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Huawei MatePad SE 10.4 In Depth Review – A Valuable Mate

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Huawei’s MatePad SE is an affordable, everyday use table that has surprising bang-for-buck, even a year on after its release. With marketing focused on its 10.4-inch display and a “family theatre in your palm”, we found more reasons for it to be…your Mate of choice!

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Design

Sporting a matte black finish with clean aesthetics, the Huawei MatePad SE 10.4 has a metal chassis surrounded with a brushed metal coating. While it is a magnet for fingerprints, the device feels really comfortable to hold in hand, even for long periods. This is helped by the ergonomic design with rounded edges. For a 10-inch tablet, the build is rather compact, with minimal bezels surrounding its 83% screen-to-body ratio display. Even with its light weight of 450g, the build quality of this tablet feels surprisingly good and robust.

Performance

The MatePad SE 10.4 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 chipset with an Adreno 610 GPU. Surprising for Huawei to forgo their Kirin chipset but the inclusion of Snapdragon is a smart addition to the MatePad line. While being of an older generation, the Snapdragon 680 is a fairly powerful chipset with an emphasis on energy efficiency thanks to its 6nm process. This coupled with a 5100 mAh battery results in impressive battery life for a tablet of its price bracket. With regular day-to-day use of web surfing, watching videos and the occasional navigation, I found myself only needing to charge the tablet every two to three days.

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Great performance from an older but power efficient Snapdragon 680

The powerful processor is also supplemented by 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. With this combination, general use of the tablet is very snappy and switching between apps is a breeze. The performance during multitasking is pretty decent too with some interesting productivity features. Using Huawei’s Multi-Window mode, I regularly opened several tabs in the Browser and the Email app in split screen while having the Notepad app float as a bubble to intermittently take notes. And never once did I experience an app crash, lag or stutter. In fact, large swathes of this review were written on the MatePad SE 10.4 itself!

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Good multitasking and productivity with Multi-Window mode

Gaming

Gaming performance has its limitations, however. The display size is comfortable enough to access the on-screen controls while also being large enough for visual clarity. Mobile Legends handled well at medium settings with no stuttering or lag. I did notice some sluggishness and dropped frames in PUBG Mobile at Balanced settings, but it was intermittent enough to not be a bother. In both cases, after hours of gaming, there was no drop in performance and there was no significant overheating either, so that is a plus for gaming comfort and reliability. That being said, the battery life does drop rather quickly when gaming. So overall, the MatePad SE 10.4 is suitable for some light gaming.

Good but not great gaming performance

Display and Audio

Huawei’s postured the MatePad SE 10.4 as family-friendly entertainment tablet, with its centerpiece being its 10.4-inch IPS display. The display has an FHD+ resolution of 2000 x 1220 pixels, at 225 pixels per inch (ppi). It has passed both TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light and Flicker Free certifications, making it easy on your eyes for long-term viewing. We spent hours on Netflix and YouTube (for display performance testing of course) and were impressed. The brightness and image fidelity were good, despite the non-flagship grade pixel density. Visibility was great in dark environments however, it suffers in direct sunlight or brightly lit environments. The color reproduction and contrast were not the greatest but did not put us off.

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Furthermore, the audio quality on this device is a pleasant surprise. Thanks to its dual speaker system tuned with Histen 8.0 technology, the tablet emulates surround sound well enough for immersive viewing. The display also comes with specialized modes such as Eye Comfort to filter out blue light, eBook mode to replicate paper-like texture and my personal go-to, Dark Mode; making viewing on this a tablet very easy on the eye. Overall, the display performs really well for a tablet of this price range and brings a great viewing experience at home or indoors.

Camera

The camera is probably the weakest element of the Huawei MatePad SE 10.4. It sports a 5MP main rear shooter and a 2MP front shooter. Image quality is rather poor, with fuzzy edges and poor contrast being the biggest issues. When zoomed in, there is obvious increasing pixelation starting at 2.0x and becoming unbearable even at 5.0x for the main shooter. Images also suffer from overbrightness when taking snaps outdoors. Huawei seems to have prioritized economical options in this aspect and I can’t fault them for that, being one that doesn’t use tablets for photos anyway.

