Honor MagicPad4 battery life and charging tests: what we found
The Honor MagicPad 2 12.3 got a good-but-not-great Active Use Score of 9 hours and 42 minutes a few of years ago. Its middling web browsing score of 7 hours and 56 minutes was a hindrance. Today we’re examining the latest generation 12.3-inch tablet from Honor. Let’s see how it performed. Let’s find out the answers in this Honor MagicPad4 battery test.
The Honor MagicPad4 sports a 12.3-inch OLED display with 3,000 x 1,920 resolution and a 10,100mAh battery. It has the same screen size as the MagicPad 2, but a greater top refresh rate (165Hz vs 144Hz) and peak brightness (2,400 nits vs 1,600 nits). The battery capacity is almost comparable (the earlier slate is only 50mAh less) and charging is identical with compatibility for 66W Honor SuperCharge.
So, how did it work out? Indeed, the tablet did better in our Honor MagicPad4 battery test - by almost an hour. It got an Active Use Score of 10 hours 31 minutes. That means a big jump in movie playback time (almost 2 more hours) and a slight increase in gaming. Call time is better also — remember that since this is a tablet without cellular connectivity, we’re testing WhatsApp calling instead.
Still, web browsing is a weak point for the MagicPad4. The MagicPad 2 uses a 4nm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, however the MagicPad 3 gets a more powerful 3nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. This also brings in newer connectivity with Wi-Fi 7 capabilities, upgraded from Wi-Fi 6. We are of course testing at calibrated brightness, so the additional nits on the new panel don’t affect the score. Another Honor MagicPad4 battery test point: browsing still falls behind competition.
As a point of comparison, the Honor Pad X9 is a budget tablet with an 11.5-inch LCD (120Hz, 2,000 x 1,200), a Snapdragon 685, and a somewhat modest 7,250mAh battery. The X9 earned an Active Use Score of 13 hours and 17 minutes, with web browsing coming in at little under 12 hours. Impressive. More upmarket is the Xiaomi Pad 8 Pro with 11.2-inch IPS LCD (144Hz, 3,200 x 2,136), Snapdragon 8 Elite and a smaller-ish 9,200mAh battery. It was even more impressive at 13 hours and 39 minutes. The OnePlus Pad 3 likewise packs the Snapdragon 8 Elite, features a 13.2‑inch IPS LCD (144Hz, 3,392 x 2,400), and a bigger 12,140mAh battery. It barely beat the MagicPad4, with just 10 hours and 49 minutes, despite an additional 2,040mAh of capacity. So here the Honor MagicPad4 can hold its own against some more expensive rivals in our battery test.
You can use the widget above to acquire a use pattern that works better for you, e.g., by reducing call % or increasing video playback, if you want to play with the slider controls yourself.
Charging performance
The Honor MagicPad4 battery test now has charging included. The MagicPad4 sports a 10,100mAh battery and supports 66W SuperCharge. There are a few tablets more powerful – like the OnePlus Pad 3 and Pad 4 – but the MagicPad4 is suitably specced here. The findings of the charging, however, are somewhat unsatisfactory. It was only really up against the Redmi Pad 2 Pro with its mismatched hardware (big 12,000mAh battery with slow 33W charging) at 15 minutes. The pattern was repeated in the 30-minute test.
At the end of the complete 100% charge test, things looked better. MagicPad4 came in at 1 hour 40 minutes. That's fine, but not great. It matches the OnePlus Pad 4 for example, with a larger 13,380mAh battery to fill – but also a faster 80W charger. In fact, only budget slates like the Honor Pad X9 and Redmi Pad 2 Pro were slower. The Pad X9 was 24 minutes longer, however keep in mind that 100% on the X9 extends beyond 100% on the MagicPad4.
Last words
The Honor MagicPad4 gets a battery life bump, but Honor needs to do better with web browsing time. The company also offers a number of phones with 80W and even 100W charging, but only one tablet that goes above 66W. Time to change that. And with that we get back to working on the complete review.