Huawei MatePad Pro 12.6 (2021) review By GSMArena Official

Hey, what's up guys will here for GSM arena? Huawei is here with their new tablet, the mate pad pro 12.6. This is the first device we've seen come out with the company's new harmony OS their alternative to Google's android. So how does the new mate pad hold up either software wise or as a tablet, let's find out in our full review? As far as looks go the mate pad pro 12.6 doesn't break the mold. It's a pretty sizable tablet built around a 12.6 inch, OLED screen and the bezels are reasonably thin and even on all sides. Overall, the mate pad pro looks elegant and premium it's not too heavy and feels secure in your hands. We're not exactly sure what this back panel is made from, but ours is in the matte gray finish, which also covers the curved aluminum frame.

As I mentioned, the screen is a 12.6 inch OLED. It has a screen resolution of 2560x1600, giving you a total of 240 PPI. That's pretty sharp, though a bit less than rivals like the Galaxy Tab, s7 plus also, unlike the Galaxy Tab screen, which has a fast 120hz refresh rate. Here. You have just a standard 60hz panel and okay last one you don't get a sunlight boost to the screen.

Brightness like the Galaxy Tab. Does, though, the max brightness with a slider is still very good for a tablet at around 380 nits. Overall, this screen looks nice. You get deep, OLED, blacks here and vivid colors and depending on the color mode you choose, you can get a perfect color accuracy plus. Even though YouTube is a Google service, you can run it just fine in your browser with 4k playback.

One thing to be aware of, though, is that although the mate pad pro supports hdr10 and Google's wide vine l1 DRM, it isn't recognized officially by apps like Netflix or prime video, so while they do work, they only offer SD content for streaming, and we'd have to wait to see whether this would change it, though, since these companies are based in the US for audio the mate pad pro 12.6 has quite an impressive setup. There are a total of eight speakers behind four speaker grilles. Each grille has both a large speaker for lows and mid and a smaller one for highs all tuned by Harman Kardon. This is one of the best audio experiences we've had on a portable device. The speakers sound incredible, deep and rich and earned a very good score on our loudness charts.

There is no 3.5 millimeter jack on this device for traditional headphones, you'll need to use an USB adapter and in some markets Huawei provides one in the box. Another thing you won't find on the mat pad pro is a fingerprint reader for biometric security. Your only option is facial recognition and not the more secure 3d scanning type either. One cool feature you have here is stylus support through Huawei's m pencil, but, unlike with the Galaxy Tab, s7 plus this doesn't come, bundled you'll have to buy it separately, and it isn't cheap. The pencil itself is great, though it's responsive and precise, offering nine milliseconds latency and the screen supports up to 4096 pressure, sensitive levels with supported apps.

Just like Samsung's s, pen, the stylus runs on a battery, and it'll recharge wirelessly when you click it under the magnetic holder. On the side of the tablet, the other available accessory is the smart magnetic keyboard. It's a full-blown keyboard cover, stand which snaps to the tablet magnetically the keys, have enough movement and provide excellent tactile feedback and the whole thing works as advertised the mate pad pro 12.6 is the first device we've encountered that runs Huawei's own harmony, OS 2.0 out of the box, it's their replacement for android. It turns out that it's based on a fork of android 10 integrated with emu, and it allows you to run android apps that aren't dependent on Google services. The interface looks familiar if you're used to emu.

There is an app dock at the bottom. That's shared between all home screens, there's an optional app drawer too, and you can swipe from the top for a notification center and a control center Huawei provides their own multimedia, apps and plenty of others, including pedal maps, pedal search and Huawei browser. The app gallery is the default for app installation, and it works well. The library is getting pretty extensive by now, but the search bar will also give you pedal search results from other app stores and repositories to find what you need on top of the 128 or 256 gigs on board. You have expandable storage here, but you need to use one of Huawei's proprietary NATO memory cards to do that.

