This week has been a week of presentations for Huawei, which has opted for the new generation of GT watches, the most recent version of the Ultimate and two tablets, the MatePad Pro 12.2 and the MatePad 12x. For reasons that will become clear, we are going to start talking about the first of the tablets.
The first thing to do is to talk about the exterior aspect. As its name indicates, we are dealing with a 12.2 inch screenbut what it doesn’t say is that it is a Tandem OLED PaperMatte. This means not only that it has anti-glare and anti-reflective technology or that the PaperMatte name makes it look a lot like paper to the eye. What stands out is the dual-layer tandem OLED display, similar to the latest iPad Pro.
This technology essentially duplicates OLED panels to achieve a higher brightness output with less stress on individual pixels. The result is a display that lasts three times longer than a traditional OLED and has a much lower risk of burn-in when brightness levels are maximized. The combination of these three features makes for a tablet with a contrast ratio of 2,000,000:1 (the same as the iPad Pro), a refresh rate of 144 Hz and up to 2000 nits of brightness.
Another interesting detail is that there are no notches or cutouts on the screen, as Huawei has managed to fit the front camera into the thin bezel. And as for the cameras (which are not the strong point of any tablet), we have two on the back of 13 and 8 MP and one with intelligent detection on the front. They are not cameras for taking photos and they serve the purpose of video conferencing, but little more..
Inside is the in-house Kirin T91 processor, which goes hand in hand with 12 GB of RAM and up to 512 GB of storage. Could it reach 1 TB? Yes, but considering that we can depend on Huawei’s native cloud, it’s not that much of a miss. Oh! Important detail: It has eight speakers and very good sound quality..
The operating system is one of the mainstays. It has HarmonyOS 4.2. It does not have, by default, Google services installedbut as with mobile phones, there is a way to solve this. It is true that we will not have access to certain specific settings such as those present directly on YouTube, but considering that it is not designed for that, it does not bother us either.
And just as the iPad Pro was not designed for viewing multimedia content or playing video games, but for creating, the MatePad Pro 12.2 is the best Android tablet (or non-iOS at least) for drawing and illustrating. In addition to the quality of the screen, it also has a battery worthy of special mention. 100W fast charging, 10,000mAh and (according to the manufacturer) can stay in standby mode for more than a year and it takes just 12 seconds to resume operation. We haven’t tested this (obviously), but if it stays “alive” for a couple of months without charging, we’ll be happy.
Two details before we get into the crown jewel. Huawei says that It is the lightest 12-inch tablet everweighing just 508g without any accessories. For reference, Apple’s 13-inch iPad Pro weighs 579g, while Samsung’s 12.4-inch Tab S9+ weighs 581g. It feels lightweight without losing the premium look. The gold colour (maybe not a personal favourite) adds an extra note of sophistication.
The second detail is the optional keyboard, the Glide Keyboard, a huge design change compared to previous versions: both the case and the keyboard itself are a single piece, rather than a separate stand and keyboard section, and this means that there is a much more robust hinge which is precisely where the M-Pencil is storedIt’s a much more secure solution than magnetically attaching the pen to the side of the tablet, where it can easily come loose and get lost.
However, the greatest virtue is the union of the M-Pencil (with a much lower latency) with a proprietary application called GoPaint. Huawei developed this app specifically for its tablets and is, in plain English, a similarity to Procreatethe iOS-only digital painting/illustration app so popular it’s the sole reason many buy an iPad. With GoPaint, Huawei tablets offer a nearly identical experience for those bypassing the Apple ecosystem.
In GoPaint there are Over 80 different brush settingsadjustable flow rates, more support for imported brushes, and additional canvas and paper textured surfaces. All of this, combined with Huawei’s incredibly low latency stylus, is why it would be the best non-iOS tablet for illustrators.
But the aforementioned jewel in the crown is in the pencil. One of its functions is the splatter brush. Just as when we are painting with watercolors we can tap the brush a few times to make it splash on the page and create different designs, the M-Pencil can be tapped with the index finger (without having to be in contact with the screen) and it will create this effect… One that can be regulated not only with the colors or the type of brush, but also with how diluted the color is.
This option opens the doors to new ways of relating to the screen or the device that do not have to do with direct touch or voice instructions, but with the perception that the technology has of its environment. In this case, in communication, the pen “perceives” a specific movement and transfers it to the screen. This is a first step for the camera to record, for example, the movement of our hands and enlarge or reduce the images. So that we can turn the pages in an ebook, as we would do with paper. We can delete a document by clenching our fist and throwing it or our hands can become a control (for multimedia content or video games) or paintbrushes. It is a first step, a brushstroke (literally) of what is to come.