Android Finally Has A True Competitor To Apple’s iPad Pro

With a little over 50% share of the worldwide tablet market, Apple — with its formidable lineup of iPads — dominates the segment by a considerable margin. The only semblance of competition comes from Samsung, which has a respectable 26% share. The rest of the space in the tablet market share pie is taken up by players like Amazon, Xiaomi, Huawei, Lenovo, and Acer — all of them accounting for considerably less than 10% of the market. Honor is another company that regularly makes it onto the list, thanks to its decent lineup of affordable and mid-range tablets, though the company has been trying its hand in the premium tablets space for a while now, and its latest flagship grade tablet — the Honor MagicPad 4 — is the newest culmination of that effort, and succeeds last year’s MagicPad 3.

The Honor MagicPad 4 was unveiled a few weeks ago at MWC 2026, and has since then gone on sale in several markets globally. While not officially available in the U.S., it has grabbed the attention of tech enthusiasts and general consumers thanks to its impressive spec sheet. 

In several aspects, it even tops flagship offerings from Samsung and Apple. That’s why the MagicPad 4 is being touted by many as being a “true” Android-based competitor to the iPad Pro. In fact, a quick look at the spec sheet of the product would almost make it seem like the MagicPad 4 was designed from the ground up to topple the iPad Pro in terms of hardware specs. And the surprising thing is that Honor has almost managed to do that.

When launched in October 2025, Apple touted the new M5-powered iPad Pro as one of the thinnest tablets ever. The 13-inch model was just 5.1mm thick at the edges. The Honor MagicPad in comparison is 4.8mm thick making it substantially thinner than the already thin iPad Pro. With its 12.3-inch display, it is a little over a half inch smaller than the 13-inch iPad Pro. As for display specs, the MagicPad 4’s 3,000 x 1,920 pixel OLED display offers a peak brightness of 2,400 nits, and claims a higher refresh rate (165Hz). In comparison, the iPad Pro gets a 2,752 x 2,064-pixel OLED panel that has a lower peak brightness value of 1,600 nits. The Honor also gets a higher screen-to-body ratio.

The Honor MagicPad 4 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset, which is among the latest and most powerful SoCs currently available for Android based devices. That being said, the iPad Pro — which is powered by Apple’s self-designed M5 chip — finds itself in a performance league of its own. In terms of sheer performance, the M5 chip leaps ahead of the current Qualcomm offering. However, given that the MagicPad 4 is already equipped with the best available Android offering, this is more of an ecosystem restriction than a vote against the product itself.

In terms of camera specs, the iPad gets by with a single 12MP camera at the rear with 4K video support, and a 12MP selfie camera. The Honor’s camera setup includes a 13MP rear-facing camera with 4K video support (limited to 30 fps) and a 9MP selfie camera.

There is no doubt about the fact that the Honor MagicPad 4 is a commendable effort from the Chinese consumer electronics manufacturer. Not only does it comfortably match the iPad Pro in several aspects, it actually does several things better. Like Apple, which touts support for the Apple Pencil as a revolutionary feature, Honor has its own stylus called the Honor Magic Pencil 3. The company offers consumers the option to bundle the aforementioned pencil along with Smart Keyboard at the time of purchase. The battery capacity is almost identical to that of the iPad, and at 450g, it is considerably lighter, and therefore easier to carry around.

Nevertheless, despite “losing” to the MagicPad 4 in some aspects, the iPad Pro will remain an overall better product for most people. And it all boils down to the fact that the iPad Pro will almost instantaneously become part of an existing Apple ecosystem. Honor has no such ecosystem pedigree to boast of, and despite excelling as a standalone device, its success is constrained by the weaknesses of Android as a platform and Honor as a brand

The Honor MagicPad 4 is already on sale in several countries across the globe, but isn’t available in the U.S. Offered in 12GB RAM + 256GB storage and 16GB+512GB options, UK prices start at £599.99 ($800), going up to £699.99 ($940) for the 512GB option. Additional purchase options include an Honor MagicPad 4 keyboard as well as the Honor Magic3 Pencil which cost an additional £31 each.