Rear camera 1.0x
Image by main camera at 1.0x
Image by main camera at 2.0x
Image by main camera at 2.0x
Image by main camera at 2.0x
Image by main camera at 2.0x

Software

User Experience

The MatePad SE 10.4 ships with HarmonyOS 3 out of the box, which should feel familiar to long time Huawei users. As a first-time user of HarmonyOS, I truly appreciate the “clean” and minimalistic aesthetic of this OS.

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Drop down control panel
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OS interface in Settings

All non-Google affiliated apps can be downloaded through Huawei’s own AppGallery. The tablet comes preinstalled with Petal Search as its default search engine service and Petal Maps, analogous to Google’s own proprietary services. The apps themselves work well in their own right, with Petal Search offering both Voice typing and Image search functionality. The interfaces are also very intuitive for those familiar with their Google counterparts. All-in-all, there is very little lost from the lack of Google apps, with perhaps the most significant being the lack of Google Assistant.

LightHouse app

For those put off by the lack of a Google Play Store, fear not as the LightHouse app will satisfy those needs. This app provides a gateway to access Google Play Store apps via Huawei’s AppGallery. To do so, you simply need to install two apps from the AppGallery first; LightHouse and LightHouse Ex. Once done, you will be able to download your favorite Google apps directly from the AppGallery. We tested out Google Maps, GMail and YouTube and all apps installed fairly easily. When trying them out, they worked as you would expect on any other Android-based device.

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Google Maps installed through LightHouse
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YouTube installed through LightHouse

The Verdict: A daily Mate for you and your wallet

The Huawei MatePad SE 10.4 shines in terms of multitasking performance, battery life and build quality. With its attractive price tag, it will serve well as a daily use tablet for the light to heavy user, with focus on web surfing and entertainment. It is also great as a family tablet with kid-friendly features. The MatePad SE 10.4 currently retails starting at RM799 for the 6GB RAM+64GB with WiFi variant and RM999 for the 4GB RAM+128GB storage with WiFi variant. All purchases from the Huawei Malaysia site now will come with a Flip Cover as a free gift.

Lifestyle, Mobile, News

HUAWEI Launches the MatePad Pro 12.6-inch in Malaysia Priced from MYR 3,999

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HUAWEI launched their MatePad Pro series last year, to be fair. It had a 10.8-inch display, and it comes with a clever magnetic keyboard case and an M-Pencil that really adds up to your productivity. 10.8-inch, while quite large in a lot of cases, could be bigger. For 2021, HUAWEI launches the HUAWEI MatePad Pro 12.6-inch.

What is the difference? Internally, not much.

The HUAWEI MatePad Pro 12.6 comes with a very powerful Kirin 9000E 5G (up to) System on a Chip (SoC) still. At this point, the HiSilicon Kirin 9000E 5G processor with 5nm architecture is still HUAWEI’s most powerful and advanced processor to date. That processor is paired to an ample 8GB of RAM to ensure that you can easily and smoothly multitask like a champ. There is also 1256GB is memory, which is ample for mobile devices today.

Out the back is a 13-Megapixel main shooter supported by an 8-Megapixel ultra-wide sensor and a Time-of-Flight 3D sensor for great looking photos. The MatePad Pro 10.8-inch only comes with a single 13-Megapixel camera out the back. Both devices come with an 8-Megapixel front facing camera that hides in a punch hole at one corner of the device’s display though. The rear camera is also capable of shooting videos at 4K resolution.

huawei matepad pro 12.6 kv pc 12x
Source: HUAWEI

The new 2021 MatePad Pro comes with a 12.6-inch display though, compared to a 10.8-inch display of the older MatePad Pro. The 12.6-inch display shows you 2,560 x 1,600 resolution. It is an OLED display too, which also means even better colours. To be specific, the 12.6-inch OLED display boasts DCI-P3 colour gamut for good measure.

Of course, a larger screen comes with a bigger battery at 10,050 mAh compared to the 7,250 mAh on the MatePad Pro 10.8-inch. It still features 40W super charging (via USB Type-C) and fast wireless charging too in case you need more battery life out of your HUAWEI MatePad Pro 12.6-inch.

