Honor MagicPad 2 Review: A Productivity Engine

Selling Android tablets can often be a bit difficult. Apple has largely perfected its tablet software (aside from its ambitions to replace laptops with the iPad), but the experience of using Android on a tablet has been mediocre at best. But Honor thought it might have a solution and released the Honor MagicPad 2. At least on paper, this is clearly made for eating lunch on the iPad.

However, Honor itself is struggling a bit in the software department. Does the Honor MagicPad 2 have enough features to overcome the hurdles that come with Android on a tablet?

Respect MagicPad 2 specifications

Sophisticated design and premium colors

The Honor MagicPad 2 is clearly built for a premium experience. It’s incredibly slim, extremely sleek, stylish, and offers great build quality overall.

Image source: Christian de Looper, BGR

The tablet has a relatively large 12.3-inch display laid out in a 3:2 aspect ratio. As a result, it’s a little shorter than most iPad models, but many people like it anyway. We found that there are slim bezels around the screen, and there’s still plenty of room to easily hold the tablet without accidentally pressing on the display. In horizontal orientation, you’ll find the USB-C port on the right, the power button on the left, and the volume rocker on the top. The front camera is also on the top edge, which is exactly where it should be.

However, the back of the tablet may be more interesting than the front. MagicPad 2 is available in flat black or light blue. But the best color option is the Moonlight White option, which has a textured look reminiscent of white marble countertops. They look great and I love that brands like Honor are experimenting more with color options.

stunning OLED screen

Even more impressive than the tablet’s design is its display. The MagicPad 2’s display is absolutely stunning. This is an OLED panel with a resolution of 1920 x 3000 pixels, easily enough clarity and detail for any task you can perform in 2024. Text is crisp and images look great.

This tablet also has a high refresh rate that ranges up to an impressive 144Hz. I don’t think manufacturers need to focus on refresh rates above 120Hz. The higher the refresh rate, the harder it is to spot the difference, and most people find a 120Hz refresh rate smooth and responsive.

Image source: Christian de Looper, BGR

In addition to the high resolution and refresh rate, the display is incredibly bright, especially for an OLED screen. I was able to easily view the content on the display even outdoors in direct sunlight. This is great for OLED screens in general. To be clear, the screen isn’t as bright as the iPad Pro, so don’t expect anything comparable to Apple’s tandem OLED technology just yet. However, the Honor MagicPad 2 is significantly cheaper than the iPad Pro.

Honor is also leveraging some AI features to improve the MagicPad 2’s display experience. For example, there’s an interesting AI defocus display feature built to help nearsighted people see what’s on the screen better.

All that said, the Honor MagicPad 2’s display is absolutely stunning and is easily the best thing about this tablet.

Great performance for the price

Under the hood, the Honor MagicPad 2 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor paired with 8GB, 12GB, or 16GB of RAM. Our review unit came with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but storage ranges up to 1TB.

Image source: Christian de Looper, BGR

Thanks to the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor, this tablet is fast, responsive, and capable of doing anything by 2024. This also includes heavier multitasking, which is very important for a tablet of this size. While many users may purchase a tablet like this just for media consumption, others are looking for a tablet with a larger screen for productivity reasons.

In the time I spent testing the tablet, I didn’t experience any freezes or stuttering. We also found that games loaded relatively quickly and performance while gaming was good.

Here are the benchmark results achieved with Honor MagicPad 2:

• Geek Bench 6: 1,963 single core, 4,662 multi-core
• 3DMark Wild Life Extreme:

These are solid results and show that the tablet works easily. The MagicPad 2 doesn’t perform as well as the more expensive Galaxy Tab S9 series, let alone the more expensive iPad Pro. However, at this price, this tablet performs well and performs well in everyday life.

Great battery and fast charging

The Honor MagicPad 2 has a 10,050mAh battery, which delivers excellent battery life considering it’s paired with a relatively efficient chipset and OLED screen. While this battery won’t break records, most users should find it sufficient for a full day’s work with light to moderate workloads. Gaming and streaming can drain your battery, but in that case, expect it to be less than 8-9 hours. But that’s not a bad thing. Again, most users should expect to get several days of moderate use before needing to charge.

