The Honor Pad X9a has a footprint of 267.3 x 167.4mm with a 6.8mm thickness, keeping the profile notably slim for its size, and tips the scales at 475g. It occupies a total volume of approximately 304.27 cm³. The tablet ships without a stylus, detachable keyboard, or backlit keyboard, and offers no rated water resistance. Pen tilt sensitivity is likewise absent.
The Honor Pad X9a features an 11.5-inch IPS LCD touchscreen with a 2508 x 1504 pixel resolution and a pixel density of 254 ppi, delivering a reasonably sharp image across its large panel. The display runs at a 120Hz refresh rate, which contributes to smoother scrolling and more fluid on-screen motion. It does not include branded damage-resistant glass, sapphire glass, or e-paper technology, and neither HDR10 nor HDR10+ are supported.
The Honor Pad X9a runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 685 4G, a 6nm octa-core chip configured as four cores at 2.8GHz and four at 1.9GHz across 8 threads, with integrated LTE and big.LITTLE technology for workload balancing. Graphics are handled by the Adreno 610 GPU, clocked at 1260MHz with a turbo ceiling of the same, and supporting DirectX 12, OpenGL ES 3.2, and OpenCL 2. The tablet pairs 8GB of DDR4 RAM running at 2133MHz — expandable to a maximum of 16GB — with a maximum memory bandwidth of 17 GB/s, alongside 128GB of eMMC 5.1 internal storage and an external memory slot for further expansion. Geekbench 6 scores sit at 473 single-core and 1510 multi-core. Additional platform features include 64-bit support, NX bit, TrustZone, and integrated graphics, with the device shipping on Android 15.
The Honor Pad X9a carries an 8MP rear camera with an f/2 aperture, capable of recording video at 1080p and 30fps, along with continuous autofocus during recording. On the front, a 5MP camera handles video calls and self-portraits. Manual controls include ISO, focus, exposure, and white balance, while shooting modes extend to HDR, panorama, and slow-motion video. Neither flash nor a video light is present on either camera, and there is no front-facing LED flash. Optical image stabilization is absent, and the camera does not support timelapse, 360-degree panoramas, or manual shutter speed adjustment.
The Honor Pad X9a includes stereo speakers for a wider soundstage during media playback, though it omits a 3.5mm headphone jack, meaning wired headphones would require an adapter. There is no built-in radio on the device.
The Honor Pad X9a is equipped with an 8300 mAh rechargeable battery that supports fast charging, and a battery level indicator is on hand to keep track of remaining charge. Wireless charging is not available, and the battery is non-removable.
The Honor Pad X9a connects wirelessly via Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) and Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) with download and upload speeds of up to 390 Mbits/s and 150 Mbits/s respectively, alongside Bluetooth 5.1 and a USB Type-C port. It does not include a cellular module, 5G support, GPS, NFC, HDMI output, Ethernet, gyroscope, compass, infrared sensor, or a built-in projector. On the software side, the tablet supports split-screen multitasking, Picture-in-Picture, full-page screenshots, widgets, dark mode, dynamic and manual theme customization, a media picker, an extra dim mode, app offloading, and the ability to play games while they download. Privacy features cover location controls, camera and microphone access management, app tracking prevention, clipboard warnings, and on-device machine learning, though cross-site tracking blocking, Mail Privacy Protection, and Wi-Fi password sharing are absent. Additional capabilities include offline voice recognition, customizable and permission-based notifications, a child lock, multi-user support, battery health check, device position tracking, sharing intents, and an accelerometer, while focus modes, Quick Start, direct OS vendor updates, a fingerprint scanner, 3D facial recognition, iris scanner, voice commands, and Galileo satellite support are not present.
In Geekbench 5 benchmarks, the Honor Pad X9a scores 442 in the single-core test and 1787 in the multi-core test. The device uses DDR4 memory, reflecting the generation of its RAM architecture.
