I tested Honor's latest budget tablet, and it feels surprisingly premium

I'll be honest: when Honor told me they were launching another low-priced tablet, I was prepared for the usual compromises. Cheap plastic build, rubbish screen, dodgy performance.

Instead, the Honor Pad 10 arrived looking like something twice the price, and after three weeks of use, I'm genuinely impressed. While it's no iPad, this is one of the best budget tablets I've tested in years.

Note, though, that Honor devices are not widely available in the States due to the ongoing trade restrictions imposed by the US government, which initially targeted its former parent company, Huawei. You can get one much everywhere else in the world, though, and at very attractive prices.

In the UK, for instance, the standard cost of £299 has been discounted throughout July on Honor's website to £269. That gets you a tablet that's premium in many ways, and performs admirably for most tasks. Not bad at all.

So let me break down exactly what makes this such a compelling package, and how it compares to other budget tablets.

Honor Pad 10 review: Key specifications

Score: 3/5

Honor Pad 10 review: Design and screen

• Overall design feels premium
• Very portable for a 12-incher

The moment I picked up the Honor Pad 10, I realised this isn't your typical budget tablet. The all-aluminium construction feels solid and premium, while the rounded corners make extended holding sessions comfortable.

That's something I really appreciated during my binges of Netflix's The Diplomat, a lavishly visual show that you might think might suffer on a cheap tablet screen. But actually, the 12.1-inch display here is pretty darned impressive. The 2.5K resolution (2560 x 1600) delivers crisp text and vibrant visuals, whilst the 120Hz refresh rate makes scrolling silky smooth.

The display is nice and bright, too, peaking at around 500 nits, which means I could happily use it outdoors without too much trouble. Yes, it's an LCD panel rather than an OLED, so it might feel like a step down if you're used to the latter, but at this price, you can't really complain.

Design score: 3/5

The bezels are reasonably slim at 88% screen-to-body ratio, giving you plenty of screen real estate without making the tablet unwieldy. Meanwhile, the 16:10 aspect ratio is slightly different from the 16:9 ratiothat many devices use. That means a bit of extra space for productivity tasks and split-screen use, but on the flipside it does lead to slightly letterboxed content when watching films.

These are only slight variations from the norm, though, and in all honesty I don't think most people will notice the difference.

Score: 4/5

Honor Pad 10 review: Features

• Six-speaker setup
• AI features

A good display is one thing, but where cheap tablets often fall down is tinny audio, which can potentially ruin your entertainment. The Pad 10, however, comes with a six-speaker array (three on each side) that saves you from that fate. You get proper stereo separation with actual bass response, and although I certainly wouldn't call it a premium sound experience, I found it fine for watching movies and listening to music.

If you're a real audiophile, though, you'll want something better, which will inevitably mean paying more. Also note that there's no headphone jack, so for listening in private, you'll need to use either USB-C headphones or wireless earbuds.

Both the front and rear cameras are 8MP sensors. The rear camera, housed in Honor's "Starlight Cloud Ring Camera Array," has been repositioned to the top-right corner (rather than centred like the Pad 9), which makes it more practical for taking photos in both landscape and portrait orientations.

Image quality is good enough for document scanning, quick snaps, and video calls, though obviously you shouldn't expect smartphone-level photography from any tablet camera, let alone a cheap one. Both cameras can record 1080p video at 30fps, which again is perfectly fine for a tablet.

There are some Honor-specific features too. For instance, Magic Ring connectivity lets you seamlessly share files between your Honor phone and tablet, mirror your phone screen, or use your phone's mobile data as a hotspot. I don't have an Honor phone myself, so I couldn't test this, but people who do tell me it works pretty well in practice.

One thing I could try myself was the Circadian Night Display, which automatically adjusts colour temperature throughout the day. There's also the Defocus Eye Care feature, which slightly blurs the background to reduce strain during extended reading sessions. I rarely suffer eye strain, so I can't tell you how well that actually works, but both features certainly deliver what they promise.

There are also some AI features. Magic Portal allows you to drag and drop selected text, images, or files to other apps for quick actions, whilst the AI writing tools in Honor Notes can help with grammar correction and text summarisation. In all honesty, I didn't find these particularly compelling, but I can imagine they might change the game for some people.

Score: 3/5

Honor Pad 10 review: Performance

• Handles standard tasks smoothly
• Not a gaming powerhouse

So how does the tablet perform on a day-to-day basis? In my experience, it's fine; just not spectacular.

Inside the Honor Pad 10 is Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor; a capable mid-range chip that handles web browsing, video streaming, and productivity tasks well. To put that into context, I regularly had a dozen apps open with split-screen multitasking, and everything remained responsive.

Giving more challenging tasks, though, and the cracks start to show. For instance, casual games like Monument Valley and Alto's Adventure run perfectly, but demanding titles like Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile required reduced settings to maintain smooth framerates.

If you're a serious mobile gamer, I'd say the Xiaomi Pad 7 with its Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 is a better choice, although you'll pay more and won't get such impressive battery life. And ultimately, you might want to think about whether a large tablet is the best format for hardcore gaming anyway.

Now, though, let's come to where the Honor Pad 10 really scored with me. Powering everything is a 10,100mAh battery, with 35W charging that gets you to 100% in around 90 minutes. And in my testing, the battery consistently delivered around 18-19 hours of mixed use.

I found this genuinely impressive and useful. In real terms, it meant I could use this tablet for days without reaching for the charger. And that's not nothing.

Score: 3/5

Honor Pad 10 review: Who's It For?

• Students, casual users

If you want a large-screen device for streaming entertainment, reading, note-taking, using the web and general computing tasks, the Pad 10 delivers. Its combination of excellent battery life and a gorgeous display makes it ideal for students or anyone who doesn't want to spend a lot of money on a tablet.

However, if you're looking for top-tier performance for either serious gaming or creative work (especially high-powered stuff like video editing or 3D modelling), you'll want to look at something more expensive.

Buy it if…

• You're seeking a bargain
• You want excellent battery life
• You prefer Android to Apple

Don't buy it if…

• You want 4K or OLED
• You're a hardcore gamer
• You want first-class audio

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