Key Takeaways
- The Honor Pad X9 is an excellent tablet at its price point, offering a great display, Hi Res Audio certification, and responsive interface.
- With a retail price of £160 ($195), the Honor Pad X9 is a bargain that won't break the bank.
- The tablet's productivity capabilities, including the ability to run multiple apps side-by-side, make it a versatile choice for work and entertainment.
Honor really knows how to pull great hardware out of the hat at every turn—be it smartphones, wearables, laptops, or tablets. The latest in their tablet series—the Honor Pad X9—is available now, and we've got our hands on one to check out its chops.
Retailing at a ridiculously inexpensive £160 (about $195), the Honor Pad X9 certainly won't break the bank, and offers a selection of premium features that make this a bargain. Let's take a closer look at the Honor Pad X9.
Honor Pad X9
The Honor Pad X9 is the latest in the brands line of budget slates. However, don't let that "budget" moniker fool you; this is an excellent tablet at its price point and one which you'd be hard pushed to beat if you chose an alternative from its competitor devices. With a great display, Hi Res Audio certification, and responsive control—plus productivity capabilities in spades—the Honor Pad X9 should be the Android slate in your hands.
- Brand
- Honor
- Storage
- 128 GB
- CPU
- Snapdragon® 685 4G Mobile Platform
- Memory
- 4 GB (7 GB with Honor Turbo RAM)
- Operating System
- MagicOS 7.1 (Android 13)
- Battery
- 7250 mAh
- Ports
- Type-C USB
- Camera (Rear, Front)
- 5MP front and rear
- Display type
- TFT LCD, 120Hz
- Price
- £159.99 (around $200)
- Size
- 10.52 x 6.59 x 0.27 inches
- Connectivity
- Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.1
- Colors
- Space Grey
- Expandable Storage
- No
- Weight
- 1.09 lbs
- SoC
- Qualcomm SM6225 Snapdragon 685 (6 nm)
- Great screen at price point
- Inexpensive
- Good battery life
- Hi Res Audio certification
- No cellular capabilites
- No memory expansion capabilities
What's in the Box?
Box contents should be pretty obvious for a tablet these days. The box you get with Honor devices is always of premium quality, in plain white, with an image of the device and its name on the front, and any printing in soya ink! How's that for sustainable?!
In the box you'll find:
- Honor Pad X9 tablet
- USB Type C charger and associated cable
- Device literature
And that is it; you're ready to start tableting away!
Honor Pad X9: Out of the Box
As always, Honor has designed the X9 to be aesthetically pleasing, as far as tablets go. It looks great, and feels like a premium product when you hold it in your hands. Our test unit comes in Honor's familiar Space Grey colorway. This is the only color available for the X9.
Up front, you have the large 11.5" 2K Honor FullView display. Top and center is the punch-hole selfie camera. On the bottom edge—all edges are aluminum, by the way—are two of the six (yes, SIX) surround sound speaker outlets. The left and right edges both also have two speaker grilles each. On the top edge of the tablet, you'll find a pinhole mic, the power button, and the volume rocker.
The rear face, like the edges, comes in aluminum, and this is where most of the space grey colorway is apparent. The center of the rear face carries an unobtrusive Honor logo, and top right is the camera island for the 5MP main sensor.
In terms of dimensions, the slate is 10.52 x 6.59 x 0.27 inches—so, smaller than the Pad 8 we reviewed in July '22—and it is 495 grams, which is also lighter than the 510 grams of the Pad 8.
It looks and feels great, which is always a bonus at such a low price point.
Speccing Out the Honor X9
In terms of its hardware specifications, in certain ways the X9 improves on the Honor Pad 8. However, other specs have remained unchanged. Let's look at what we've got under the proverbial hood.
In terms of software, the X9 comes loaded with Magic OS 7.1, which is the latest version of Honor's proprietary software skin built on Android 13. So the device is bang up-to-date when you consider the software, and you'll have no issues running the latest apps, here.
As with the Pad 8, the X9 doesn't have cellular network connectivity. This isn't really a problem, though; you probably also have a smartphone to cover the communication side of things outside of emails and social media messaging. Perhaps a nice Honor Magic5 Pro, or the new Magic V2 foldable the brand launched at IFA 2023?
The tablet is powered by a Qualcomm SM6225 Snapdragon 685, which means four 2.8 GHz Cortex-A73 and four 1.9 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU cores, while the on-board Adreno 610 handles the graphics for you.
For storage and memory you're looking at 128GB and 4GB, respectively, although the memory gets a boost up to 7GB using virtual RAM (which Honor refers to as RAM Turbo).
The display is an 11.5 inch, 2K TFT LCD screen with 120Hz refresh rate, which is not all too common in tablets within the X9's price range; this is an excellent move from Honor, delivering great hardware at a low price point.
The camera remains unchanged when compared to the Honor Pad 8. You still have a 5MP sensor both front and back. So, don't expect to take award-winning shots with this; the cameras serve better as a productivity feature (for scanning and so on) rather than cataloging your memories.
Honor's X9 tablet also comes with Hi Res Audio certification, and as a result, features six (down from eight with the Pad 8) surround sound speakers: two on the left and right, and two underneath to fire the sound downwards and reflect it off the surface the tablet is on—creating a surround-sound effect.
