is available in the identical two colors as its predecessor, gray and white, with the identical flat metallic body and a really related rounded-square digicam module within the nook.

That is no lazy rehash, although. Moderately remarkably, Honor has managed to shave about 17% off the thickness (now simply 4.8mm) and 24% off the load (450g). These are important variations.

It’s achieved a few of this by making the show and battery a little bit smaller, however the total impact makes for a internet constructive. The Honor MagicPad 4 is a pleasure to wield, although with a scarcity of IP certification I might be hesitant to set it up wherever close to a shower or pool.

It makes it thinner than the Galaxy Tab S11 Extremely and the iPad Professional (M5) (each 5.1mm), leaving solely the area of interest and closely caveated Toall Paper as a thinner choice at 3.1mm.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

This lighter physique additionally implies that an Honor MagicPad 4, along with its chunky Good Keyboard case, proves to be lighter than a MacBook Air 13. One thing to consider in case your workload is primarily mild phrase processing, emails and internet looking.

Or it might be if Honor’s Good Keyboard accent was higher. Hooking as much as the pill through the pogo pins on the again of the pill, it utilises a weird stand system that folds the highest half of the rear cowl again and away from the pill. I discovered all of it to be a little bit fiddly and insecure.

Whereas the keyboard itself affords a pleasant tactile typing expertise with loads of journey, I additionally famous that among the symbols weren’t matching up with the UK-calibrated keyboard software program on my check mannequin – a real ache when looking for these very important ‘@’ and ‘£’ symbols.

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Honor boasts that its newest pill design has the beating of the iPad Professional (M5) from the entrance, due to smaller 4mm bezels and a superior screen-to-body ratio. Apple would seemingly argue that its ubiquitous pill’s chunky border is a function, not a bug – all the higher to grip it with out interrupting the display screen – however the MagicPad 4 undoubtedly appears the half.

You may also add the Honor Magic Pencil 3 to the accent package deal, do you have to want. Honor’s stylus isn’t fairly as spectacular as Huawei’s on the MatePad 11.5S, nevertheless it offers a fairly pure handwriting expertise nonetheless.

It affixes onto the highest fringe of the pill via magnets, although it’s not essentially the most safe or intuitive system I’ve used, and appears considerably precarious when mixed with the aforementioned keyboard case.

Display & audio system

• 12.3-inch OLED show, 165Hz refresh charge
• 3000 x 1920 decision
• 2400 nits peak brightness

Honor made a barely odd resolution with the MagicPad 3, increasing the dimensions of its show whereas reverting to inferior LCD panel expertise. Fortunately, the MagicPad 4 reverses that course.

It is a lovely 12.3-inch OLED, wealthy in vibrant (but pure) color, and with a pointy 3000 x 1920 decision.

It additionally advantages from a boosted peak brightness in HDR content material of 2400 nits. That’s a giant step past even what the Honor MagicPad 2 needed to provide with its personal OLED.

Regardless of this welcome reversion (or ought to that be advance?), the Honor MagicPad 4’s display screen retains the speedy 165Hz peak refresh charge of its speedy predecessor. This isn’t a full LTPO panel with the fine-tuned flexibility that entails. Moderately, it’s able to switching between 5 ranges of smoothness as the duty dictates: 165Hz, 144Hz, 120Hz, 90Hz and 60Hz.

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To be blunt for a second, something above 120Hz is extreme usually use, and even usually productiveness duties. It’s solely actually in sure video games that help excessive body charges that such excessive smoothness pays off. The excellent news is that the MagicPad 4 has the facility to capitalise on this.

In non-gaming media, the MagicPad 4 advantages from a 3:2 facet ratio and help for IMAX Enhanced content material. There isn’t all that a lot round, however when you have a Disney+ account, you’ll be capable of expertise the likes of the newest Unbelievable 4 film in a means that makes higher use of the peak of the display screen, with smaller black borders.

Honor’s a stickler for eye care in its shows, and the MagicPad 4 follows swimsuit with 5280Hz PWM dimming.

Complementing this high-quality show is a beneficiant eight-speaker setup which, mixed with Honor’s AI Spatial Audio expertise, makes for an impressively spacious, well-separated soundstage.

It’s a little bit missing in low-end oomph for my liking, although – actually should you examine it to an iPad Professional. It ought to be famous, after all, that Apple’s premium pill prices round double the cash.

Specs & Efficiency

• Snapdragon 8 Gen 5
• 12 or 16GB RAM
• 256 or 512GB storage

A gentle sample has emerged of Honor MagicPad tablets providing excellent, if not-quite-top-level efficiency. The MagicPad 4 is one other to suit that mould, nevertheless it’s tougher than ever to identify the compromise.

