Huawei MatePad Hands-on

Huawei recently launched its new tablet in the Philippines, the MatePad. It’s the mid-range sibling of the MatePad Pro and sports a 10.4-inch screen, a Kirin 810 chipset, 7,250mAh battery, and support for the Huawei M Pencil. Check out our initial thoughts below.

Huawei sent us a nice package for this unit, which includes the MatePad, Huawei M Pencil, and the MatePad folio cover.

The unit we got comes in Midnight Grey color with an aluminum body. The front houses the 10.4-inch IPS screen with 2000 x 1200 resolution or 224ppi, which is decent. However, you’ll notice that it’s not that sharp, especially if you’re more accustomed to displays with higher resolution.

The bezel also looks thicker compared to the MatePad Pro. It also has a smaller screen-to-body ratio of 81% compared to the Pro’s 86.5%. In landscape mode, we can find the 8MP front camera at the top bezel. In this orientation, up top, is the volume button and quad-microphones so it can easily pick up audio when you’re in a video call or recording audio.

On the left, we have the power/lock button and two loudspeakers.

On the right are two more loudspeakers and USB-C port.

At the bottom is the card tray for the nano-SIM and microSD card.

Flip it on its back, and you will see the Huawei branding, and the protruding camera module for the 8MP shooter, LED flash, and microphone.

The MatePad is a bit chunky at 7.35mm and has a decent heft at 450g, but the rounded frame blends almost seamlessly with the back panel.

We see it as an excellent entertainment device for watching movies, casual music listening, e-book reading, Zoom calls, and note-taking with the Huawei M Pencil. It can also be a productivity companion if you have the keyboard folio.

Powering the MatePad is a Kirin 810 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, 7,250mAh battery, and EMUI 10.1 based on Android 10. There’s no GMS, so it uses HMS with AppGallery. We’ll discuss more of its performance in our full review.

The Huawei MatePad will be available starting July 31 for PHP 20,990USD 358INR 30,322EUR 341CNY 2,605.

Customers who purchase the new MatePad will also get freebies worth PHP 8,171USD 139INR 11,804EUR 133CNY 1,014, including:

Huawei M Pencil
Huawei MatePad Flip Cover
Huawei 15GB Cloud Storage (1 year)
Huawei Video TVB Membership (3 months)
Huawei Video Mango TV Membership (1 month)
Booky Prime Membership (3 months)
Viu Premium Subscription (3 months)
Pesoloan PHP 150USD 3INR 217EUR 2CNY 19 Cashback
GCash PHP 70USD 1INR 101EUR 1CNY 9 Voucher
PayMaya PHP 50USD 0.85INR 72EUR 0.81CNY 6 Voucher

Huawei MatePad specs:
10.4-inch 2000×1200 IPS Display, 224PPI
Kirin 810 2.27GHz octa-core CPU
Mali G52 GPU
3GB, 4GB RAM
32GB, 64GB storage
Up to 512GB via MicroSD
8MP rear camera
8MP front camera
4G LTE (on LTE model)
Dual-band WiFi 802.11 AC
Bluetooth 5.1
NFC
Huawei M Pencil Support
Sound by Harman Kardon
Huawei Share
USB Type-C
EMUI 10.1 (Based on Android 10)
7,250mAh battery
245.2mm x 154.96mm x 7.35mm
450g
Midnight Gray