Huawei continues to generate substantial revenue, thanks to diversifying its consumer business and introducing smarter devices into its portfolio to make up for missing smartphone sales. During MWC 2022 we saw its first Huawei MatePad Paper e-ink tablet, and after spending some quality time on it, we are ready with our review.
This device tries to position itself in the golden mean between well-known e-readers and tablets in all respects. It has a powerful interior, a lovely body, a large screen, and features that put it in a unique spot where it has no competition. Let’s take a closer look.
Design
The Huawei MatePad Paper is a super light device, even with its large 10.3 “screen. It weighs 360 grams which are evenly spread across the body at 225.2mm x 182.7mm, which means it doesn’t feel right. heavy in any scenario.
The front panel is mostly occupied by the e-ink panel, while the back, as well as a part of the left frame, are finished in plastic with a leather-like texture. While we like big speakers on the top and bottom, we should mention that there is no IP rating, so you should be careful on the beach or in the bath.
There is a power button at the top that acts as a fingerprint scanner and there is also a volume rocker on the top right that can be used to flip pages while reading books. The MatePad card is recharged via a USB-C port, located at the bottom. There are also three tiny magnets on the right side to hold the M Pencil in place for proper charging.
Speaking of the M Pencil, it comes in the retail box. Huawei also includes a Folio Cover with the same faux leather finish and tiny magnets to line up with the MatePad card. It also serves as a display protection.
The sales package also includes a 22.5W charger with the appropriate USB-A cable and a second tip for the M Pencil if something happens with the one installed. The stylus connects via Bluetooth, so technically any Huawei M Pencil works, but you can only connect one at a time.
Electronic ink display
The 10.3-inch diagonal makes it one of the largest e-readers around. Huawei believes this is the optimal size for such a unique device. The resolution is 1872 x 1404 pixels, which is 227 ppi. A quick comparison shows us that the number of dots per inch is higher than a regular Huawei Matepad tablet, especially the 10.4 “Matepad from 2020.
The text is well defined and can be adapted through various controls in the Settings. We would have liked to see sharper letters but also without sharp edges, the words are legible. It also makes it look a little more papery with the way physical ink sometimes absorbs and colors the paper.
The biggest problem with e-ink displays is the refresh rate. The screen registers all the touches, it’s just that the e-ink takes a long time to update. This might be frustrating for some who want a quick response and prevents the MatePad Paper from serving as a proper tablet.
Huawei offers three update modes: “Update Now” which is a single screen change, Normal which is the default and Smart AI. The latter should fit corporate reports or GIFs, played on-screen, but we didn’t actually find any discernable differences.
The device can play YouTube videos and even some games as the hardware is capable of running them. However, this is an experience that Huawei does not recommend, and neither do we: the screen is simply not made for video and even less for mobile games.
The responsiveness of the screen when interacting with the M Pencil is also an issue. It does its job: you can write words and numbers, but the experience is frustrating.
Performance of software and e-books
The Huawei MatePad card comes with HarmonyOS 2.0. The interface is tailor-made for this e-ink tablet, and while it retains some of the gestures like swipe top left for notifications and swipe top right for Control Panel, there is a different home screen. Highlight all recent appointments Notes, Inbox, Books and Calendar.
There is a settings bar on the left which has quick access to user profile, settings, books and all apps like AppGallery, browser, games and system ones like Calculator, Calendar, File, Cloud, Optimizer.
Screenshots of Huawei MatePad Paper
Huawei has a dedicated shortcut to the Huawei Library. The company proudly claims that it has over 2 million titles in its store, but not all regions will actually have access to all of those. However, you are free to add titles manually via Bluetooth or USB-C with fully supported epub and pdf.
Speaking of PDFs, it is important to have an internet connection when preparing to read a book, because MatePad Paper will need to download a dedicated reading app for these files. Other book stores like Kobo and Aldiko can be found via AppGallery or sideloaded, but understandably Apple and Google services won’t work.
Huawei told us that this device can be used as a secondary tool in business presentations, but we had trouble using it as a second screen with the Huawei Matestation X. It also doesn’t feel like a natural extension, due to the lack of color and slow rate of update.
Battery life and other hardware
Battery capacity is indicated as 3,625mAh. This is a far cry from most other tablets, but it’s a very different screen we’re talking about and Huawei claims it can last 28 days with the power savings. The battery drains in standby if Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are on, but even with the backlight on, the MatePad Paper can easily live up to two weeks on a single charge.
We have had the device for over a month and so far it has needed a recharge twice, even with our active use. In other specifications, the device runs on a Kirin 820E chipset which is the same platform as the Huawei nova 8 smartphone. The storage space is 64GB, while the RAM is 4GB, which is likely a lot more than this device will have. never needed.
The 22.5W fast charge offers five-minute recharges for two hours of reading, while from 0 to 100% takes about 100 minutes.
Price and verdict
We don’t hide it, we struggle to compare the MatePad Paper with other competitors. It does a lot more than an Amazon Kindle and almost not quite like any other Huawei MatePad.
There are some standalone devices like reMarkable but they don’t have a dedicated app store or access to a huge ecosystem that extends functionality across all devices.
Huawei has decided to put a price tag of € 500 on this unique device. It sounds a lot, and that’s a lot for an e-ink reader. However it is also a unique e-ink reader that the likes of Amazon cannot match.
We should praise Huawei where it’s due. The company has launched a unique product that offers features from both worlds for a specific group of consumers: those interested in reading e-books and taking notes on a big screen, while also having access to all Huawei features in its ecosystem. .
We highly recommend the chalkboard for this particular group of people. We can also say that the Huawei MatePad Paper is a solid choice for any user who wants some of these features – the others of course are an extra.
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