Not like the MagicPad 3, it’s not utilizing a year-old flagship chip for the job. Moderately, Honor has turned to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 processor, which has a barely decrease CPU clock pace and a lesser GPU than the all-singing Elite variant.

It’s the identical chip that powers the OnePlus 15R and the Motorola Signature – two stylish, almost-flagship telephones that handle to attain so much whereas undercutting a lot of the competitors on worth. Honor is performing an identical trick with the MagicPad 4, solely within the pill area.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Due to using this element, along with both 12- or 16GB of RAM, the Honor MagicPad 4 feels each inch a top-level performer. Flitting between a number of windowed apps in PC mode (see the Software program part) is a pause-free expertise, as is taking part in Future: Rising on greater graphical settings.

That is the purpose within the evaluate the place I’d often hit you with some benchmark assessments to both rubber-stamp or dramatically counter my anecdotal impressions, however I can’t achieve this. Honor has seemingly blocked this from being potential forward of the official launch.

In our expertise with these aforementioned telephones, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is about as succesful because the Snapdragon 8 Elite – the highest Android processor for a lot of 2025. It’s received greater than sufficient energy on faucet for any activity, although you won’t fairly be capable of hit the complete 165fps in 3D video games.

Storage is a straight alternative between 256- and 512GB, which ought to show enough for the overwhelming majority of individuals with £500 to spend on a pill.

Cameras

• 13Mp rear digicam
• 9Mp entrance digicam

Honor has given the MagicPad 4 a simple photographic set-up involving a 13Mp rear digicam and a 9Mp entrance digicam.

I resisted the temptation to make use of the time period ‘bathroom commonplace’ there, as a result of it implies that we ought to be getting one thing higher in our mid-priced tablets. The reality, after all, is that nobody ought to be taking footage with such unwieldy gadgets besides as an absolute final resort.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

To that finish, once I say that the Honor MagicPad 4 doesn’t take excellent footage, it’s not with any nice sense of disapproval. However high-quality, whereas we’re right here, pictures taken with this pill are missing intimately and vulnerable to overexposure, even in best outside lighting.

The entrance digicam, too, is incapable of capturing even half-decent selfies. Its fixed-focus nature implies that there’s no nice pop to the topic towards the background, pores and skin tones are washed out, and every thing reasonably smudges collectively.

That’s to be anticipated. What these cameras can do is scan paperwork (within the case of the primary digicam), given sufficient lighting, in addition to conduct rudimentary video calls (from the entrance digicam).

Video seize can prolong to 4K, however by no means past 30fps. Why would you need to report video on a large slab of metallic and glass, you ask? Effectively, fairly.

Battery Life & Charging

• 10,100mAh battery
• 66W charging

As Honor’s smartphone batteries appear to be getting greater and greater, it’d increase eyebrows to study that the Chinese language model has gone in the wrong way for its 2026 pill.

Whereas the Honor MagicPad 4’s 10,100mAh cell is ostensibly a downgrade from the MagicPad 3’s 12,450mAh unit, a number of issues should be considered.

As mentioned, it is a smaller pill than its predecessor, with a correspondingly smaller show. It additionally runs on a extra environment friendly processor. It is a smaller battery, sure, nevertheless it’s not small for the size and capabilities of the pill.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

What issues is that the MagicPad 4 can get you thru a full day of combined utilization. In additional ‘regular’ use case eventualities – choosing it up sporadically for the odd video, sport, internet session or doodle utilizing the stylus – I used to be capable of undergo every week or so with no need to cost up.

As that implies, it holds onto its cost very properly throughout protracted unused spells, too.

Given Honor’s obvious block on utilizing benchmark instruments forward of the embargo, I used to be unable to run the MagicPad via our normal PCMark battery check. Nevertheless, I did observe that the pill misplaced round 8% following an hour of high-quality 2160p/60fps HDR video streaming on YouTube, which is about what I’d anticipate from a contemporary pill.

Honor has equipped its pill with 66W SuperCharge help. It doesn’t bundle in any type of charger, however utilizing a suitably speedy Vivo charger that I needed to hand (which produced the telltale ‘Tremendous Quick Charging’ notification), I used to be capable of get it from empty to 55% in half-hour, and on to 100% in 1 hour and 10 minutes.

That’s impressively quick.

Software program & Apps

• MagicOS 10 with Android 16
• Ordinary Honor bloatware
• At the very least three years of updates

The Honor MagicPad 4 ships with Android 16 – the newest (on the time of writing) model of Google’s OS. That’s not, after all, what you’ll be interacting with everyday, like it’s a Pixel Pill.

