Honor Pad X9

 Honor Pad X9 Review

 Introduction

The Honor Pad X9 is an inexpensive tablet which seems to be moved towards media consumption more than anything else. It has a large 11.5-inch, 5:3, 1200 x 2000-pixel display with 120Hz refresh rate. Also on board is an impressive six-speaker system. Its battery is a decently large 7250 mAh, considering the tablet's very slim 6.9 mm profile and relatively low weight at 495 grams - and it even has an aluminium back and frame.

Specifications

Body: 267.3x167.4x6.9mm, 495g; Glass front, aluminium frame, aluminium back.

Display: 11.50" TFT LCD, 120Hz, 1200x2000px resolution, 15:9 aspect ratio, 203ppi.

Chipset: Qualcomm SM6225 Snapdragon 685 (6 nm): Octa-core (4x2.8 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4x1.9 GHz Cortex-A53); Adreno 610.

Memory: 128GB 4GB RAM.

OS/Software: Android 13, MagicOS 7.1.

Rear camera: 5 MP, f/2.2, AF.

Front camera: 5 MP, f/2.2.

Video capture: Rear camera: 1080p@30fps; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.

Battery: 7250mAh, 22.5W charging support (10W charger bundled).

Connectivity: Wi-Fi 5; BT 5.1.

Misc: Accelerometer; stereo speakers (6 speakers).

The Snapdragon 685 chipset is pretty modern in terms of features but offers normal performance. Connectivity-wise, our Pad X9 lacks any cellular connectivity and only has Wi-Fi ac. It offers an LTE version, but its availability is limited to a few Asian countries. The LTE version also has GPS on board. One potential problem for the longevity of the Pad X9 is the modest amount of RAM - only 4GB. Storage-wise, you only get a single version - 128GB with no expandable storage. The Pad X9 has a pair of cameras at its disposal. The main cam on the rear is a simple 5MP unit with autofocus, and you get another 5MP snapper on the front, this one with fixed focus. The Honor Pad X9 ships in a nice two-piece cardboard box. It is pretty sturdy and offers adequate protection while shipping. Pad X9 just includes a simple 10W (5V@2A) wall charger and a USB Type-A to Type-C cable.

 Design

There is nothing particularly standout but Pad X9 does look and feel very premium. The anodized aluminium body is not something you see too commonly in this budget price. The Honor Pad X9 seems to only come in one colour - Space Grey. The Honor Pad X9 is pretty thin at 6.9 mm. The weight is quite reasonable as well at 495 grams given the 11.5-inch display size and 7250 mAh battery. The Pad X9 is still a hefty device and holding it with one hand is only feasible for short periods of time. The reasonably-sized bezels strike a good balance between offering enough area to grab.

Build 

As already mentioned, the Pad X9 has quite a premium bill of materials for its price tag. Both its middle frame and back panel are made of aluminium. There is some protective glass covering the display. However, Honor does not specify exactly what kind of glass it is. Also, in case you were wondering, there is no formal ingress protection rating.

Controls

The Honor Pad X9 has a pretty standard set of controls. Well, unless you count the six-speaker setup with two speakers on each of the short sides and two more speakers on the "bottom" of the tablet when you are holding it horizontally. These two speakers, in particular, are meant to bounce sound from a surface you've placed the slate on, creating a 360-degree effect. The opposite side of the Pad X9 houses a volume rocker and power button. These are positioned a bit high up on the frame. The buttons are nice and clicky, with good tactile feedback. One thing worth pointing out is that the Honor Pad X9 lacks a fingerprint reader but this seems par for the course for tablets in this price segment. The top of the device has a pair of speakers. The bottom side of the Pad X9 has two symmetrical speakers and a USB Type-C port. There is no 3.5mm jack on the tablet. There are also no dedicated POGO pins or anything like a keyboard.

Connectivity

As already mentioned, the Honor Pad X9 lacks cellular connectivity. You only get dual-band Wi-Fi ac and Bluetooth 5.1 support with LE. An LTE version does seem to exist and that one has GPS as well. The regular one lacks GPS. There is no NFC of IR blaster. The Type-C port is backed up by a USB 2.0 data connection, which means a theoretical maximum data transfer speed of 480 Mbps. The USB port supports Host/OTG but doesn't have anything else beyond that, like video output. The Honor Pad X9 is kind of light on on-board sensors. It does have a lis2dw12 accelerometer and a sip1221 ambient light sensor. There is no gyroscope typically attached with the accelerometer. Also absent from the Pad X9 - are a magnetometer, a compass and a barometer. The lack of a GPS receiver goes without saying in a tablet without a cellular modem.

Large display

The Pad X9 has an 11.5-inch display in what's seemingly the hottest 5:3 aspect ratio (or 15:9 for easier comparisons). The 5:3 aspect (15:9) is great for browsing and video watching. The resolution is 1,200 x 2,000px, and the pixel density works out to 203ppi. The display is just an LCD with no HDR support. What it does, however, have is a 120Hz refresh rate. It is also TUV Rheinland certified for low blue light and "flicker free". When it comes to brightness, we measured the modest 452 nits of max output, with no boost in bright ambient conditions. Contrast is decent at a little under 1603:1.

Max display brightness test

White test pattern, 75% fill (nits)

Manual mode

Auto mode

10.4" IPS LCD

The Pad X9 doesn't have display colour modes, just colour temperature settings. The display targets the sRGB colour space. The default colour temperature mode is not particularly colour-accurate. It results in cold, bluish colours. Using the warm colour temperature setting results in what can be considered accurate colour reproduction compared to the sRGB colour space with deltaE values lower than four.

Display colour settings

The display on the Honor Pad X9 has no HDR support. The video decoder inside the tablet also lacks HDR support. On a more positive note, the tablet has the highest possible Widevine L1 DRM certification, allowing services like Netflix to offer up FullHD streams.

High refresh rate handling

The Honor Pad X9 has a 120Hz display. It reports support for 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz refresh rate modes. In terms of refresh rate settings, there are a total of three modes: Standard, which locks the tablet to 60Hz; High; and Dynamic, both of which promise to go up to 120Hz. In reality, both the High and Dynamic refresh rate modes seem to work identically. The UI mostly works at 90Hz while you are interacting with the device. When you leave the tablet idle for a few seconds, it drops its refresh rate down to 60Hz. Certain apps like YouTube do trigger the 120Hz mode of the display. But again, we observed the exact same behaviour in both Dynamic and High refresh rate modes.

High refresh rate gaming is mostly a no-go

Overall, we would call the high refresh rate on the Honor Pad X9 basic but mostly functional. The tablet only operates on user interaction logic and tends to stay at 90Hz most of the time. Still, it is a step up from the basic 60Hz refresh rate.

Battery life

The Honor Pad X9 has a 7250 mAh battery on board. That is pretty decent, given its thin 6.9 mm body and 495 grams of total weight. As you might already know, we recently retired our original Endurance rating battery test and have now moved on to our new GSMArena Battery test 2.0 and the so-called Active Use Score. In the case of a Wi-Fi only tablet, the call runtime is tested over Whatsapp.

Charging speed

Charging is a bit of problem on the Honor Pad X9. The tablet comes bundled with a meager 10W charger. And using the bundled 10W charger, the Pad X9 is terribly slow to charge. It managed to get from dead to 9% in 15 minutes on the charger, then 17% in thirty minutes. A full charge took around whopping 3:18 hours.