Honor Pad 8 review: An affordable and capable 12-inch Android tablet

execs and cons

Professionals

• Massive display screen with good decision
• Slim and comfy to carry
• Excellent audio system
• Good battery life

Cons

• Primary digicam setup
• Very gradual battery charging
• No MicroSD card slot

extra shopping for decisions

Honor made a clutch of bulletins on the IFA event in Berlin in September. I’ve already reviewed the Honor 70 smartphone, however the firm additionally introduced its first pill to reach within the UK, the 12-inch Pad 8. A gorgeous value of £269.99 would possibly counsel below-par specs and efficiency, however alternatively the big display screen is perhaps alluring. With fewer Android tablets round today, does the Honor Pad 8 supply sufficient performance, or would your cash be higher spent elsewhere? If you wish to analysis that query additional, take a peak at our analysis on one of the best Android pill. 

Whereas Honor likes to supply a variety of various color decisions for its smartphones, the Honor Pad 8 is barely obtainable in a single color – the oddly named Blue Hour. It’s a slate blue shade, with a matte end that picks up fingerprints fairly readily and is just a little slippery. The Honor marque sits unobtrusively within the centre of the backplate, with the digicam lozenge within the prime proper nook (considered in panorama mode). The digicam space doesn’t protrude considerably. 

The corners of the Honor Pad 8 are neatly rounded. One lengthy edge is completely clear, whereas the opposite homes the ability button and quantity rocker. One brief edge accommodates the USB-C cost cable and two speaker grilles, with two extra on the opposite facet. The design is tidy and ergonomic. 

The Honor Pad 8 is a snug maintain for a 12-inch pill. It is simply 6.9mm thick and weighs 520g, whereas the 278.54mm by 174.06mm footprint will not be unwieldy – my backpack simply accommodated it, for instance. A sleeve will add just a little measurement and weight, however that is advisable to guard the display screen from scratches. 

The display screen really measures 11.97 inches from nook to nook, and it sits in bezels which are sized to permit a comfortable maintain with out fingers falling onto the display screen. Honor quotes an 87% screen-to-body ratio, though we measured it at 84.6%. The two,000-by-1,200-pixel IPS panel is good and sharp: video appears to be like nice, and textual content is obvious. 

When you like to regulate a pill display screen’s color setting, you’ll be able to tweak the color temperature, whereas Eye Consolation mode can cut back blue gentle and is both manually toggled or set to modify on and off at scheduled instances. You possibly can set the blue gentle filter degree to your personal desire. I am happy to see an e-book mode, which units the display screen into greyscale; I discovered this very helpful on the Honor 70 and right here, studying e-books in wide-screen format with two pages in view concurrently, it was a delight. 

The Honor Pad 8 runs on Android 12 overlain with the Honor Magic UI 6.1. A variety of third-party functions are pre-installed together with social, streaming and promoting apps. These could be eliminated if they’re surplus to necessities, liberating up just a little inner storage. Honor offers 128GB, of which 112GB stays free to make use of. There isn’t any method to develop storage by way of a MicroSD card, so you will should be sure that 128GB is enough. 

Honor’s Multi-Window tweak, which is a part of its Android overlay, is obtainable on the Pad 8. I discussed this in my evaluation of the Honor 70, and it has far better potential on the bigger display screen right here. Certainly, the Honor Pad 8 can have as much as 4 home windows open without delay, mixing a 50/50 divided display screen or floating home windows as required. You name up a Multi-Window software picker by sweeping in from both facet edge, after which choose the apps you wish to view. Having a working doc and an online web page side-by-side was productive for me.  

Honor additionally permits folders containing apps to be enlarged, so that each one apps are seen. Faucet and maintain on an app, choose ‘enlarge’ and the job is finished. To revert to standard-sized folder icons, faucet and maintain and choose ‘shrink’. 

The Honor Pad 8 is designed for video calls, gaming and media consumption, and to that finish there aren’t any fewer than eight audio system – 4 treble and 4 bass. I used to be impressed with sound high quality: there isn’t any distortion at prime quantity, which is kind of loud, and there is loads of bass. Rock and classical music each sounded good, and each stay and catchup TV had been tremendous. Spoken phrase, together with video calls, was additionally good. 

The front-facing 5MP digicam is okay for video calls. The rear digicam can also be a 5MP unit that pales beside smartphone cameras, though Honor offers a couple of capturing modes, together with doc scanning, portrait, photograph and video in addition to a time lapse mode. Digital zoom as much as 8x creates considerably grainy pictures, however the digicam AI can improve colors in some picture varieties to enhance high quality. There isn’t any macro capturing, and images is pretty primary, however enough. 

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 chipset with 4GB of RAM put in an honest displaying beneath Geekbench 5, delivering scores of 375 (single core) and 1533 (multi core). In real-world use I by no means felt I used to be pushing the Honor Pad 8 too laborious, though anybody into gaming is perhaps higher off wanting elsewhere. 

The 7250mAh battery saved the Honor Pad 8 going for a formidable 16 hours 46 minutes beneath the PC Mark for Android Work 3.0 battery life take a look at, and misplaced simply 29% from a full cost when taking part in YouTube video for 3 hours. These are good numbers.  

It is a completely different story in the case of charging. With only a 22.5W charger, replenishing the battery is painfully gradual. I began charging on one event with the battery at 10% and after 105 minutes it nonetheless wasn’t full, having reached 94%. 

Conclusions 

Android tablets aren’t as frequent as they as soon as had been, and decisions are restricted. The Honor Pad 8 offers a giant display screen, nice audio system and lengthy battery life for a gorgeous value. So long as MicroSD card storage and quick charging usually are not required, it’s positively one to contemplate. 

Honor Pad 8 specs

Alternate options to contemplate

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