Honor’s MagicOS 10 UI comes slathered on prime, for higher or for worse, relying on what you want to obtain.

Whereas there’s ample customisation potential, and the UI performs admirably easily for essentially the most half, it’s additionally filled with useless bloatware. Fb, Reserving.com, TikTok, Instagram – all come preinstalled with out your say-so.

So too do three cheap-looking video games and WPS Workplace, all 4 of which, for some cause, share area in a folder titled ‘Prime Apps’. Curious.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Honor additionally masses its newest pill with a bunch of its personal home-brewed purposes, together with Honor Children (an academic app for youthful customers), a very superfluous secondary app retailer referred to as App Market, and a sensible dwelling accent app that’s referred to as Honor AI Area for who-knows-what cause.

Speaking of AI, Gemini comes preinstalled (naturally), whereas the Honor AI part of the Settings menu rounds up all the firm’s personal AI instruments. There’s a mix of the standard writing help and real-time transcription choices combined in with options that in all probability don’t warrant the AI descriptor, comparable to Air Gestures.

Magic Portal helps you to circle display screen content material utilizing a reasonably odd however efficient knuckle enter, after which ship the content material to the Notes app, the share device, e mail and the like. Honor’s AI Recollections device options closely right here, which helps you to extract textual content and picture info and put it aside for later reference.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

MagicOS 10 is way extra spectacular in relation to getting issues finished past the standard informal media consumption.

Hook the pill as much as its keyboard case accent, and also you’ll be requested if you wish to enter PC mode. This makes it in order that apps boot up in windowed kind, permitting you to stack and run a number of purposes aspect by aspect, such as you would in your desktop PC or laptop computer.

I additionally appreciated the best way during which I may share information comparatively simply between the pill and my MacBook utilizing the free Honor WorkStation app.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

It’s not my favorite tackle Android, then, however MagicOS 10 is properly calibrated for energy customers and people looking for to get actual work finished on the go.

One last fly within the ointment is Honor’s subpar software program help. The MagicPad 4 will obtain at the very least three years of updates, which is an enchancment on the MagicPad 3, however falls in need of Samsung’s agency seven-year promise and even the divisive Pixel Pill simply received given a bonus two years.

Value & Availability

• £599.99 for 12GB/256GB
• £699.99 for 16GB/512GB
• Early fowl accent bundles out there

Retail availability for the Honor MagicPad 4 commenced from 3 March 2026. You possibly can choose it up straight from the official Honor store, in addition to the standard on-line retailers.

Costs begin from £599.99 for the model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is out there in gray or white. The 16/512GB mannequin prices £699.99, and is out there in gray solely.

There’s additionally a tempting early fowl provide being run that cuts the worth of the pill whereas bundling within the Honor Magic Pencil 3 and Good Keyboard equipment, that are price a mixed £170.98, without spending a dime. Take a look at the Honor web site for extra.

The Honor MagicPad 4 isn’t out there within the US.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

At this worth, Honor’s pill can rely the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE+ as a direct rival. Samsung’s pill begins from £50 extra, nevertheless it bundles in a stylus as a part of that worth. In nearly each different {hardware} class, the MagicPad 4 has it outgunned.

You may additionally contemplate the OnePlus Pad 3 or Xiaomi Pad 7.

It’s additionally the identical worth because the iPad Air M3, which pulls up in need of the MagicPad 4 with its show, however after all provides you that impeccable iPad OS software program and potent Apple M3 silicon.

Take a look at our record of the very best tablets to see our present prime suggestions, or you might have considered trying a price range pill as an alternative.

Do you have to purchase the Honor MagicPad 4?

The Honor MagicPad 4 is a really well-equipped Android pill for the cash being requested.

For across the worth of a Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE+ or an iPad Air, you’re getting a slick OLED show and near-flagship efficiency.

It’s all wrapped up in one of many slimmest pill our bodies round. There are weaknesses regarding software program, together with a cluttered UI and extreme bloatware, and the elective equipment aren’t the very best of their form.

Regardless of the downsides, the Honor MagicPad 4 is likely one of the best Android tablets in its class.

Specs

• Android 16
• 12.3in, 3000 x 19207, OLED, 165Hz show
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5
• 12GB/16GB RAM
• 128GB/256GB storage
• 13Mp, f/2.0 rear digicam
• 5Mp telephoto macro digicam
• As much as 4K @ 30fps rear video
• 9Mp, f/2/2 front-facing digicam
• Eight Audio system with Honor Spatial Audio
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be
• Bluetooth 6.0
• 10,100mAh battery
• 66W charging
• 273.4 x 178.8 x 4.8mm
• 450g
• Launch colors: Gray, White