Introduction and specs
Honor's largest tablet to date, the Pad 8, comes with a massive 12-inch display and a promising 8-driver speaker system, making for a compelling media gobbling offering. It doesn't hurt that it manages to fit everything in a reasonably lightweight package that's also pretty handsome.
Worthy of note on the spec sheet is the Snapdragon 680 chipset and the 7250mAh battery. The tablet runs Android 12 with a layer of in-house MagicUI on top and, importantly, has a fully functional Google app suite, unlike its Huawei counterparts.
Honor Pad 8 specs at a glance:
- Body: 278.5x174.1x6.9mm, 520g; Glass front, aluminum frame, aluminum back; Stylus support.
- Display: 12.00" IPS LCD, 1B colors, 350 nits (typ), 1200x2000px resolution, 15:9 aspect ratio, 194ppi.
- Chipset: Qualcomm SM6225 Snapdragon 680 4G (6 nm): Octa-core (4x2.4 GHz Kryo 265 Gold & 4x1.9 GHz Kryo 265 Silver); Adreno 610.
- Memory: 128GB 4GB RAM, 128GB 6GB RAM.
- OS/Software: Android 12, Magic UI 6.1.
- Rear camera: 5 MP, f/2.2, 27mm (wide), 1/5", 1.12µm.
- Front camera: 5 MP, f/2.2, 27mm (wide), 1/5", 1.12µm.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 1080p@30fps; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.
- Battery: 7250mAh; Fast charging 22.5W, Reverse charging 5W.
- Misc: Accelerometer; stereo speakers (8 speakers).
Honor Pad 8 unboxing
The Pad 8 comes in a white cardboard box with a likeness of the device printed on top. The contents include a 22.5W charger and a USB-A-to-C cable to go with it.
Design, build quality, handling
Honor is very proud of the Pad 8's design and build, and we'd say it has every right to be. The anodized aluminum unibody does feel nicely premium and is a step up from pretty much anything else in this price segment.
Matte as it may be, the back panel still picks up fingerprints.
The 6.9mm thickness does add to the upmarket air, as do the flat sides. Meanwhile, the 520g weight is about as low as you can expect from a 12-inch tablet.
That said, it's still a 12-inch tablet and holding it with one hand is only feasible for short periods.
The reasonably-sized bezels strike a good balance between offering enough area to grab onto, all without making the design look dated.
The physical controls you get on the Pad 8 are a volume rocker and a power button, both at the left end of the top edge. Four large speaker grilles, two on each side, allow sound from the 8 speakers to come out, and there is no risk of blocking them with your palms all at once.
The USB-C port ends up on the right side when the selfie camera is up top or, conversely, the camera is to the right of the display, if you're in portrait with the port facing down.
The somewhat unusual proportions of the Pad 8 do make it a bit awkward to handle - there's always significant mass trying to pull away from your hand. That said, the display's 5:3 aspect (15:9) is great for browsing and video watching.
Large display, but a bit low on the ppi
The Pad 8 has a 12-inch display in what's seemingly the hottest 5:3 aspect ratio (or 15:9 for easier comparisons). The resolution is 1,200x2,000px, and the pixel density works out to 194ppi - decent but hardly the sharpest around. It's an IPS LCD panel with no HDR support, but Honor says it can display 1 billion colors.
The refresh rate is 60Hz, like on most tablets, but there are already alternatives with 90Hz panels (Redmi Pad).
When it comes to brightness, we measured the modest 392nits of max output, with no boost in bright ambient conditions. Contrast is decent at a little under 1500:1, but there's a notable contrast shift if you view the screen off-axis.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, |
White, |
||
| 0.282 | 522 | 1851:1 | |
| 0.457 | 513 | 1123:1 | |
| 0.298 | 496 | 1664:1 | |
| 0.376 | 478 | 1271:1 | |
| 0.229 | 432 | 1886:1 | |
| 0.263 | 402 | 1529:1 | |
| 0.267 | 392 | 1468:1 | |
| 0.253 | 352 | 1391:1 | |
Color reproduction is on the cool side in the default state, but we fiddled with the color wheel and got very good accuracy for our set of sRGB test swatches.
