Huawei MatePad Pro (2024) review: Imperfect harmony

The Huawei MatePad Pro (2024) is the Chinese brand’s latest high-end tablet, competing with some of the best (and most expensive) offerings on the market. This premium shelf is very much dominated by Samsung and Apple, with both setting a high bar for tablets that others often struggle to meet. But is Huawei the one to finally clear that bar and upset the two-party system?

The answer is an unfortunate no. To be clear, there is a lot to like about the Huawei MatePad Pro (2024). The large display is vibrant and colour-accurate, battery life is outstanding and the accessories are effective and make using the MatePad Pro for writing, drawing and typing a breeze.

All of these positives are held back, however, by lacklustre performance and a sub-par software experience. Unless you’re already locked into Huawei’s own ecosystem of apps, it’s difficult to recommend the MatePad Pro over another Android tablet or iPad.

Huawei MatePad Pro (2024) review: What do you get for the money?

There are two different models of the Huawei MatePad Pro (2024), with the standard black model priced at £699 and the gold-coloured PaperMatte model reviewed here going for £799. The latter swaps the standard glossy display for a matte version that feels more like paper when using the compatible Huawei M-Pencil and also comes with double the storage, at 512GB.

Otherwise, both tablets are identical, with the same slender dimensions of 271 x 5.5 x 183mm (WDH) and 505g weight. That thickness is especially impressive – it’s not quite on par with the ridiculous 5.1mm depth of the latest iPad Pro (M4, 2024) but it’s still one of the thinnest tablets I’ve ever used.

The display is a 12.2in tandem OLED panel with a sharp 2,800 x 1,840 resolution and a slick peak refresh rate of 144Hz. Set into one of the long bezels is a 16MP (f/2.2) selfie camera, with a 13MP (f/1.8) main camera and 8MP (f/2.2) ultrawide shooter tucked away in a small, circular module in the top-right corner of the rear.

The processor is an octa-core HiSilicon Kirin T91 chipset, clocked up to 2.19GHz and backed by 12GB of RAM and the aforementioned 256GB or 512GB of storage space, depending on which model you choose. The battery has a total capacity of 10,100mAh and supports 100W wired charging.

In terms of features, there’s no microSD card slot, so the internal storage can’t be expanded any further, and there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack, either. You do get both a fingerprint sensor in the power button and face unlocking via the selfie camera, with both performing nice and swiftly in my testing.

Finally, as with most tablets around this price, you can also pair the MatePad Pro (2024) with a keyboard and stylus to turn it into a solid laptop replacement. The keyboard is bundled in the box, so you won’t have to worry about forking out extra for that. At the time of writing, the third generation Huawei M-Pencil stylus is also included as a free gift but if you miss this promotion, you’ll need to factor in a further £130.

Altogether, that’s a lot of value for a keen price, and undercuts the Samsung and Apple options by a fair amount. The only real competition the MatePad Pro faces in this price range comes from the OnePlus Pad 2. That tablet currently costs £449 and also gives you the option to select the the OnePlus Stylo 2 stylus as a free gift. Throw in a further £149 for the Smart Keyboard Case and you can get the same loadout as the MatePad Pro for £598 – saving over £100.

Huawei MatePad Pro (2024) review: What did we like about it?

The good news is that, if you do manage to pick up the stylus for free, the Huawei MatePad Pro (2024) is a delight to write and draw on. The PaperMatte model I was sent for review adds that tiny hint of friction that helps trick your brain into thinking it’s marking directly on paper, making the experience even better.

I spent a good couple of hours messing around with the preinstalled GoPaint app, which offers a generous selection of brushes and editing tools, making it easy for anyone to take a swing at digital art. I’m far from an artist but found the tools easy enough to get on with that I was able to sketch out something that at least vaguely looked like my reference images. The M-Pencil lacks the on-stylus controls and feedback that you get from the likes of Apple’s Pencil Pro but, in terms of accuracy and comfort of use, it’s still an excellent tool.

The keyboard is included as standard and my time with it was also more positive than negative. The keys are well-sized and have decent travel to them, with a satisfying click when they hit the actuation point. The trackpad is a little on the small side but I never found it to be an issue during testing – although, admittedly, I navigated primarily through the tablet’s touch-screen.

The strong magnets hold the display in place nicely, and give you a solid range of tilt movement to angle it to your liking. My only complaint here is that there’s no easy way to fold the keyboard back behind the tablet, locking it off from use in those times when you quickly want to switch to full tablet mode. As it stands, the only way to achieve this is to detach the tablet entirely, which isn’t as convenient.

