HONOR Pad 9, 12.1-inch Wi-Fi Tablet, 8GB+256GB, 120Hz 2.5K Eye Protection Display, 8 Speakers, Android 13, Space Grey

The HONOR Pad 9 really exceeded my expectations. The display is sharp, vibrant, and perfect for streaming, reading, or casual gaming. Performance is smooth — multitasking, browsing, run without any issue. The build quality feels premium and lightweight in design that’s super comfortable to hold for long periods.Battery life is another highlight — I easily get a full day of use with mixed tasks. The speakers are also surprisingly loud and clear for a tablet at this price point.If you’re after a solid Android tablet that feels more expensive than it is, the Pad 9 is a fantastic choice. Great value, great performance, and zero regrets.

I have this tablet with 6 days. The first thing I must get out there is when you boot the tablet there will be about 2 firmware updates a small google security patch and a small performance patch. The tablet will be upgraded to Android OS 14 and the September 1st 2024 android security patch. It has the August 1st 2024 Google Play system update installed. As of Thursday 10 October 2024 the tablet has all the latest google updates running Magic OS 8.0 build version 8.0.0.194(C431E154R2P1).I am very impressed with it. The tablet has really really good sound. Apps launch real fast with it. The picture is really good too. Its not OLED or AMOLED good but it has really good black levels. For an IPS Screen the contrast is really good with deep blacks. Of course it doesn't have inky black blacks but it has very dark blacks without crushing shadow details. The colours are good too but the picture is a very slight bit over saturated.I havent tested the tablet with games. I don't know what gaming is like with the tablet. I didn't buy the tablet for gaming. I bought a 12.1" tablet for media consumption like Netflix , Prime video , Disney+ , youtube , Videos I have converted from DVD and blu ray etc. I have 10.1" samsung tablets but I wanted a bigger screen tablet (I really wanted a 13"+ screen but this is a good compromise) for media consumption.I have all of my Christmas movies that I have on DVD , Blu Ray and 4K Blu ray converted to file format. At first I was disappointed because the built in video player on the tablet wouldn't play the videos saying it was an unsupported format. But I downloaded a different video player on the google play store and to my surprise I discovered something that isn't mentioned by Honor about the tablet. Nowhere will you find in their advertising and the specifications that this tablet supports 4K HDR10 and 4K HDR10+ video playback. Seven of my Christmas movies are on 4K Blu Ray with HDR. I played the converted videos and there it was 4K HDR10+ on some videos and 4KHDR10 on others playing smoothly without any stuttering. It plays the videos perfectly smooth and theres no lag in the system when its playing the 4K Video files.Plus the screen does get bright. Watching videos or doing anything on the screen looks good with a decently sharp image with its 2560 x 1600 screen resolution. I would have been happy with a 16:9 2560 x 1440 screen resolution though. In my opinion you don't need 4K or super high resolutions in a screen smaller than 32". This being a 12.1" screen unless you have super eyesight you really won't see a big difference between the 2560 x 1600 screen resolution and 3840 x 2160 on such a small screen format. Its a really really good screen for the money you pay for the tablet.Plus when they say theres 8 speakers in the tablet I'm not sure about that but there's definitely 6 speakers. When I played a Dolby 5.1 video on the tablet I could actually hear the individual channels. For instance with the front left sound I could hear the sound on the top left speaker. If sound played on the front right sound I heard it on the top right speaker. If sound played on rear right I could hear it play on the lower left side speaker and the same goes for the opposite side rear sound. When sound panned left to right or right to left I could hear the sound pan left to right or right to left.Theres really good clarity in the sound too. In the movies I played I could hear background sounds as well as foreground sounds perfectly. Don't expect a lot of bass. The speakers are really small after all. But compared to any phone I've had and any tablet I've had before this tablet is very very impressive. I have two Samsung tablets here. One with four speakers and compared to the Honor PAD 9 the samsung tablets have rubbish sound. Theres good highs , Good mids and a small bit of bass. The bass is present but theres very little bass. Its nothing to write home about in the bass department.Another thing I found after spending a while in the settings was that you canforce any app to be landscape mode. If you have any apps that force ortrait mode on tablets then you go into settings > Large screen features > force device orientation. In there click on the app you want to lock into prtrtait mode and a popout will appear giving you 4 different options and the bottom option in that popout box is Full-screen landscape orientation. I absolutely love this and all tablets should have this feature because theres a few apps I use that lock itself to portrait mode (Phone screen / tik tok style). With them locked into landscape mode works very good. It isn't flawless but it works much better than I expected.Now after all mu gloating and praise of the tablet I have a few cons. First of all it takes a long time to charge. The tablet doesn't come with a charger. I tested it with the 67 Watt charger that came with my phone to see how fast it charges. I didn't actually time it but it does take much longer than an hour and a half to charge and that's not even from an empty battery.Another disappointment is there's no SD card slot. I would have liked to copy some of my Christmas movies onto the tablet around Christmas time. I won't have them on there all year round but I would love to be able to have the movies on there on an sd card.Also the +6GB ram using storage can not be disabled. This will put unnecessary wear on the tablets storage. 8GB of ram is enough (although 16GB Physical ram would be preferable).I would have loved if this was a 13" tablet thats a 16:9 screen format. I think tablet designers and tablet manufacturers should consider making tablets aibed primarily at media consumption in their lineup. The 12.1" screen is nice but with it being a 16:10 screen format when you watch 16:9 videos there's black bars on the top and bottom reducing the size of the video. If they made a tablet with the same specs as this but with a 16:9 13" or 14" screen screen it would be perfect to me. Yes its not OLED but if it was an OLED screen it would cost a whole lot more because for some reason OLED is still a very expensive technology thats more than 10 years old. You would think OLED would start become affordable by now.Another con is The facebook app that came installed on the tablet doesn't work. You need to uninstall it and go into the google store and install facebook from there. But this seems to be an older facebook app on the google play store too. Theres no dark theme in this version and it locks itself to portrait mode. I had to use the lock the app into landscape mode feature on this. I haven't found a tablet version of facebook for this yet. Plus it took about 5 attempts to login into facebook for the login to stick in the tablet. But it did work eventually.Sure there are tablets out there that are more expensive with more powerful chipsets and OLED screens. But if youre just like me who only wants to watch movies , watch TV shows , do some light web browsing , do some amazon or facebook. Then I would highly recommend this tablet.