Display settings
Honor Pad 8 battery life
With a 7,250mAh capacity battery inside and a 12-inch display on the front, the Pad 8 is slightly disproportionately equipped if endurance is a top priority- it's a relatively large screen with a relatively small battery. Then again, a 12-inch tablet is perhaps less likely to leave the house than a 10-ish-inch one so a charger will always be close by.
We clocked under 10 hours of offline video watching and a little over 11 hours of Wi-Fi web browsing at our standard brightness level of 200nits.
We don't calculate tablet endurance ratings as our formula for phones takes standby battery draw into account. Applying the same formula for tablets with their larger batteries doesn't make sense because their standby power draw is minimal, so we focus on the active screen-on tests instead.
Charging speed
With such so-so longevity, charging speed is really important unless you're okay being tied to the wall often. It's not a record-breaking performance we're getting out of the Honor Pad 8, but we'd say the 35% at the half-hour mark and just under 2 hours for a full charge are quite respectable numbers in the tablet world.
30min charging test (from 0%)
Higher is better
- Apple iPad mini (2021)
35% - Honor Pad 8
35% - Realme Pad X
30% - Xiaomi Redmi Pad
25% - Oppo Pad Air
25% - Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE
18%
Time to full charge (from 0%)
Lower is better
- Apple iPad mini (2021)
1:57h - Honor Pad 8
1:57h - Realme Pad X
2:00h - Xiaomi Redmi Pad
2:21h - Oppo Pad Air
2:25h - Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE
3:05h
Speaker test
The Pad 8 has an 8-speaker system with 4 separate drivers for bass and 4 for treble. The speakers are distributed evenly on either side of the tablet (when in landscape) and produce stereo sound.
Bottom speakers • Top speakers
The Pad 8 posted an 'Excellent' score for loudness in our test and did so with nicely balanced output and a good presence in the low end.
Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.
MagicUI has some nice multi-window chops on top of Android 12
The Honor Pad 8 runs Android 12 out of the box and has full support for Google apps (that last one is worth mentioning in light of related company Huawei's lack of Google Mobile Services compatibility).
On top of the OS, there's an in-house layer of Magic UI (v6.1 in this case) and that's where a lot of cool stuff is.
We're talking mostly about the multi-window functionality, last seen on the Huawei Mate Xs 2. You can launch apps into a split-screen view via a side menu, accessible by swiping from the right edge of the display. Tapping an app from here spawns a floating window of it, and you can now have two such windows open at the same time, with every subsequently launched one minimizing one of the earlier ones to a separate icon on the side, which in turn opens a separate task switcher.
To initiate the split-screen view, you have to long-press the app icon from the side dock, and then drag it on top of another app, which is already open. You can add any app you choose to this Multi-Window menu, and most seem to work and scale pretty effortlessly. You can also have an app pair remain bundled together as one entry in the recent apps view, so you can easily close both of them or return to that particular side-by-side workflow.
Multi-window
Other than that, it's the familiar look and feel of Magic UI/EMUI. One of the other neat proprietary features is the 'large folder', all the more useful here than on the smartphones from the two brands - a large folder occupies as much space as four regular icons and holds up to 12 apps, which are immediately available. You don't need to expand the folder to launch an app.
Homescreen • Large folder • Settings
Performance and benchmarks
The Honor Pad 8 is powered by the Snapdragon 680, a midrange Qualcomm chip made on a 6nm process. It has no 5G capability, but the tablet doesn't support cellular connectivity. The 4+4 CPU features Kryo branded Cortex-A73 and A53 variations clocked at up to 2.4GHz and 1.9GHz, respectively.
The non-expandable storage is 128GB, while RAM is either 4GB or 6GB (our review unit having the latter).