The large, tandem OLED display is great for streaming, too. Some major services like Netflix and YouTube aren’t easy to get hold of with the software running on the MatePad Pro (more on this below) but I was able to test it with Disney Plus, at least. The Vivid colour profile is best for this, pairing the rich contrast and deep black level with vibrant, punchy colours, but anyone looking for authenticity will want to switch to the Natural profile.

In Natural mode, I recorded colour reproduction at 98.2% of sRGB. The average Delta E colour variance score versus sRGB came back at just 0.96, which is right in the pocket for the target of 1 or under. Brightness is excellent, too; in manual mode, I recorded a peak of 560cd/m2, while switching to adaptive and shining a torch on the light sensor pushed it to 1,066cd/m2. It was best when displaying HDR content, however, topping out at a fantastic 2,030cd/m2.

You should get plenty of time to enjoy drawing and streaming, as well, because the Huawei MatePad Pro (2024) delivered some epic results in my battery life test, lasting 17hrs 38mins. As you can see below, most of the competition falls into the 12- to 13-hour range, with only the Pixel Tablet going as high as 15 hours, so this is an excellent result for the MatePad Pro.

Once depleted, the 100W charging capacity (and bundled charger) can get the battery back to full in less than an hour with Turbo Boost mode. Huawei claims 55 minutes to 100% and that lines up perfectly with my testing. This speed puts a lot of strain on the battery, and can result in the device getting quite warm during charging, so you won’t want to charge this way every time but, in a pinch, it’s a useful feature to have in the back pocket.

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Huawei MatePad Pro (2024) review: What could be improved?

It’s perhaps a little unfair to call the software something that could “be improved”, as the main reason why HarmonyOS is such a chore isn’t completely in Huawei’s hands. The lack of compatibility with stock Android and Google products is due to an ongoing ban from the US government, forbidding the two companies from working together.

Even still, Huawei wants you to pay a hefty sum for this tablet and the software is the main reason why you should pause before doing so. HarmonyOS 4.2 is solid enough – albeit cluttered with pre-installed bloatware – but the lack of access to Google apps really hurts its appeal as a laptop replacement. Yes, the keyboard is pleasant to use, but I’ll have little use for it if Google Drive isn’t readily available.

You can technically sideload the apps but this is laborious and the apps won’t update automatically, making it far from the best experience for the user. It should also be possible to run the apps in the native Petal browser but in my testing, I wasn’t even able to sign in to my Google account, with the browser claiming that it couldn’t find any accounts before I’d had the chance to enter my credentials. In short, trying to access Google apps is a massive pain.

Software aside, the MatePad Pro (2024) has another damning issue that makes it difficult to recommend over its Samsung and Apple counterparts. The performance is decent enough in a vacuum, loading and swapping between apps efficiently and scrolling smoothly with its 144Hz refresh rate, but the benchmark scores lag drastically behind the competition.

The Apple iPad Air (2024) is the obvious lead here, with scores more than twice that of the MatePad Pro but even last year’s Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 outpaces the Huawei by 63% in the single-core benchmarks and 29% in the multi-core test. The MatePad Pro still runs smoothly in general use, helped out by that 144Hz refresh rate, but if you plan on regularly using demanding apps, you shouldn’t settle for this level of performance.

Even more of a concern are the results of the GPU benchmarks. Put simply, the MatePad Pro (2024) is not the tablet to buy if you’re hoping for smooth 3D gaming. The Huawei falls well behind both the iPad and Galaxy Tab, as well as the lower performing Google Pixel Tablet. Even the OnePlus Pad 2, which performed similarly to the MatePad Pro in the CPU benchmarks, offers superior framerates here.

Huawei MatePad Pro (2024) review: Should you buy it?

There’s a specific cohort for whom I think the Huawei MatePad Pro (2024) is still worth considering. If you aren’t tangled up in the Google ecosystem (or, at least, aren’t fussed about your tablet getting hooked into the hivemind) and are looking for a large-screened Android tablet with a useful stylus for artistic pursuits, the MatePad Pro (2024) is a solid bet. Colour accuracy is terrific, the stylus is effective and, if you get the PaperMatte version, the drawing and writing feedback is immensely satisfying.

Beyond that, the appeal as a laptop replacement mainly hinges on its affordability. If you can stomach the software gripes, getting the tablet, keyboard and (if you’re quick) stylus altogether for as little as £699 is a steal. For anyone who cares about easy access to apps like the Google suite, Netflix or Whatsapp, however, I can’t recommend you buy this.

If the likes of Apple’s new iPad Air (2024) are out of your price range, I’d go for the OnePlus Pad 2 instead – it lacks the MatePad Pro’s tandem OLED display and isn’t as colour accurate but the benefits you get in performance, software and affordability more than make up for these shortcomings.