The M5 iPad Pro is arguably the leading tablet available, with few Android competitors able to rival it. The Galaxy Tab S11 might have been its nearest opponent thus far, yet the M5 iPad Pro is equipped with a superior chip. Fast-forward to March 1, and a new competitor in the Android sphere has emerged, directly challenging Apple’s iPad Pro. The Honor MagicPad 4, recently teased online, made its debut at the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2026) in Barcelona, Spain, on Sunday. The Chinese brand has made it evident that the Honor MagicPad 4 aims at the M5 iPad Pro, by directly comparing its latest tablet to Apple’s premier iPad.
To remind you, the iPad Pro not only boasts the most powerful M-series chip Apple has developed to date, the same chip that powers the most affordable M5 MacBook Pro, but it also features a tandem OLED display that allows Apple to minimize the tablet’s thickness to 5.1 mm, without sacrificing performance or battery life. Additionally, the iPad Pro showcases slender bezels, with the display occupying nearly the entirety of the front. Honor is putting the iPad Pro’s key characteristics to the test with the MagicPad 4.
Slimmer tablet, narrower bezels
Honor released the MagicPad 3 Pro in October in China, which measured 5.79 mm in thickness. That tablet was marginally thicker than the iPad Pro. The Honor MagicPad 4 is just 4.8 mm thick, making it 3 mm slimmer than the iPad Pro (5.1 mm) and 0.8 mm thinner than the iPad Air 3 (5.6 mm). Although the difference is slight, Honor is recognized for pushing the boundaries of device thickness. The brand’s Honor Magic V foldables have previously held the title of the world’s thinnest foldables, with Samsung unveiling an ultra-slim foldable only in 2025.
Honor didn’t merely slim down the MagicPad 4. It also reduced the bezels. The Honor MagicPad 4 features a 3.9 mm “Ultra-Narrow” bezel, as stated by Honor, in contrast to the 7.6 mm of the 13-inch M5 iPad Pro. This allows the Honor tablet to achieve a screen-to-body ratio of 93%, compared to 89% for the M5 iPad Pro. The Android tablet weighs 450 grams, considerably lighter than the 13-inch M5 iPad Pro (579 grams).
The premium specifications
Creating a design akin to the iPad Pro would not suffice. The Honor MagicPad 4 also needs to provide performance and experiences comparable to the M5 iPad Pro, and the specifications of the Android tablet suggest that this could be the case. The Honor MagicPad 4 sports a 12.3-inch OLED panel, which Honor labels as “industry-leading,” presenting a direct challenge to the iPad Pro’s OLED display. The MagicPad 4 screen offers 3K resolution, a 165 Hz refresh rate, and a peak brightness of 2,400 nits for HDR. All these metrics surpass those of the iPad Pro, which has a display with 2.7K resolution, a 120 Hz refresh rate (ProMotion), and a peak brightness of 1,600 nits.
The new Honor tablet is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 processor, instead of the Elite version of the chip used in the Honor Magic V6 foldable, which was also revealed at MWC on Sunday. The tablet will be available in 12GB/256GB or 16GB/512GB configurations, as per Honor’s preorder information. Despite its slim profile, the tablet includes a 10,100 mAh battery. Although smaller than the Honor MagicPad 3 Pro’s 12,450 mAh battery, it remains impressive. The M5 iPad Pro carries a slightly larger battery at 10,290 mAh.
Regarding software experiences, the Honor MagicPad 4 can function as a Windows PC when connected to a keyboard dock, offering users a desktop-style multi-window Android experience, similar to what is available on the iPad Pro with iPadOS 26. The Android tablet also seamlessly works with iPhones and Macs, as compatibility with Apple’s ecosystem has been a focal point of Honor’s MWC presentation. The Honor MagicPad 4 facilitates content transfer to and from the iPhone and supports Mac Screen Sharing.