The Honor Pad 20 is solid, but not without competition
Honor's new Android tablet scores points for its price-performance ratio. The Pad 20 is perfectly adequate for series, note-taking, and casual gaming – but the competition pulls ahead when it comes to gaming power, battery life, and updates.
Are you looking for a tablet to replace your smartphone when you need a slightly larger screen? After all, a large display is far more comfortable for watching videos, reading the newspaper, and taking notes. If you don't want to shell out a thousand bucks for it, like you would for the Samsung Galaxy S-Tabs, then the Honor Pad 20 might be a candidate.
Design and display are quite decent
The tablet doesn't have an exciting design and comes in an even more boring color: the aluminum casing is silver. The only distinguishing feature of the Pad 20 is a circular camera bump on the back. The size is close to A4: 27.7 x 18 centimeters. Furthermore, it is only 0.6 centimeters thin and weighs 525 grams.
The twelve-inch IPS display has a resolution of 3000 x 1872 pixels. While it doesn't show images with as much contrast as OLED, the picture is sharp and the colors are vibrant.
Thanks to the brightness of up to 700 nits, I should be able to see enough in the sunshine. However, the display is very reflective, which is why I would rather recommend it for indoor use. In that regard, I'm more on the «matte display» team, like the ones Huawei offers to avoid reflections.
Good hardware with a large battery
Honor uses a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 in the Tab 20. The mid-range chip performs quite well. You are sufficiently equipped for everyday applications. However, graphics-heavy games are a struggle for the chip. For «Genshin Impact», I have to live with low graphics settings to be able to play smoothly.
Compared to the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra (Mediatek Dimensity 9400+) and the Huawei Matepad Air (Kirin T93B), it performs poorly in my benchmark (Geekbench 7).
Unlike Samsung, Honor and Huawei only install eight instead of twelve gigabytes of RAM. Again: this is enough for everyday use. If you want to jump on the AI bandwagon or plan to edit videos on the tablet, it might get tight. You have 256 gigabytes of internal storage available; you won't find a microSD slot.
The Pad 20 also shines less when it comes to the battery. The 10,100 mAh is enough for just under ten hours. The battery of the exact same size in the Huawei Matepad 12 X lasts twice as long. That is a considerable difference, even if ten hours is more than enough for a workday.
The cameras remain unspectacular. Eight megapixels each are used for both video calls (selfie camera) and for photographing documents and the like (rear camera). Both do their job, and that's about it. I do not recommend taking landscape photos.
Keyboard and stylus are not just practical
You can purchase a matching keyboard and stylus for the Honor Pad 20 – currently, you get them for free in the Honor shop. The keyboard is comfortable to type on, and the function keys are practical. Unfortunately, Honor has omitted a touchpad.
I noticed that the keyboard does not lock automatically when I fold it back. This naturally leads to unwanted inputs. Fortunately, it works flat on the table because the keyboard has a slightly raised frame that protrudes beyond the keys.
I connect the stylus via Bluetooth. However, I cannot attach it magnetically to the tablet. It is charged via a USB-C cable. The competition does a much better job here. With Huawei and Samsung, I can attach the pens to the tablet and charge them there.
When taking notes and sketching, I am not entirely convinced by the stylus. While it recognizes pressure and tilt, it is not very detailed. It reacts too strongly at times and too weakly at others. The glossy display surface is also less suitable for the pen; it lacks grip. Although Honor offers a Paperlike Edition in this regard, it is not available here. That would have been more my style. Overall, it is sufficient for notes, but I won't be happy with it for longer drawing sessions.
Software doesn't last long
Honor ships the Pad 20 with Android 16 and its own user interface (MagicOS 10). The manufacturer adds a lot of apps on top of its own and Google's. That's a bit too much bloatware for me, but at least the stuff can be uninstalled.
What really doesn't work, however, are the update periods. The manufacturer only confirms two Android updates and three years for security. Honor does write «at least», but for a tablet that you would like to use for as long as possible, that is weak. So you can't use it for long for e-banking and other things with security risks.
Honor offers few of its own AI features. That's fine by me, and the tablet's performance isn't designed for it either. The options for automatic subtitles, transcriptions, and detection for AI deepfakes and voice cloning are actually useful and practical. And I have to give my consent for each of them. Very likable.
In a nutshell
The Pad 20 is not the best option
Pro
- a good price in the promotional bundle with stylus and keyboard
- practical for videos, notes, and casual games
- AI features are more of an optional extra and can be activated individually
Contra
- below-average performance in graphics-intensive games
- highly reflective IPS display
- Battery is rather weak at 10 hours
- impractical stylus (can only be charged via USB-C, somewhat inaccurate)
- short support period (only 2 Android OS updates / 3 years of security updates)
Ever since I learned how to hold a pen, I've been doodling away in bright colours. Thanks to my iPad, digital art has also become part of my life. That's why I love testing tablets – from the graphic design range to the regular kind. When I feel the urge to express my creativity without lugging lots of equipment, I go for the latest smartphones and start snapping away.