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Source: HUAWEI

There is another difference between the HUAWEI MatePad Pro 10.8-inch and 12.6-inch is more than skin deep though. The older HUAWEI MatePad Pro 10.8-inch runs on EMUI 11. The new MatePad Pro 12.6-inch runs on HUAWEI’s new Harmony OS 2. That said, the HUAWEI MatePad Pro 10.8-inch that ships out now onward will run on Harmony OS 2 as well.

Harmony OS 2 is built to be a productivity beast though. With the HUAWEI MateBook series notebook PCs, the HUAWEI MatePad 12.6-inch can work as a secondary display and an external storage as well. You can work on your notebook and share items between the tablet and notebook when you need to and very seamlessly at that.

On top of all of these, the HUAWEI MatePad Pro 12.6-inch is available with an updated HUAWEI M-Pencil. The 2nd Generation M-Pencil is built for a better and more natural feel of a regular pencil when you use it with HUAWEI’s MatePad series devices. At the same time the HUAWEI MatePad can be paired to the bigger magnetic keyboard too, in case the 10.8-inch variant feels a little cramped.

  • huawei matepad pro 12.6 matte grey pc2x
    Source: HUAWEI
  • huawei matepad pro 12.6 olive green pc2x
    Source: HUAWEI
  • huawei matepad pro 12.6 kv pc 1@2x
    Source: HUAWEI
  • huawei matepad pro 12.6 kv pc 12x
    Source: HUAWEI
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    Source: HUAWEI
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    Source: HUAWEI
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    Source: HUAWEI
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    Source: HUAWEI
  • huawei matepad pro 12.6 highlights pc 12x
    Source: HUAWEI

The HUAWEI MatePad Pro 12.6-inch is immediately available in Matte Grey colour option. It will set you back MYR 3,999. You can get your’s from HUAWEI’s official online store, and partnering online retailers including Shopee, Lazada, and Senheng. The HUAWEI MatePad Pro in Olive Green will be available for pre-order from the 7th July 2021 onward. The pre-order of the Olive Green variant of the HUAWEI MatePad Pro entitles you to a HUAWEI Classic Backpack, one month VIP access to HUAWEI Video, six TVOD passes, and free three months access to 50GB of HUAWEI Cloud Storage. More information on the HUAWEI MatePad Pro 12.6-inch on HUAWEI’s website.

Consumer Electronics, Hands On, Mobile, News, Video

HUAWEI MatePad Pro Hands On

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The HUAWEI MatePad Pro was announced globally in Barcelona back in February. The new MatePad Pro was touted as a revolutionary new productivity device empowered by 5G thanks to the HiSilicon Kirin 990 processor inside. Yesterday, the new productivity centered tablet got its debut in Malaysia!

The new MatePad Pro will be available starting 3 April, 2020 for pre-order until 10 April, 2020. It will be available in Midnight Grey and Pearl White. However, Malaysia will only be getting the WiFi version of the MatePad Pro which will come with 256GB of internal storage and 8GB of RAM. The device will cost MYR2,399 and will be shipped starting 11 April, 2020.

Pre-orders of the MatePad Pro will come with about MYR1,000 worth of freebies. This includes the Smart Magnetic Keyboard (worth MYR499), the HUAWEI M-Pencil (worth MYR299), 3 months free access to WPS Office, 50GB of HUAWEI Cloud Storage and 3 months premium access to HUAWEI video.

Aside from that, the MatePad Pro comes with a 10.1-inch IPS LCD display. It has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 and an aspect ratio of 16:10. It has a 13-megapixel camera on the back and an 8-megapixel camera on the front. All of this is powered by 7,250 mAh battery which supports wireless fast charging at 27W and reverse wireless charging at 7.5W. It can also be fast charged at 40W when plugged in.

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Android, Mobile, News

HONOR ViewPad 6 is the Modern 5G Capable Tablet for the Youths

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HONOR had a big global launch just now. They launched a lot of things. One of the big things they launched is their very own high-end tablet, the HONOR ViewPad 6. It looks very much like the HUAWEI MatePad Pro save for certain details. For one, the back of the tablet has a slightly different finish. The camera layout and design is more reminiscent of the OPPO Find X2 as well, from the looks of it.

