Honor MagicPad 2 review: A great tablet for media consumption

Since its split from Huawei, Honor has been making some great devices for Western markets where its former parent has a hard time competing. The Honor MagicPad 2 is the company’s latest tablet, introduced at IFA 2024, and it’s got a lot going for it.

Specifically, this tablet has a fantastic AMOLED display and speakers that make this a great device for consuming media. It’s become one of my favorite ways to watch YouTube videos (which I do a lot more than traditional streaming). But it can also be used to get some work done thanks to the keyboard accessory and great overall performance.

About this review: Honor provided me with the MaigcPad 2, as well as the Magic Keyboard and Magic Pencil accessories for the purposes of this review. Additionally, the company sponsored my trip to IFA 2024 in Berlin, including accommodation and food. However, the company had no input in the contents of this review.

Sleek and affordable

Honor MagicPad 2

A lightweight tablet that’s great for media

The Honor MagicPad 2 is a great tablet for the price. It offers a fantastic media experience with its bright and vivid AMOLED pan, and the eight-speaker setup delivers powerful audio. The keyboard accessory also makes it good for typing out work, though it’s still a limited experience.

Pros

• High-resolution AMOLED display with a smooth 144Hz refresh rate
• Eight-speaker setup gets loud while remaining clear
• Slim and lightweight design
• Keyboard accessory is pretty good

Cons

• Android still isn’t great for tablets
• No touchpad on the keyboard
• Not available in the US

Pricing and availability

Honor initially launched the MagicPad 2 in China in July, but the global version was announced and released on September 5th, 2024, during the IFA show in Berlin.

The tablet isn’t available in the United States, but in the U.K., it costs £499.99, which includes 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

What I like

Watching media is fantastic

My favorite thing about the Honor MagicPad 2 is that it’s a great device to use for consuming media. I’m not much of a streaming aficionado, but I do love watching YouTube, and the MagicPad 2 has been fantastic for that. The 3K AMOLED panel has bright and vivid colors, and the eight-speaker setup gets very loud while still sounding pretty sharp, so it makes this a great way to watch the content I want.

While we’re on the display, it’s worth mentioning Honor packed a bunch of features in here. There’s a Circadian Night setting that’s meant to alleviate your eyes at night, though this is on top of the usual night light feature, and I’m not sure what’s really different about it. There’s also a “Defocus display” feature that’s supposed to help improve your eye health, though this isn’t something I can really evaluate.

The screen also has very fast PWM (pulse width modulation) dimming, at 4320MHz. I’m not one who’s particularly affected by a low PWM dimming rate, but if you have a sensitivity to that kind of thing, this will be good news for you, and it’s particularly great to see in a tablet that’s so affordable compared to something like an iPad Pro.

It’s also worth noting that it has a 144Hz refresh rate, so everything felt super smooth on this screen

It’s thin and light

Another great thing about the Honor MagicPad 2 is how easy it is to carry around. Mind you, I don’t really use an Android tablet, so my only notable experience is the Windows-based Huawei MateBook E.

The thing about that tablet is that, despite having a similar screen size, it’s significantly heavier, so I’m not ever in the mood to really pick it up and use it in a more casual way. The Honor MagicPad 2, even with the keyboard attached, compels me a lot more, so I’ve found it a lot more fun to pick up and use it to browse some online forums or watch videos.

It looks really nice in this Moonlight White color variant, too, which I’m glad I got over the black version. The keyboard does cover it up, but I’m not too bothered by that.

Standby battery use is negligible

As someone whose primary devices are always Windows and x86 based, one of the highlights of using the MagicPad 2 has been the battery life, particularly in standby time.

Leaving the tablet on overnight (in sleep mode, of course) has almost no impact on battery, so I never had to worry about the tablet being dead when I pick it up.

The keyboard is actually pretty solid

Finally, outside of the tablet itself, since Honor sent me the Smart Keyboard and Magic Pencil 3, I should point out I also like them. The Smart Keyboard accessory serves as a case and a kickstand for the tablet, so I end up never taking it off, because it makes it much more comfortable to watch videos, too.

But the keyboard itself is also quite nice. I’ve used some tablet keyboards in the past, but this is one of the most sturdy options I’ve tested, and the keys have a nice travel, too, so typing on it was very comfortable, and I even managed to do some work on it.

Meanwhile, the Magic Pencil 3 is also pretty comfortable to use. Handwriting seems to work well, and one of the few AI features I actually care about (Honor talks about a lot of them) is the handwriting beautification in the Notes app. This takes your handwriting and morphs it to be closer to one of the fake handwriting fonts available, but the cool thing is you can actually change how dramatic the transformation should be. So you can keep it closer to your original handwriting while making it more legible, maintaining the personality of your handwriting. My handwriting is pretty bad, though, so sometimes this feature would change one of my letters and mess up the way the text looks.

What I don’t like

I still can’t use it for proper work

While the keyboard for the MagicPad 2 feels pretty good to type on, a few other factors still stopped me from using the tablet for full-time work. The keyboard lacks a touchpad, and without a mouse, it didn’t always feel intuitive to get work done by browsing the web. It wasn’t as natural as I’d like it to be. Though, to be fair, based on other experiences I’ve had, touchpads on Android are also terrible.

Android isn’t great for tablets

Despite how many Android tablets exist, perhaps surprisingly, Android still isn’t really optimal for use with large-screen devices like this.

Some of it is up to the OS itself. For example,I’ve had some issues with apps not opening in landscape mode despite supporting it.

But most of the time, it’s the apps themselves that aren’t properly optimized. Currently, my go-to browser has been Mozilla Firefox, and that browser has not been optimized for tablets. I’d expect a more desktop-like UI, but this is not the case with Firefox. I had to revert back to my previous preference, Vivaldi, to get a good experience.

Beeper for Android, for example, doesn’t natively support split screen or the floating window mode, and I can’t resize the conversation list. Even 3DMark, which I used to test the graphics performance, only displays in portrait mode until the tests start running.

In many ways, it’s still a fine experience, but it’s just not as great as it could or should be.

Notifications aren’t reliable

As much as they may be separated now, Honor still shares a lot of DNA with what Huawei was doing, for better or worse. A problem I’ve always had with Huawei devices in the past is that notifications just aren’t reliable for a lot of my apps.

Part of the reason these devices get such good battery life on standby is the extremely aggressive power management, and that means a lot of the apps you have won’t send notifications in a timely manner, if at all. I had multiple instances of notifications arriving on my phone and not on my tablet. Just as I was writing this review, I opened Beeper on the tablet and was flooded with notifications from the past few days.

Should you buy the Honor MagicPad 2?

I’m not particularly used to having an Android tablet, but in my opinion, the Honor MagicBook 2 is a pretty good one, especially for the price. Considering the sharp and smooth display, the powerful speakers, and the portability paired with the build quality, this is a pretty good deal for what you’re getting.

It’s not a laptop replacement, but it’s not trying to be, and if you consider it’s competing with things like an iPad Air, I’d say this is a better pick overall, particularly for media consumption. You’ll just have to deal with some frustrating apps not working all that great with Android tablets.

Honor MagicPad 2

The Honor MagicPad 2 is a great tablet for media consumption and general use, despite some frustrating app compatibility issues with Android tablets. Considering its relatively low price, it’s easy to recommend.