GeekBench 5 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Huawei MatePad 11 (2021)
3282 - Xiaomi Pad 5
2583 - Realme Pad X
2026 - Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G
1904 - Xiaomi Redmi Pad
1852 - Oppo Pad Air
1661 - Honor Pad 8
1545
GeekBench 5 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Huawei MatePad 11 (2021)
920 - Xiaomi Pad 5
743 - Realme Pad X
691 - Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G
615 - Xiaomi Redmi Pad
554 - Oppo Pad Air
384 - Honor Pad 8
376
AnTuTu 9
Higher is better
- Huawei MatePad 11 (2021)
639631 - Xiaomi Pad 5
555079 - Realme Pad X
395824 - Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G
355430 - Xiaomi Redmi Pad
319077 - Honor Pad 8
279242 - Oppo Pad Air
249172
GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Huawei MatePad 11 (2021)
20 - Xiaomi Pad 5
16 - Realme Pad X
12 - Xiaomi Redmi Pad
8.3 - Oppo Pad Air
4.9 - Honor Pad 8
4.8
GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)
Higher is better
- Huawei MatePad 11 (2021)
21 - Xiaomi Pad 5
19 - Realme Pad X
8.2 - Xiaomi Redmi Pad
5.5 - Honor Pad 8
3.2 - Oppo Pad Air
3.2
GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Huawei MatePad 11 (2021)
44 - Xiaomi Pad 5
35 - Realme Pad X
31 - Xiaomi Redmi Pad
22 - Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G
16 - Honor Pad 8
13 - Oppo Pad Air
13
GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)
Higher is better
- Huawei MatePad 11 (2021)
86 - Xiaomi Pad 5
43 - Realme Pad X
34 - Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G
31 - Xiaomi Redmi Pad
25 - Honor Pad 8
15 - Oppo Pad Air
15
3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)
Higher is better
- Huawei MatePad 11 (2021)
3797 - Xiaomi Pad 5
3396 - Xiaomi Redmi Pad
1242 - Realme Pad X
1217 - Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G
1092 - Honor Pad 8
450 - Oppo Pad Air
450
The benchmark performance of the Snapdragon 680 isn't spectacular, and more powerful competitors do exist - the SD695-powered Realme Pad X and Redmi Pad (Mediatek G99), for example. That said, in general use such as web browsing, social media, and YouTube streaming, the tablet felt just fine.
Two 5MP cameras
The Pad 8 has two 5MP cameras, one on the back and another one on the display side. They appear to use identical sensors with an optical format of 1/5" and a pixel size of 1.12µm. Lenses have the same 27mm equivalent focal length and f/2.2 aperture, but only the rear camera features autofocus. Both cameras support 1080p video recording at 30fps and there's no video stabilization.
The camera app is the standard Huawei/Honor app, but with a more basic feature set to account for the device's limited hardware. You're all but guaranteed to be using both hands for taking photos, and the UI works well in either orientation.
Photos out of the rear camera are decent for the class and its use cases. We're getting okay contrast, but limited dynamic range. Colors are good most of the time, but can be lacking in saturation on occasion. Sharpness and detail are, well, about alright for a 5MP tablet camera.
Rear camera samples
Video quality is in the same vein - nothing fancy, but usable if there's no better option.
Selfies are also best described as satisfactory - detail is good, colors are muted but mostly accurate, and dynamic range is limited. Selfie video capture is good enough for those video calls, and that's about all you need.
Selfie samples: Photo • Video framegrab
Verdict
The Honor Pad 8 boasts one of the biggest displays in the market segment and some of the nicest speakers, packed in a body with an upmarket build. The (comparatively) fast charging and the competent multi-window implementation are also strong points in its favor.
The Pad 8 is missing a microSD slot, which you'd find on the bulk of competitors, and that's possibly the largest omission on its spec sheet. The meh battery life and lack of cellular connectivity are easier to swallow on a device that's probably too big to leave the house often, while the chipset's lack of serious oomph doesn't hinder the tablet's use for less demanding applications.
At the time of writing, the Honor Pad 8 retails for €350 or just under INR 20K for a 6GB/128GB version or £270 in the UK (albeit for the 4GB/128GB spec). Its price in India makes it competitive in that market, and its sheer size gives it an edge for the right audience. In Europe, it's a touch pricier than similar mid-range offerings, but it could potentially justify the small premium with the list immediately below.
Pros
- Large display.
- Premium-level look and feel.
- Fast battery charging for the class.
- Loud and high-quality speaker system.
- Android 12, full Google app suite, useful multi-window functionality.
Cons
- Screen is not very high quality - has a contrast shift when viewing it at an angle.
- No memory card slot.
- Battery life is not great.
- Chipset on the low end of the performance spectrum for the class.
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