Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2 (2024) test: our full opinion –

The Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2 is a direct competitor to the iPad Pro, but suffers from several limitations. The absence of Google technologies (preinstalled apps, Google Mobile Services, etc.) limits the product's capabilities. Not to mention the detours that will have to be taken to install certain applications not available on the Chinese giant's official store.

To compensate for this, Huawei wants to offer more, with PaperMatte technology. This new proprietary screen technology may surprise on paper. The aim behind this is to limit light reflections on the screen and to give the feeling of writing with a pencil on paper. Are marketing promises kept?

Technical sheet

Design of the Huawei MatePad Pro

Failing to be able to offer pleasant software for “Westerners”, Huawei has been able to improve its hardware in recent years. The products offered are visually beautiful (most of the time) and stand out from the rest of the market. The Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2 is no exception to this new era and comes in a sumptuous Gold color.

The back of this tablet, offered all in gold, is sober and houses the photo sensors in the upper right corner. These two sensors are placed in a circle, in the vertical direction. It’s kept simple, without overdoing it. Furthermore, the golden color mentioned is complemented by an almost “marble” or “tile” effect, for the best effect.

Finally, the screen occupies a good part of the front, without the borders being too thin. A tablet remains an object that is handled with two hands, requiring minimal edges for a good grip. However, here, it is well thought out for this use case. In short, Huawei continues to show good manufacturing quality on the hardware side of this Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2.

Accessories

The Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2 comes with two accessories. On the official website, the purchase of the tablet includes the protective cover incorporating the keyboard, and the stylus is free with the order. The keyboard offered is, of course, designed exclusively for this tablet. It is in a white color by default, with an AZERTY or QWERTY option.

This keyboard is very comfortable, with lightly padded material to support the wrist when writing. However, we can note that the touchpad for the mouse is slightly small, and this can cause some problems in use. In addition, this keyboard offers a particular operation. It is sometimes necessary to force its structure to perfectly flatten it or close it. It's not as transparent as a Galaxy Tab keyboard for example. It's probably a matter of habit, there's a little help to be had.

Finally, the stylus is quite confusing. Certainly, it remains affordable, around a hundred euros, not placing it at the level of high-end styluses. However, it does not have a physical button placed under the thumb, often used in applications to delete or trigger actions. For the rest, it is correctly proportioned and designed not to disturb when used, compared to a traditional pen.

A screen made of paper?

The screen of this Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2 sports a definition of 2800 × 1840 pixels, with a refresh rate of 144 Hz. These are excellent technical specifications, but this remains classic for the price range of the product. In addition to that, it offers OLED technology for the display, guaranteeing infinite contrast and thrilling colors.

Beyond the pure features, the tablet also offers this famous PaperMatte technology, but what is that worth? To avoid a biased opinion, I had fun having several friends test this, just asking them to write on the tablet and read a book, then tell me what they thought of it. Most noticed very quickly that there was something new and said it looked like paper.

So marketing has managed not to lie for once? Well yes! The feeling when using it, when you erase or scribble on the tablet, is indescribable. It's not quite the feeling of paper, that would be lying, but you feel that it “grips” a little under the stylus. If you use your tablet like a Kindle, the anti-reflective treatment is stunning. We are trying to use this technology to really get closer to a sheet of paper that you would hold in your hands.

As for the display quality of the screen, it is very good. Brightness in SDR goes up to 907 cd/m², with a peak at 2230 in HDR. The brand announced 2000, the promise is kept. It is this wonderful luminosity which allows for a much better feeling when using it as a book. As for colors, they are better in Vivid mode. We thus obtain a DeltaE of 3.46 in this mode, compared to 4.75 in the standard mode.

As for the temperature of this screen, we reach a color at 6,626 K, just above the target of 6,500 K. It is therefore very well calibrated on this point. Finally, the only fault of this tablet for its screen is its coverage of the color space. We get just 99% of the BT.709, 66% of the DCI-P3, and only 45% of the BT 2020 space. For a high-end tablet, this is disappointing.

Software: you have to do without Google

The Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2 comes with HarmonyOS 4.2. Huawei products have been lacking Android and Google services for several years. American laws have not changed since then, so this tablet remains in line. This absence may reveal our Google-addict side, even dependent on the American, but we must not only consider the uses of Google software.

These are all Google Mobile Services and more that are limited or not available. Installing some critical applications may pose a problem, as Google services guarantee a certain cybersecurity of the device. The subject being very vast, the best thing is to find out beforehand to be sure to make an informed choice.

For my part, I managed to find my way through the Aurora Store, a sort of alternative Google Play Store. However, for a whole bunch of reasons that are undoubtedly more or less justified, Huawei refuses to communicate officially on this. And this is undoubtedly one of the main problems with the brand's devices. Solutions exist to simulate a “normal” experience, but they should always be tested at your own risk.

Huawei's interface is a heavy interface, which, like all others, will appeal to some and put off others. Not all applications are installable, but one can use the browser to get around this, where online solutions exist.

This remains hacking or malice, and does not compensate for native use of an application. However, if you plan to use this tablet for note-taking and productivity, the hardware is good, despite the software. You may need to adapt your uses to new applications to benefit from a better experience.

Lagging performance for the price

Huawei is no longer able to offer processors from American giants, such as Qualcomm. Before the American laws, the brand already offered in-house processors with the Kirin. However, performance remains lower than the competition, without this being felt on a daily basis. It will really depend on the uses.

A professional tablet of this type is aimed at more experienced users and more capable of using significant resources. So, simply taking notes on the software provided by default will be done without a hitch. However, multitasking will experience some slowness, depending on the applications chosen. In fairly standard use, with a note-taking app and a browser for Internet research, we may see some limitations of the tablet if too many tabs are open simultaneously.

Correct photos, without overdoing it

Although we all have a smartphone in our pocket, manufacturers continue to offer several photo sensors on tablets. Thus, we will find two sensors, a wide angle and an ultra-wide angle. In my use, it is mainly through document capture that I use photo sensors.

The quality of the photos, during the day and in favorable light conditions, is sufficient. The photos won't be great like on a smartphone, but will be good enough. Night photographs, however, will be a little more complicated. The quality is not ideal and moreover, it is not the use.

A battery that lasts well and recharges quickly!

This Huawei MatePad Pro offers a huge 10,100 mAh battery. This large capacity brings, for once, great autonomy. In fact, you will easily last two consecutive working days, with approximately 5 to 6 hours of use per day. This of course varies depending on use, but it is more than enough, especially since the charging is also very good.

The charger that comes in the box is a 100W charger, with one USB-C port and one USB-A (non-simultaneous use). This charger allows you to recharge the huge battery in almost 50 minutes, which is frankly astonishing. We feel that there has been an optimization on this.

Price and availability

The Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2 is available in two versions. Both have 12 GB of RAM, but have either 256 GB of storage in black color or 512 GB for Gold color. The choice of storage will therefore affect the color of your tablet, which is surprising.

Furthermore, the keyboard supplied with purchase differs in configuration depending on the color chosen. The AZERTY keyboard will be offered with the 512 GB storage version, where the 256 model will only have QWERTY. Count on €849.99 for the standard model. To double the storage, we go up to €999.99.