Honor introduced a ton of products at IFA 2024, including its latest attempt to build an iPad Pro killer. The MagicPad 2 is a 12.3-inch slate with a 3K, 144Hz OLED display that the company says will do more than most products to reduce eye strain. It’s a far cry from the LCD version of its predecessor, the Magic Pad 13, launched around this time last year.
Obviously, Honor has stuffed a ton of specs into this thing in hopes of making it an attractive buy. It has the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 with an Adreno 735 GPU and 12GB of RAM, plus your choice of storage options. It has a 13-megapixel, f/2.0 rear-facing camera and a 9-megapixel f/2.2 selfie unit that sits on the “top” of the device in landscape mode. But Honor is more proud of the fact that it’s 5.8mm tall when placed on a table, which is a millimetre less than the iPad Pro.
Sure, the hardware has a sleek charm, with a nicely machined edge and rounded corners that you’d expect from a pro device. I’m not sure we can distinguish it from the products it mimics, but you have to give it a little credit for looking good. Especially considering that it’s too close to its inspiration and risks looking even more cheesy.
While the keyboard on the MagicPad 13 connected to the tablet with pogo pins, this time the Smart Bluetooth Keyboard is completely wireless. I’m a fan of the Keyboard Folio, which uses chiclet switches with 1.6mm of key travel and is perfect for working with.
Sadly it has that slightly agricultural feel that comes from a lot of third-party tablet case makers, but that’s a minor offense. Certainly, when flipped into tablet-only mode, I was surprised at how rarely I was able to trigger the wrong key, even while holding the slate in my arms.
It, like the Magic Pencil 3, attaches to its parent with magnets and draws power through close contact with the slate. If there’s a drawback, it’s that the documentation is, as usual, disappointing, and the magnets running along the tablet’s “top” bezel are so strong that you might end up mounting the Pencil in the wrong place.
Which runs the risk that you won’t place it on the charging coil, causing trouble when you need to write something down. As for the stylus, it’s very much the Apple Pencil v1, but the slate is responsive to inputs and palm rejection works perfectly.
Of course, what Honor is selling with this device isn’t the hardware, but the AI insights it promises to make it work. Such as being able to recognise handwritten mathematical formulas and writing, turning them into text with the promise of no less “Eat up Martha.” I was impressed by the speed at which I could type “Hello, I’m looking for a new housekeeper” into Honor Docs and have it translate it instantly – though “Hello, I’m looking for a new horseshoe.”
My brief stay with the Magic Pad 2 won’t offer generous insight into its longevity, but the 10,050mAh battery seems to be quite robust. I spent an hour or so browsing w… okay, scrolling obsessively on Reddit – and watching 25 minutes of YouTube videos. But even that activity managed to reduce the battery life figure by just three percent and I’d be surprised if it didn’t offer more than a full day of life, depending on how aggressively you use it.
Of course, like many of the products in this pantheon, the big question is how attractively priced it will be. If Honor hopes to price it at the same price as the iPad Pro, you can imagine that only the biggest Android fans will opt for it. But if Honor can keep the price at a level that will only draw positive comparisons, this could be a winner.