The best announcement from Huawei’s big Barcelona launch is not what you think it might be

Chinese smartphone giant Huawei has just unveiled three smartwatches and a tablet at a glitzy launch in Barcelona. Considering how good Huawei’s smartwatches typically are, I’d normally be getting excited by the wearables. But what caught my eye was its two new tablets – in particular the Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2in PaperMatte Edition.

Assuming the tablet receives a UK on-sale date, this is an iPad Pro rival that I can get behind. The reasons are twofold (no, not that type of fold). First, it comes with a gorgeous reflection-killing matte finish on the tandem OLED screen, which coupled with the stylus also makes it a great note-taking device and e-reader.

Second, the associated Glide keyboard is so good that it rivals the Apple Magic keyboard for comfortable typing and design. The way the spine splits in two – and folds under the tablet at the rear to create a rigid Toblerone-shaped support – is seriously clever and it means that, unlike many tablets of its ilk, this is a productivity tablet you can use on your lap. It’s adjustable, too, although you only get the choice of two angles.

Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2in PaperMatte hands-on: Specifications

• 12.2in 144Hz 2,800 x 1,440 matte finish 3:2 aspect ratio tandem OLED screen
• 8-core Kirin 9010 processor
• 512GB storage
• 272 x 183 x 5.5mm (WDH), tablet only
• 512g (PaperMatte edition); 508g (standard edition)
• “Golden silk” finish rear panel, made from glass fibre
• Power button fingerprint reader
• Quad speaker, eight-driver audio system
• 13MP primary camera; 8MP “intelligent sensing camera”
• HarmonyOS 4.2

Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2in PaperMatte hands-on: Key features and first impressions

The key action is a little softer than on, say, the Apple Magic Keyboard or the Microsoft Surface Pro 11, and the touchpad click a touch flimsy feeling, but it’s still one of the better keyboards I’ve used on a tablet. Combined with a few neat touches in the HarmonyOS front end, such as the ability to take apps out of full-screen mode and resize them at will, it feels instantly usable as a laptop.

The tablet itself is no slouch and, if you can get past the fact that it doesn’t come with Google apps out of the box, a real stunner. The screen is the star here. It measures 12.2in across the diagonal and uses tandem OLED tech, just like the M4 Apple iPad Pro. The resolution is 2,800 x 1,840, peak brightness reaches 2,000 nits in HDR playback and – in the version I’ve been trying out for the past day or so – there’s a sheet of matte, anti-glare glass on top.

Apart from the highly effective way this cuts out distracting reflections – it works well even in direct sunlight – it feels gloriously silky under the finger and, as mentioned, has a more paper-like texture so writing and sketching with the 3rd generation M-Pencil stylus feels more natural. This matte finish is so good it makes me wonder why on earth manufacturers don’t put this type of display on their tablets and phones as a matter of course.

Physically speaking, there’s plenty else to like here, too. The tablet is super light, weighing a mere 512g – the “lightest 12in tablet in the industry” – according to Huawei, and it measures only 5.5mm from front to rear. It feels stiff and robustly made, too, resisting my attempts to flex it admirably. Around its slender, slightly rounded magnesium alloy edges are a fingerprint reader, built into a slim power button on the left edge, a volume rocker on the top edge towards the left corner, and a USB port on the right edge for charging the device.

The only thing I don’t like – and your mileage may vary on this – is the silk-texture gold rear panel, which is made from “aviation grade” glass fibre. It’s certainly glamorous, and I’m sure it’s a major technical achievement getting it to look this way, but I’m a plain grey sorta guy; it’s far too garish for me.

Otherwise, this feels like a highly capable machine. It’s powered by an 8-core Kirin 9010 chipset with 512GB of storage. It has a 10,000mAh battery promising up to 14 hours of local video playback and 100W charging which should deliver super-fast charging.

There are two cameras on the rear – a 13MP main camera and an 8MP “intelligent sensing camera”, plus a 4K webcam facing the front – and the audio system is equally impressive, featuring eight drivers and four speaker outputs.

The one key question, aside from UK availability, is about the software. This being a Huawei product, it’s running HarmonyOS and that means you don’t get Google apps as standard. Now, there’s a fair old selection of apps on the Huawei Store these days and, where there aren’t, the Store app usually pinpoints third-party APK files for you to install. And it should be possible to install the core Google apps, too. However, it’s a faff, and far from the slick, seamless process it ought to be.

There is, however, a small selection of Huawei-developed apps to sweeten the pill. The newly enhanced Huawei Notes app is particularly nice, tying together your audio recordings and jottings, making it easy to quickly find a specific point in the audio file by looking at what you were writing at the time. That’s something Apple still hasn’t done with its bundled Notes app on the iPad, by the way, and something it is crying out for.

GoPaint, meanwhile, provides a ready-to-go app for the artistically inclined, offering sketching and painting tools for creating digital artworks with the optional Huawei pencil.

Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2in PaperMatte hands-on: Early verdict

If you can work around the difficulties of not having the Google Play Store on your device, and don’t mind installing apps via APK files, then I think the MatePad Pro 12.2in, particularly the Papermatte edition, is a highly attractive proposition. The display is stunning, especially with that matte finish glass, and the keyboard case is a clever piece of design.

It feels great to use – at least from my initial time with it – and it’s superbly compact and lightweight. The key will be the price and the availability. If Huawei’s UK pricing undercuts rivals such as Samsung and Apple, it might be worth a punt. If it’s a similar price, that puts the MatePad Pro in a tricky situation.

The Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2in was launched alongside a trio of wearables – the Huawei Watch 5 GT, the Watch 5 GT Pro and the Watch D2 – in Barcelona. We hope to have reviews of those up on the site in due course, so watch this space.