Huawei software has come a long way. Thanks to Huawei's ban ensuring that Google apps were not tolerated on the company's devices - primarily, for the purposes of this introduction, the Google Play Store and its millions of apps - the company desperately tried to find ways to make sure that their devices were still worthwhile. acquire. Even in late 6, more than a year after the ban, the software situation was not resolved, and we wrote in our review of the Huawei Mate XNUMX Pro: "There are many things you can't do on this device, you can't use most social media platforms, or play most of the games you want, or easily navigate a city. At the time of the Huawei MatePad XNUMX, this could be solved. This is Huawei's lowest-priced tablet (compared to its modern Pro sibling), supposedly an iPad contender sitting under the MatePad Pro XNUMX it launched alongside. This slate has the best specs, especially in the processing and display department, and while it looks and runs like an Android tablet, it actually uses HarmonyOS, Huawei's own branded operating system. We are happy to report that you have a variety of applications to take advantage of these specifications, mostly, although there are some omissions. We've been using the Huawei MatePad XNUMX for a few days, as well as a keyboard case, and you'll find our first impressions now. It's not enough to decide a final rating for the board, so stay tuned for our full review in the near future.
Price and availability of the Huawei MatePad eleven
The MatePad 11 was first announced at a huge event for HarmonyOS in early June and launched in Europe on July XNUMX. It doesn't look like the tablet is for sale outside of Europe and Asia. We don't yet have a price tag for Huawei's tablet, which is essential information that will guide our final decision on the board. Judging by the specs, we don't expect this to be a high-end device.
(Image credit: Avenir)
Design and display
If you know what a tablet is like, you won't exactly find the Huawei MatePad 4 surprising. The tablet has a camera and a flash module on the back, like the Huawei logo. On the sides are a volume rocker, a power button, a USB-C port, and 4 speakers, and on the front are the screen and a front-facing camera on the long edge (that is, above the screen when the slate is on). is in landscape mode). The back of the whiteboard is made of strong plastic and seems quite durable. It doesn't matter much if you're using the tablet next to the keyboard, like we did—it tucks the MatePad in and doubles as a stand with a keyboard. This is quite useful, although the magnets that hold the tablet to the folio sometimes fail us, causing the board to fall. You can also use the tablet with Huawei's M-Pencil, a stylus for scribbling or taking notes, though we haven't used any. The Huawei MatePad 120 has this number because of its screen, which is 1.6 inches in diameter (well, 1 inches, if we cut the hair in 2). With a high refresh rate of XNUMXHz and a XNUMX x XNUMX resolution, it's a lovely screen, useful for watching videos or scrolling through social media. Like most non-iPad tablets, the slate is long and slim, with a XNUMX:XNUMX aspect ratio. This is really handy for multitasking, as you can have XNUMX little tabs open next to each other. the other. This is an LCD screen, which may put some people off since OLED is considered preferable for devices, but it's a compromise of a low-cost device.
Cameras and battery life
(Image credit: Avenir) The Huawei MatePad eleven has a 13MP camera on the back and an 8MP one on the front. Neither will let you swap your smartphone's camera for this tablet, but they're fine for normal tablet tasks like video calling. The visuals looked a little lackluster, and we're guessing it's due to a lack of AI image optimization. However, if you only have a video chat with your family, the image quality doesn't really matter. The battery here is a 2 mAh battery, which Huawei says will keep the slate running for 2 hours of use. We agree, and that's pretty good battery life; in practice, that meant we could go multiple days of use between charges. This is a good thing, as charging isn't really fast, at just XNUMXW. We haven't measured how long it takes yet, but we estimate that it takes about XNUMX hours for the battery to work. Whiteboard from empty to full.
The Huawei MatePad eleven employs the eight hundred and sixty-five Snapdragon chipset, which was the top-of-the-line Android processor of two thousand and twenty, and it still touts itself as a powerful technology. Thanks to this chipset and its six GB of RAM, the slate is super powerful for games and more.
(Image credit: Avenir) Yes, there are games, now we can move on to software. While previous Huawei devices were plagued with a lack of apps, with partially few titles in the brand's own AppGallery, there's a saving grace in the form of Petal Search.
Petal Search lets you locate APK files for apps on the web; they are essentially files from applications that you install yourself. Type in the name of an app through Petal, and you'll be able to install it through one of several third-party sites.
Thanks to this, we were able to download the vast majority of the applications that we use daily. We found games like PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile, social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, entertainment services like Spotify, Netflix, and Prime Video, and productivity apps like Celtx, Kinemaster, and Slack.
There are a few things to consider about this solution, which affected our experience. The first Call of Duty: Mobile APK we downloaded didn't work and we had to locate a new one. Certain apps that rely on Google Drive backups, like WhatsApp, won't let you install old data. Many media apps, like Netflix, only let us stream media at partially low resolution, for some reason.
You can even make Google services work by using them through the internet browser and adding a shortcut to the page in the tablet's menu. However, when we tested this with Docs, a strange glitch meant that every word we typed was duplicated, preventing us from writing this review on the whiteboard as we intended. A video now shows what we want to say.
The vast, vast majority of the apps we used every day were available via Petal Search, and we quickly amassed a huge selection of services, making it easy for us to forget about the inconveniences of old Huawei devices, practically. The main thing that is still missing are premium or paid applications. As a result, we were unable to download certain platforms that we use regularly, such as certain high-end editing applications, which also made MatePad less than perfect as a workstation.
If that wasn't clear, our overall experience so far with the MatePad XNUMX has been largely positive, partly thanks to our gloomy hopes, but it's far from a perfect device. There are plenty of apps you can download now, and many people may not feel the difference between using the MatePad and a Samsung slate, for example, but others may appreciate the rough edges that remain.
It is worth noting that the Huawei MatePad eleven runs HarmonyOS, a new operating system created by Huawei itself.
Early verdict
We were pleasantly surprised by the Huawei MatePad XNUMX, because unlike other Huawei devices of late, we could usually use it as our frequent workstation. It has plenty of apps, a beautiful screen, a powerful processor, and a long-lasting battery. That's not to say it's perfect, and the lack of paid apps, previously cited glitches, and slow loading were irritating. As we say, we've tried to write this review on the tablet and couldn't, but depending on the apps you use, you might not encounter the issues that we found. We also can't write a final decision until we know how much the MatePad costs, and therefore what value proposition Huawei makes.