HONOR Pad X9b Max Review: How Much Laptop Can a 13-Inch Android Tablet Actually Replace?

The HONOR Pad X9b Max has a huge 13-inch display, a 10,100mAh battery and enough screen space to make you question how often you really need your laptop. I tried working on it to find out.

The first thing I did with the HONOR Pad X9b Max wasn’t watch a movie, play a game or run a benchmark.

I held it up against my Dell laptop.

I simply wanted to see just how big this thing really was.

By Srijith KN, Editor, SpacialWire

And that’s probably the best way to explain the Pad X9b Max. There are plenty of Android tablets that are easy to throw into a bag and forget about. This isn’t really one of them. At 13 inches, the HONOR is big enough that the moment you put it on a desk, you start wondering what else you could do with all that screen.

Netflix is obvious. Browsing is obvious. What I really wanted to know was whether I could actually work on it.

So I connected a Kensington Bluetooth keyboard, opened Microsoft Word and decided I would try writing part of this review on the tablet itself.

Microsoft immediately had other ideas.

Word quickly introduced me to a Microsoft 365 subscription screen, which wasn’t exactly the beginning I had imagined for my great laptop-replacement experiment.

That’s obviously not HONOR’s fault. But it did expose something important about reviewing tablets this way: replacing a laptop isn’t simply a question of whether the hardware is capable enough. Your applications, subscriptions and workflow all come along for the ride.

Once I got beyond that, however, the Pad X9b Max started making a much stronger argument for itself.

13 inches changes the way you use a tablet

HONOR makes quite a bit of noise about the size of the Pad X9b Max’s display. Initially, I wasn’t convinced another inch or two would fundamentally change how I used a tablet.

Fortunately, I had a Huawei MatePad 11.5 sitting around.

So rather than stare at specification sheets, I put the two next to each other.

The difference is bigger than I expected.

The Huawei still feels very much like a tablet. Add its keyboard and it becomes a handy little productivity machine, but its portability remains a big part of its appeal.

The HONOR feels different.

That extra screen real estate pushes it noticeably closer to a laptop. And just to satisfy my curiosity, I eventually lined up the Huawei, HONOR and my Dell laptop together.

The Pad X9b Max occupies a rather interesting space between them.

Its 13-inch display has a 2500 × 1560 resolution and runs at up to 120Hz, but those numbers don’t really explain what I like about it.

You have to sit in front of it.

Websites have room to breathe. Documents don’t feel squeezed. There is more room for multitasking, and text looks excellent across that huge canvas.

I found myself caring considerably less about the specification sheet once I had both tablets sitting in front of me.

You can see the difference — but, more importantly, you can use it.

ChatGPT unexpectedly became one of my favourite things to use on it

One application sold me on the large screen more than I expected: ChatGPT.

I use ChatGPT quite extensively as part of my work, and on the Pad X9b Max, longer conversations almost begin to resemble working inside a document.

There’s enough space for text to breathe. Words are wonderfully clear, and with a keyboard sitting in front of me I can type without constantly feeling as though I’m interacting with an enlarged mobile interface.

That’s precisely the kind of advantage that doesn’t necessarily jump out of a specifications table.

Put the same application on the smaller Huawei and it works perfectly well, of course. But I prefer using it on the HONOR.

And that’s where I’ve discovered the central contradiction of this tablet.

I prefer the HONOR when I’m sitting down to work. I prefer the idea of the smaller tablet when I have to carry it.

So is bigger actually better?

It depends where I’m going.

The Huawei MatePad 11.5 is easier to pick up, move around and throw into a bag. It feels distinctly tablet-like, which isn’t necessarily a criticism of the HONOR — it’s actually one of the reasons smaller tablets exist.

The Pad X9b Max wants a desk.

Prop it up, put a keyboard in front of it and suddenly its size becomes the reason I want to use it.

But if I’m going to carry a 13-inch tablet and a separate keyboard around all day, there comes a point where I start looking at my laptop and thinking: shouldn’t I just take that?

That’s a question HONOR can’t completely escape.

Then again, when I’m actually sitting in front of the X9b Max, I don’t particularly want the smaller screen.

Welcome to my dilemma.

The keyboard experiment worked surprisingly well

HONOR didn’t supply my review setup with the keyboard I’m using here, so I paired the tablet with a Kensington multi-device Bluetooth keyboard.

It connected without much trouble once I got the pairing sorted and has actually been pretty good to type on.

It’s also noisy.

Not mechanical-keyboard-in-the-office noisy, but certainly loud enough that anyone sitting nearby will know I’m working.

Huawei’s keyboard is almost the opposite. It’s softer, quieter and doesn’t particularly announce itself. It simply gets on with the job.

But this isn’t really a keyboard comparison. What matters is what happens when you put one in front of the HONOR.

The X9b Max suddenly makes much more sense.

Writing, researching, browsing, email and moving between everyday applications are all perfectly comfortable. I’m not going to pretend that my 4GB RAM/128GB review unit suddenly becomes a high-performance Windows notebook because I connected a keyboard to it. It doesn’t.

But I don’t need a high-performance computer every minute of my working day either.

And that’s the more interesting argument.

MagicOS gives me something else I increasingly appreciate: normality

There’s another advantage here that has very little to do with the size of the display.

The Pad X9b Max gives me the familiar Android and Google application environment I expect. Play Store, Chrome, Gmail, Gemini and the other services I use are simply there.

I’ve recently had WhatsApp stop working properly on another Huawei mini tablet I use. I haven’t established precisely what caused it, so I’m not going to turn that into a criticism of Huawei.

But experiences like that make me appreciate conventional Android application support more than I probably used to.

When I’m trying to turn a tablet into a work device, boring compatibility is actually rather valuable.

I don’t want to think about whether an application I need is going to work. I just want to open it.

There’s a lot of tablet here when work is finished

My obsession with turning the X9b Max into a work machine shouldn’t distract from the rather obvious fact that this thing is made for entertainment too.

A 13-inch display is fantastic for video.

HONOR combines it with four speakers, DTS:X Ultra and IMAX Enhanced support, and this is probably the part of the X9b Max proposition that requires the least explanation.

Finish working, disconnect the keyboard, open Netflix and the same thing that made documents enjoyable — size — becomes its greatest entertainment advantage.

There’s also a substantial 10,100mAh battery, with support for up to 45W HONOR SuperCharge.

I’m deliberately not turning this into a laboratory battery test or quoting HONOR’s endurance claims as though they were my own. My interest with this review has been much simpler: what is this thing actually like to live and work with?

And that’s also why I’m not going to spend several paragraphs throwing processor benchmarks at you.

For reference, there’s a Snapdragon 685 inside my unit, alongside 4GB RAM and 128GB storage. Those specifications matter, and we’ll put them in the spec box.

But they aren’t what has defined my experience with this tablet.

The screen has.

So, can the HONOR Pad X9b Max replace my laptop?

No.

But I don’t think that’s quite the right question anymore.

After using the X9b Max, what interests me is how many times I can avoid opening the laptop in the first place.

Writing? Absolutely.

ChatGPT and research? I actually really like it.

Web browsing, email, documents and everyday applications? No problem.

Watching something when work is finished? This is where 13 inches becomes rather wonderful.

Would I abandon my laptop when I know I have a serious day of work ahead? No. There are still things a proper desktop operating system, full-sized keyboard and traditional laptop form factor simply handle better.

And would I choose the X9b Max if portability were my number-one concern? Probably not. Smaller tablets make more sense for that.

It has simply given me fewer reasons to open it.

And after initially wondering why I needed a 13-inch Android tablet, that’s probably the strongest argument I can make for one.