Finally, the battery: a Li-Po 7250 mAh, which should get your through a decent amount of Netflix before the X9 starts craving some juice.
So, it's a great device on paper. But what about its performance?
Honor Pad X9: Performance
Unfortunately, we were unable to benchmark the Pad X9 using any benchmarking software, as we could not install benchmarking apps on the device. We were also unable to side-load them, and informed that benchmarking is restricted on the review unit. Therefore, we can only discuss the experiential performance of using the device.
The Honor Pad X9 meets a multitude of needs. Whether you want to use the X9 for productivity purposes, or you intend to absorb entertainment via the sumptuous screen, the X9 is more than capable of delivering in these areas.
Carrying out my usual Amazon Prime testing, I was pleased to discover that the 2K display performs well when watching multiple genres. Anime pops, horror films are suitably dark with good definition of the black hues, and action films are delivered with the intended high-octane detail. In short, if you want a portable device to watch movies or TV series' on, then the X9 is an excellent candidate. Especially at this price point.
The screen is also TUV Rhineland certified for low blue light and flicker, so you can watch away to your heart's content, safe in the knowledge that you aren't over-straining your eyes.
The audio is good, as you'd expect from a device carrying the Hi Res Audio badge. It has Hi Res Wireless Audio certification, too. While the surround sound speakers do a decent job of projecting the sound from movies and music at lower volumes, I would recommend incorporating a pair of headphones, as the sound is always going to be better this way. Plus, if you really want to immerse yourself in your media, then you want to get as close to the sound as possible, and you can't get closer than inside or over your ears.
The X9 is a very responsive tablet. Operations feel slick and smooth, with no jitter when switching between apps. Scrolling through menus or websites is a charm, and that 120Hz refresh rate gives the display a buttery quality which is, again, great when you want to absorb media with the X9.
Aside from fun, the Honor Pad X9 is also excellent when it comes to productivity. Obviously, it is always going to help having access to the full suite of Google productivity apps at your fingertips, especially on a device that is bigger than your smartphone but smaller and lighter than your laptop. So, you can send emails, work on spreadsheets, write documents, and create slideshows—all from the comfort of your tablet.
Thanks to its sizeable screen, the Pad X9 is also great for running two apps side-by-side, in a split screen format. So, you can refer to one document while you write another, say, for example, if you are taking data from a Google Sheet and then writing a report about it in a Google Doc.
You also have the multi-screen collaboration that we're now used to seeing with Honor devices. This means you can use the tablet in conjunction with your smartphone, displaying your smartphone screen on your tablet's screen! This is a useful feature, as it means the smartphone can stay in your pocket or bag, and you can address on-screen operations via the mirror of your phone screen displayed on your tablet.
As for battery life, the 7,250 mAh cell packs enough juice to sail comfortably through 6-7 hours of heavy use. So watching movies, reading Kindle books, running through some general productivity tasks, listening to music; you can do all of that, and the battery is more than capable of holding out until you're done. Less intensive tasks will get even more out of the battery.
One thing to note: the tablet comes with a 10W charger, which isn't particularly fast. To be fair, the device has a pretty big battery to charge, but I found that hooking it up to my Honor MagicBook charger enables "Super Charging", which is significantly faster. So, if you already have a suite of Honor devices, then throw your most powerful charger in the USB Type-C charging port and you will find your tablet battery recharges very quickly indeed.
In all, for a device that one might consider being a budget tablet, the Honor Pad X9 represents an excellent choice and genuinely delivers where many other budget Android tablets can't.
Recommending the Honor Pad X9
If you are looking for a capable Android slate that won't break the bank, then the Honor Pad X9 is a worthy contender for your money. It performs exceptionally well for a device that costs under £175/$200.
The large screen is great for viewing media, and the portable nature of a tablet means the X9 offers a great degree of convenience when traveling.
The X9 was my wingman during my recent trip to IFA in Berlin, standing in for my laptop as I walked the show floor of the Berlin Messe. The fact I only needed to carry this and not my laptop was a godsend. With everything I needed at my fingertips, the Honor X9 proved to be a brilliant tablet for multiple use cases, and you can't complain about that.
Honor Pad X9
The Honor Pad X9 is the latest in the brands line of budget slates. However, don't let that "budget" moniker fool you; this is an excellent tablet at its price point and one which you'd be hard pushed to beat if you chose an alternative from its competitor devices. With a great display, Hi Res Audio certification, and responsive control—plus productivity capabilities in spades—the Honor Pad X9 should be the Android slate in your hands.
- Brand
- Honor
- Storage
- 128 GB
- CPU
- Snapdragon® 685 4G Mobile Platform
- Memory
- 4 GB (7 GB with Honor Turbo RAM)
- Operating System
- MagicOS 7.1 (Android 13)
- Battery
- 7250 mAh
- Ports
- Type-C USB
- Camera (Rear, Front)
- 5MP front and rear
- Display type
- TFT LCD, 120Hz
- Price
- £159.99 (around $200)
- Size
- 10.52 x 6.59 x 0.27 inches
- Connectivity
- Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.1
- Colors
- Space Grey
- Expandable Storage
- No
- Weight
- 1.09 lbs
- SoC
- Qualcomm SM6225 Snapdragon 685 (6 nm)