Gadget Review: Huawei MatePad 11.5” S PaperMatte Edition is great for illustrators

Imagine a life without Google – without all your familiar apps and conveniences, and the familiar operating system that you’re used to on the devices you carry along with you. Huawei certainly has.

While it seems difficult to think of using a connected device without the various Google apps and its familiar operating system, one of the heavyweights of the modern world of electronic devices seems to be doing just fine without it.

And the proof of that pudding is in the using of the Huawei MatePad 11.5” S PaperMatte Edition, which the Chinese giant has packed with features that are so compelling that they more than make up for both the absence of Google apps and the fact that the OS is not Android but Harmony - Huawei’s own in-house reinterpretation of Google’s world-conquering OS.

But first let’s go over the specs: As the name suggests, this Huawei tablet sports an 11.5-inch screen. Under its skin, which is available in three colourways, you’ll find Huawei’s own Kirin 9000Wl chipset instead of the usual Qualcomm or MediaTek processor. This is because of ongoing issues that Huawei has with US officialdom, which means it is denied access to a lot of common suppliers in the global market. Be that as it may, you will find nothing amiss with what Huawei has come up on its own. Coupled with the 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, at no point did we feel there was any speed or performance lacking in this MatePad.

Photo duties are handled by a 13MP main rear snapper and an 8MP front camera. There is no tablet on the market that can compete in the image department with even a mobile phone, leave alone a proper camera – and this Huawei is no exception. While the main front camera still manages to provide passable images in bright conditions, we would give its grainy images in low-light conditions a pass. The front camera in a tablet is mainly a tool for video calls, not award-winning selfies, and again this Huawei was true to form. Zoom call videos were clear, bright and detailed enough for satisfaction, but that’s about it.

One mandatory feature where this MatePad shines, though, is the built-in speaker, of which there are four, all optimised with Huawei’s proprietary Histen 9.0 software. The sound output is more detailed, musical, nuanced and even bassy than almost any tab we’ve heard of late, and the volume levels go adequately high to comfortably chill with some mood music or catch up with your favourite Prime shows without feeling underwhelmed.

Battery life

Playing a lot of music through the speakers does drain the battery faster, however, although if you used the MatePad 11.5 S judiciously, the power would last several days. We found ourselves juicing up this tablet about twice a week with around two or three hours of standard use per day. Running a movie marathon with the built-in speakers however, saw the battery last two Bollywood tearjerkers or a decent just-shy-of-six hours, which is bog standard for its class. The 8800mAH battery then fills back up in just a tad less than two hours through its USB C port, charging at up to decent 22.5W. If you want to start using a depleted one quickly again, then only a 30-munite charge will give you a very usable 25 percent charge level.

The humdrum features covered, let’s come to what really sells this tablet: It’s screen, great stylus input, bundled keypad and some exclusive Huawei apps.

The 11.5-inch screen has a 2.8K resolution and an adaptive refresh rate of a high 144Hz for lag-free visuals. But its best feature is what it says on the tin: the PaperMatte finish. This is a coating that reduces reflections and glare by up to 98 percent, claims Huawei (and we would agree), and also puts it among the very few devices out there whose screens are immune to the ugly smudges and fingerprints that are the bugbear of most devices out there.

The 500 nits of brightness that Huawei specifies works very well for the screen, combining with the matte finish to provide bright, vibrant, clear, sharp and glare-free use in both low and bright light scenarios. And with a claimed 16.7 million colours on tap, this is a screen that will serve creative folk well.

This segways nicely into the stylus input – a feature that creative people and artists will love. The M-Pencil stylus that ships with the MatePad 11.5 S is a revelation for artists, illustrators and those who like scribbling on their screens. We were struck by its near zero-latency, which made its use as seamless and intuitive as writing with a pen or pencil on paper. With 10,000 levels of pressure sensitivity, you can really let the artist in you loose with the M-Pencil, helped by the matte surface of the screen, which creates just the right amount of tactile drag for a near pen-on-paper feel.

Artful app

Together with Huawei’s bundled in-house GoPaint app, which is as effective as Apple’s popular Procreate art app for illustration and digital painting – and with the added bonus of a better stylus feel than the Apple Pencil feels on an iPad – the MatePad 11.5 S may perhaps be the best tablet for illustration.

If you’re more of a note-taker than a sketcher, Huawei also throws in its Note and Notepad apps. You can either hand-scribble your notes with the M-Pencil or use the bundled Smart Magnetic Keyboard to tap out your literary magnum opus on the go, aided by its very tactile and precise feel. It connects magnetically to the tablet and has a groove above it where you can stand the tablet on an incline to use it like a mini-laptop. This groove also has the power connector from which the keyboard charges.

Apart from the lack of Google support, the only other gripe we had was that you cannot disable the keyboard while it is folded behind the tablet as you hold it and use the stylus on the screen, leading to a conflict of input. Instead, you have to pull off the magnetic keyboard every time for this task and then attach it back again.

Regardless though, coming in at a price of Dh1,499 with all the accessories, Huawei bridges the app gap and offers great value for money on this tablet.

Huawei MatePad 11.5” S PaperMatte Edition tablet

Hits:

• Gadget Review: HP Elitebook 865 G10 is perfect for the boardroom and the living room

• Videos