The insides are slightly different too. The HONOR ViewPad 6 packs the HiSilicon Kirin 985 instead of the newer HiSilicon 990 you find on the HUAWEI MatePad Pro. You still get 5G connectivity with the HONOR ViewPad 6 though. You still get WiFi 6+ in connectivity. You also get 2K in resolution from the 10.4 FullView display. They also tout powerful speakers that boasts great audio. If they are anything like the HUAWEI MatePad Pro, we can believe that.

We know that the HONOR ViewPad 6 will come with HONOR’s proprietary User Interface (UI) based on Android 10. While it comes with Android 10, it does not come with Google’s Play Store. Rather, you are getting their AppGallery ecosystem. From the teasers we see in the launch, there is also the HUAWEI equivalent to the M-Pen, the Magic Pen for the tablet.

  • Source: HONOR
  • Source: HONOR
  • Source: HONOR
  • Source: HONOR

However, they did not announce the price of the HONOR ViewPad 6. They say that the price will be revealed on the 13th of June 2020. It should be available in certain markets from June 2020 onward. There is no mention of whether Malaysia gets the device that same time with other markets. We are expecting the tablet to come to Malaysia at the same time or before other countries outside of China though.

Android, Mobile, News

HUAWEI MatePad and MatePad T Completes the Family

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The HUAWEI MatePad Pro is awesome. We tried it at its launch and loved it. There was only one problem we have with the tablet. If not for that small problem, it would have been perfect. Still, nothing in this world is perfect.

Let us not dwell on that though, there are new tablets in town from HUAWEI. You Might have guessed them from the title. The HUAWEI MatePad, and the HUAWEI MatePad T is joining the HUAWEI MatePad Pro in Malaysia.

HUAWEI MatePad

The regular HUAWEI MatePad is easily mistaken as the HUAWEI MatePad Pro. They are similar in design and functionality, to be fair. They are similar only in design though. Everything inside is different from one to the other.

Source: HUAWEI

The HUAWEI MatePad packs a HiSilicon Kirin 810 System on a Chip (SoC) with an integrated Da Vinci Artificial Intelligence (AI) NPU. You get slightly less resolution than the HUAWEI MatePad Pro too at 2K resolution. Still, 2K in resolution is still plenty of pixels for 10.4-inch. That display is still paired to a great four-speaker stereo audio system tuned by Harman Kardon.

It is also compatible with HUAWEI’s magnetic keyboard that was designed for the HUAWEI MatePad Pro. You can even use the M-Pencil on this if you want. You charge the M-Pencil with the large 7,250mAh battery pack in the tablet.

Unlike the HUAWEI MatePad Pro though, the MatePad has something called the eBook mode that optimises its display for better reading experience. Of course, it comes with MEETime out of the box too. Yes, it also has HUAWEI’s clever Share capabilities.

The HUAWEI MatePad is available 16th May 2020 onward. There are no colour options for this, so you only get to have it in Midnight Grey. The HUAWEI MatePad will set you back MYR 1,399 when it is available, about MYR 1,000 less than its bigger, higher end brother. You get a Flip cover, a free 3 months Premium subscription to HUAWEI Video, and 15GB of HUAWEI’s Mobile Cloud storage for 12 months. For more information on the HUAWEI MatePad, you can head over to their website and webstore.

HUAWEI MatePad T 8

10-inch tablets are not your thing? We understand that. 10-inch is a little on the hefty side and difficult to enjoy in a lot of conditions. You just need something to carry around and might need to kill time with it.

Source: HUAWEI

The HUAWEI MatePad T 8 would fit in that bill very easily with its 8-inch display. The 8-inch is no slouch still, mind you. There is still an Octa-Core processor within its smaller form factor. Given, it is a MediaTek. The MT8768 platform is MediaTek’s latest tablet platform.

That new tablet processor is also designed to be kind to the battery. Still, it does not hurt to have 5,100mAh battery packed in the 8-incher. All that and you are still only carrying 310g around. It is not lighter than an average smartphone, but it is pretty close to some of the flagships these days.