Image source: Christian de Looper, BGR

When it comes to charging, the MagicPad 2 supports fast charging up to 66 watts using the included power adapter. This is pretty fast, faster than charging most modern tablets. It takes less than 2 hours to fully charge your tablet. This is very useful.

enough camera

The camera module on the back of the Honor MagicPad 2 may be relatively large, similar to Honor’s smartphones, but it only has one camera on board. This camera is a 13 megapixel f/2.0 camera and comes with an LED flash.

Image source: Christian de Looper, BGR

The quality of a tablet’s rear camera isn’t necessarily important because most people don’t use their tablets to take photos in their daily lives. The MagicPad 2 can capture decent shots, and while I’m not going to compare it to high-end modern smartphones, it doesn’t look terrible either.

The tablet has a 9-megapixel camera on the front, hidden in the top bezel for horizontal orientation and the right bezel for vertical orientation. That’s exactly where it should be. The front camera isn’t great either, and when you take photos with it, the highlights can get a little blown out and the subject a little blurry. That said, it’s perfectly suitable for video calls. Frankly, that’s what tablet front-facing cameras are made for.

useful accessories

These days, tablets need to come with solid accessories, and Honor has clearly put some thought into the accessories that work with the MagicPad 2.

Image source: Christian de Looper, BGR

First, there’s the MagicPad 2 Smart Bluetooth Keyboard. This is a relatively basic keyboard accessory that doubles as a protective cover. The Smart Bluetooth Keyboard is perfectly fine, but nothing special. Like most other keyboard accessories, you snap the tablet into the keyboard case, but it’s not as easy to remove the tablet from the keyboard as it is with Apple’s Magic Keyboard on the iPad Pro. Additionally, the keyboard connects via Bluetooth, but the good news is that if you place your tablet inside, it will charge wirelessly from the tablet itself. The typing experience on the keyboard is good, and the movement of the keys provides a good tactile feel. However, I think it would have been nice to have a touchpad.

This tablet also works with the Honor Magic Pencil 3, which works similarly to the Apple Pencil. Magic Pencil 3 connects magnetically to the top of your tablet and is built for ultra-low latency of just 2ms. Magic Pencil 3 automatically charges when you place it on your tablet.

Magic Pencil 3 also has some useful tools. In addition to using the stylus as a simple navigation tool, you can also use it to write in text fields. The tablet uses an AI algorithm to convert it to plain text.

software

So the big question is, has Honor solved the Android tablet software? No, that’s not true, but the Android tablet experience of three or four years ago is not the experience of today. Not only that, Honor offers some useful features of its own, and although it primarily emulates iPadOS, it works relatively well.

Features include split-screen multitasking to use two apps side-by-side, and the ability to add apps on top in floating mode. There’s also a toolbar at the bottom that helps you access built-in tools for copying text and images between apps and apps.

Image source: Christian de Looper, BGR

As you can imagine in 2024, software will have a lot of AI capabilities built into it. Honor lets you quickly finish drafts of text, change the tone of text, and more. Additionally, Notes has audio-to-text transcription capabilities. However, as someone who regularly uses AI-powered speech-to-text tools, I find that they aren’t all that accurate.

conclusion

The Honor MagicPad 2 is a great tablet in its price range. It performs well, offers a beautiful screen, and boasts top-notch build quality, all for less than a comparable Samsung or Apple tablet. Of course, you have to live in an area where you can get one, but if you do and you’re looking for a flagship-level Android tablet for less than a flagship price, the Honor MagicPad 2 is a great choice.

competition

Competition in the tablet world is getting a little more intense. Most users will find the iPad to be a little more intuitive and support more useful features. However, if you’re considering the Honor MagicPad 2, you’re likely looking for an Android-powered device. In that case, the biggest competitor will be the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9+. However, the Honor MagicPad 2 is much cheaper. That being said, Samsung is likely to release a next-generation tablet in the near future.

Should I buy Honor MagicPad 2?

yes. A great Android tablet at an affordable price.