I'm very impressed with this tablet. I wasn't going to bother with the keyboard option, but managed to get it included for next to nothing in an Amazon "used - like new" offer. I'm glad I did, because the keyboard really enhances the tablet, and it is very slim - it doesn't add much more bulk than a tranditional flip case.The tablet itself looks "premium" - and performance in all the areas that I care about is great. The screen is excellent at the price point, and the speakers are a real surprise - probably the best I've heard on a tablet. Combined with the case, the tablet turns in to a small laptop, and any tasks involving typing become much easier. Battery life is excellent, and charging (at up to 35W) is more than fast enough for my needs. No charger is included, but most of use have more of those than we need already, so I don't mind that at all. Both the tablet and the keyboard charge via USB Type-C.I thought I'd find the Magic OS (based on Android) annoying, and had planned to use a more vanilla launcher like Nova. However, I find Magic OS is fine - I actually like it - especially the fixed and dynamic docks at the bottom of the screen. It is clearly a nod to Apple.There are inevitably a few features missing. For example the USB port is only USB 2, so data transfer is not the fastest, and there is no USB-HDMI video option. However, when you look at the price point versus and entry level iPad - the difference in cost-to functionality is huge.This is a very good value tablet. I strongly recommend going for the "with keyboard" option. It adds very little bulk and really improves the user experience.

I've used a lot of android tablets over the years - mostly use them for light stuff - web browsing, emails on the train etc. It's been interesting seeing how they've developed over the years and this is by far the best one I've ever used.Pros:1. The 60hz screen is incredibly smooth and sharp2. The keyboard is very good and the case + keyboard feels pretty solid3. It feels much more premium than the price.4. The split screen feature is actually really useful. e.g. if you click on a link in gmail it will open the browser in the second half of the screen.Cons:1. No LTE. There is an LTE version but this doesn't come with the keyboard.2. The keyboard is bluetooth - it doesn't connect physically to the tablet. So you have to keep it charged separately which can be annoying.3. For me personally I've realised that 12in is a bit big for a tablet, even if it's relatively thin and light.