It is not just a tablet designed for the adults though. It is also designed with kids in mind. You can have a Kids Corner put on the tablet for your kids. That dedicated space is designed as a safe space for children to learn and be entertained. It is also designed so that parents can have better control over their kids’ media consumption of course. You can set time controls, content restrictions, and more.

The HUAWEI MatePad T will also be available the same time as the HUAWEI MatePad on the 16th May 2020. You can get your hands on one for MYR 559. It only comes in one colour though: Deepsea Blue. If you do get your hands on one, you are entitled to a 3 months Premium subscription of HUAWEI’s Video app and 12months of 15GB access to HUAWEI’s Mobile Cloud Storage. For more information on the HUAWEI MatePad T 8, you can head over to their website and webstore.

HUAWEI Sound X

Alongside the HUAWEI MatePad T and HUAWEI MatePad, HUAWEI also launched the HUAWEI Sound X finally in Malaysia. HUAWEI’s Sound X is a result of their collaboration with one of the world’s premium audio solutions manufacturer, Devialet. It has six tweeters and two woofers. The 8 drivers should deliver clean, crisp, and punchy audio from the low frequencies to the high all around. Apparently the woofers can go as low as 40Hz, which is where bass frequencies lie. The HUAWEI Sound X will set you back MYR 1,299 and is also available at the same time as the HUAWEI MatePad and MatePad T.

Android, Mobile, News

HUAWEI MatePad Pro – Built To Unleash Your Creativity On-the-Go from EU€ 549!

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Mobile World Congress 2020 was cancelled, but that does not mean that you will miss all the big announcements. HUAWEI just had their announcement not more than an hour ago. In that announcement they announced the latest HUAWEI Mate Xs foldable smartphone. It is pretty much an evolution of last year’s HUAWEI Mate X foldable smartphone. That is not all they launched though.

This year they also introduced the HUAWEI MatePad Pro, a high-end tablet designed for the professionals. Why we say that? It has a DCI-P3 colour accurate display for the best sort of colour reproduction you can get on 10-inches of display. The 10.8-inch display pushes 2,500 by 1,600 pixels, effectively a QHD+ display. With a 90% screen to body coverage too it is small, really small. Thin too at 7.2mm, as thick as modern smartphones.

It is one of HUAWEI’s most advanced tablets to come out of the Chinese tech giant’s showrooms. It packs HUAWEI’s HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G processor. You get an option of getting the MatePad Pro with 5G connectivity too if you really must. Of course, the 5G versions will cost you a little bit more.

Audio cannot be neglected in a super powerhouse like the MatePad Pro too. You get not only four speakers at each corner of the device; you also get far-field mics for your voice commands from a distance away. That is all wrapped in ultra-light fiber glass body or stylish vegan leather body.

For maximum productivity, you can get the HUAWEI M-Pencil for EU€ 99. You can take advantage of the app multiplier, multiscreen collaboration, multi-window modes, and even HUAWEI share for even more optimised productivity and multitasking. Of course, it does have large battery to fill the space within the slim and compact body. 7,250mAh large, in fact. For that, you get all-day productivity. It even charges at 40W if you plug it in a wall charger. It can charge wirelessly at 37W too.

The HUAWEI will be available within this quarter of 2020. Malaysia? We do not have a set date yet, but it looks like we are also getting it soon enough. It comes in either Green or Orange Vegan Leather colour options, or White or Grey glass fiber colour options. Prices start at EU€ 549 (6GB + 128GB) [MYR 2,520], EU€ 649 (8GB + 256GB) [MYR 2,979], EU€ 749 (8GB + 256GB, M-Pencil, Vegan Leather) [MYR 3,438] for the WiFi version, EU€ 599 (6GB + 128GB) [MYR 2,749], EU€ 699 (8GB + 256GB) [MYR 3,208] for the LTE variant, and goes all the way up to EU€ 799 (8GB + 256GB) [MYR 3,666], EU€ 949 (8GB +512GB) [MYR 4,355] for the 5G variant. The HUAWEI MatePad Pro runs on HUAWEI’s EMUI 10.0.1 based on Android 10 Operating System (OS) though you can only get your apps through HUAWEI’s App Gallery.