IF not for the pandemic, those travel restrictions and the fear of getting infected and dying from Covid-19, my partner and I would have traveled back to Taiwan and HongKong, visited Japan or Korea in the winter, or ticked off several more provinces in the country.
You see, when you reach a certain age, you realize the longer you wait, the more restricted you’re trips become. Long walks become bus rides, adventures off the beaten path turn into guided tours, and even food trips are ruined by new diet restrictions.
It’s the same thing when deciding when packing and choosing which devices to bring on a trip. Unlike younger travelers, you become more conscious of the clothes you bring and the weight of your luggage especially if your trip involves a lot of public transportation.
Since we need to work and update our blogs, we usually just bring a couple of smartphones instead of a heavy DSLR camera. I used to bring a laptop on all my trips, but it’s become too strenuous for my back and leaving it at the hotel just adds to my anxiety. Instead, I bring a tablet with keyboard to upload new posts, check our social-media feeds, and keep us entertained during those long travel times.
So if we were travelling, or when we do, the Huawei MatePad Pro 12.6 would be our most welcome third wheel.
I’m actually typing this column using the MatePad Pro at a café while my partner is doing her shopping. Now, lets get on with the review.
HUAWEI MATEPAD PRO 12.6 SPECS
Processor: Kirin 9000E GPU: 22-core Mali-G78
RAM/Storage: 8GB LPDDR4X/256GB UFS 3.1 internal storage
Display: 12.6-inch OLED display, WQXGA 2560×1600 resolution, 240PPI
Sound: Speaker x 8 Huawei Histen 7.0 Sound Effect
Rear Cameras: 13 MP (f/1.8 aperture, AF) + 8 MP (Wide angle length, f/2.4 aperture, FF) + 3D Depth Sensing Camera
Front Camera: 8 MP Selfie Camera (f/2.0 aperture, fixed focal)
Connectivity: 5G WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.1
OS: HarmonyOS 2
Battery: 10050mAh
Dimensions: 184.7 mm (height)/286.5 mm (width)/6.7 mm (depth)
Weight: about 609 g (including battery)
Box Content: Huawei MatePad Pro unit, wall Charger, USB Type-C Cable, SIM ejector Tool, Quick Start Guide.
“Out of clutter find simplicity. From discord find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity,” Albert Einstein once said.
In a way, this quote sums up the story of Huawei following the US ban that prohibits it from using Google’s Mobile Services. After streamlining its business, and introducing its Seamless AI Life and innovative “1+8+N” strategy, Huawei finally debuts its own OS that could, just as its namesake, bring Harmony to its ecosystem of smartphones, smart wearables, PCs tablets, devices, and third-party IoT devices.
This tablet looks like an iPad, runs Android apps but is powered by Huawei’s Harmony OS, making the Huawei MatePad Pro 12.6 the most intriguing tablet that could dictate the future of Huawei’s tablet business.
Premium elegance is the best way to describe the design of the Huawei MatePad Pro 12.6 (2021). The design of the MatePad Pro adheres to four key principles: 1) less is more; 2) tap into your intuition; 3) light and portable; and 4) unique aesthetics. As such, every detail has been carefully considered—from the horizontal placement of the front camera that is subtly hidden in its superbly slim bezels, the lightweight design despite fitting in a large battery, to its intuitive interaction methods which includes touch, keyboard, stylus, mouse, and even voice and the symmetry that is observed throughout the tablet.
The MatePad Pro sports a curved magnesium-aluminum alloy frame that gives off a polished touch, together with its metallic matte-coated rear. As much as Huawei tried to make it lightweight, there’s definitely a heft to it at 609 g—as you would expect from a tablet this size. But the large battery and that reverse charging feature make the extra weight worth the compromise. Our unit is in the Matte Grey colorway but you could opt for an Olive Green variant if you want something more unique.
Exploring the tablet layout, you’ll find a triple camera module with LED flash and a discreet Huawei and Harman Kardon branding at the back. As you’ll probably use it more in landscape mode you’ll find the red-accented power button beside a pair of speaker grilles on the left side while the volume rocker and three microphones with noise reduction features occupy the top part. On the right (or bottom in portrait mode), there’s the USB Type-C port and another pair of speakers, and on the bottom is a single dedicated NM card slot. There’s no headphone jack, but it does come with an adapter in the box. Unfortunately, there isn’t a fingerprint scanner as well, so you’ll have to make do with facial recognition or the good old password/pattern method.
The display is the clear star of the tablet’s design principle. As the name suggests, It has a 12.6-inch OLED panel without any notch or visible punch holes as the front camera blends in with the horizontal top bezel together with the LED indicator. The placement of the camera on the length of the bezel makes it ideal for landscape mode and best for virtual meetings and video calls.
The MatePad Pro has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels and can produce 16.7 million colors with DCI-P3 wide color gamut. It is bright, vivid with an impressive accurate color reproduction making it ideal for creative tasks like photo editing or sketching. With an incredibly high contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, the MatePad Pro significantly outperforms its competitors when it comes to reproducing the bright and dark parts of pictures. With an impressive ΔE < 0.5, the MatePad Pro rivals some professional reference displays. This means that any image displayed on the Huawei MatePad Pro is highly consistent with the actual color of the object itself. When the colors are so accurate, creative professionals will have no problem relying on the MatePad Pro for even the most color sensitive projects.
As for eye protection, the MatePad Pro is the only tablet on the market that has passed all the tests making it the world’s first TÜV Rheinland’s Full Care Display 2.0-certified tablet.
Next week we’ll talk about our Harmony OS experience and answer the most common questions about the lack of Google Mobile Services.