Multitasking on the mate pad pro 12.6 is a breeze swiping and holding from either the right or the left side will reveal the multi-windows sidebar. Where you can see all the apps that have multitasking support, tapping on an icon will open an app in a floating popup window or drag and drop the icons for a split screen view. You can have two active apps, no matter which multitasking mode you're using while you don't have a desktop mode here like on past emu devices or Samsung's decks. You can still connect the mat pad pro to a Huawei laptop through a feature called multi-screen collaboration. Mirror mode will mirror your laptop's screen onto the tablet so that you can use the m pencil and touch screen for your PC.

Apps extend mode turns the tablet into a second monitor of the laptop it becomes an extension of your Windows desktop and collaboration mode lets. You drag and drop content between both devices for easy file transfer or, if you have a Huawei phone running at least emu 10, you can connect it and have its screen appear on the maid pad pro's display. This is handy not only for file exchange, but you can use the tablet to make calls or write text this way too. Behind all of these features is a Huawei Karin, 9000e 5g chipset. It's like their flagship, Karin 9000, but with a light version of the GPU still graphics performance should be more than enough here.

The games we tried worked great, and the UI is quite smooth. It's also worth mentioning that, although the mate pad pro 12.6 has a 5g capable chipset, we are reviewing the cheaper Wi-Fi only model here powering the device is a massive 10 050 William hour battery, and it does an excellent job. We were able to measure almost 11 hours of web browsing screen on time or 15 hours of video playback and charging speed is quite fast. If you consider the size of the battery. Our mate pad pro 12.6 came with a 40 watt, Huawei supercharger in the box, and with it, we were able to charge the tablet from zero to 33 percent in half an hour. The tablet also supports up to 27 watt wireless charging, and you can do reverse wireless charging here too now onto the cameras.

There's a 13 megapixel primary camera, an 8 megapixel ultra-wide cam and a 3d TOF camera for portraits the main cams 13 megapixel photos are sharp enough and detailed with reasonably low noise. Good contrast, accurate colors and great dynamic range. Fine and complex detail like foliage doesn't always come out great, though, with some smudging due to the processing the 8 megapixel ultra-wide photos are detailed with good sharpness and low noise for this type of camera. The dynamic range is once again great. The color rendition does seem to be cooler than the main cams, though in low light.

Photos from the main camera have good color saturation and balance exposure. They are lacking in detail, though, and soft due to the aggressive noise reduction turn on night mode and each shot will take around 10 seconds to process. It does improve the overall exposure and exposes more detail, but the images are still soft and have an oil painting sort of look. You can use the ultra-wide camera at nighttime, but the photos are smudgy, noisy, desaturated and lacking in detail and there's no night mode. Selfies from the 8 megapixel front facing cam are great.

They are detailed with excellent contrast and accurate colors. The dynamic range is good, and the exposure is well tuned for selfies video can be recorded in up to 4k resolution at 30fps with a main or ultrawide cam and stabilization is always on footage from the main. Camera is very good with enough detail. Low noise, excellent contrast and wide dynamic range.4K video quality from the ultra-wide is decent with commendable dynamic range. The footage is a bit softer than the main cams and the colors are colder too, just like with the still photos.

So that's the Huawei Mate pad pro 12.6. You get an elegant design, a large high-re soled screen outstanding speaker, quality, excellent battery life with fast charging and dependable cameras. The m pen adds the experience as well. If you're, fine, buying it separately and harmony. Os is better than expected.

It's android based and can run most android apps. The thing is, we can't help but compare the mate pad to Samsung's Galaxy Tab, s7 plus, which also has a high refresh rate, a fingerprint scanner, no restrictions in google apps or streaming quality, and the stylus comes in the box plus at least at launch. The mate pad is more expensive still with all that said, if you're already invested in Huawei's growing device ecosystem, or you want to support them in their push for independence, the mate pad pro 12.6 is a tablet worth recommending. Thanks for watching guys, stay safe and see you on the next one. You.

Source : GSMArena Official