Artist Review: Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 OLED PaperMatte (2025)

Review unit on loan from Huawei Singapore

Huawei has just released the new MatePad Pro 13.2 in late 2024 which comes with an OLED PaperMatte display. Please do not confuse this with the 2023 model with the Kirin 9000S processor, 88W wired charging and glossy display.

This tablet comes with the Kirin T92, 12GB RAM and 512GB storage. This is the best of all the Huawei MatePad tablets I have tested over the years, but there's one issue that affects pen performance.

Here in Singapore, price on Shopee SG for the bundle is SGD 1498 (~USD 1125), and the pre-order price is $100 cheaper. The bundle includes the Huawei M-Pencil 3, wireless keyboard cover and wireless earbuds. The tablet is not sold alone separately.

This is significantly cheaper than the 13-inch Apple M4 iPad Pro with 256GB storage selling at SGD 1999, and that does not even include the pen and keyboard, and the matte glass surface cost an extra USD 100.

Bottom line

This is gorgeous tablet with solid build quality and top notch hardware. The display is sharp, bright and vibrant. The matte glass surface is satisfying to write and draw on. Overall performance is smooth and lag-free.

Line tests with M-Pencil 3 show lines breaking/skipping when drawing with minimal pressure. That's unfortunate because I did not experience this problem with the Huawei MatePad 12X (2024) I reviewed a few months ago. The consolation is drawing performance isn't really impacted when you're actually drawing, which you shall see with the drawings I've created further down.

Battery life is around 8 hours, or 5-6 hours at maximum brightness.

There is no Google Play Store, but that can be installed easily using the GBox app from the Huawei AppGallery (Huawei's app store). I've been using the tablet for two weeks and I didn't face many issues with the apps that I've installed from Google Play Store via GBox.

There are some user experience issues relating to the OS and software which I'll explain more later, but none are deal breakers.

My overall experience with this tablet is very positive.

Specifications

• Dimensions: 289.1 x 196.1 x 5.5 mm
• Weight: 580 g
• SIM: Nano-SIM (cellular model only)
• Stylus support: Yes
• Display: OLED, 1B colors, 144Hz, HDR, 1000 nits (peak)
• Size: 13.2 inches, 2880 x 1920 pixels, 3:2 ratio (~262 ppi density)
• OS: Harmony OS 4.0
• Chipset: Kirin T92 (may vary depending on country)
• Internal Storage: 256GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 12GB RAM, 1TB 16GB RAM (UFS 3.1)
• Main Camera:50 MP (f/1.8 aperture, AF), 8 MP (wide angle length, f/2.2 aperture, FF) LED flash
• Selfie Camera: 16 MP (wide angle length, f/2.0 aperture, FF)
• Sound: Stereo speakers (6 speakers), no 3.5mm jack
• WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, dual-band
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth 5.2, supports BLE, supports SBC, AAC, LDAC and L2HC
• Positioning: GPS, GLONASS, BDS
• NFC: No
• Biometric unlock: Fingerprint, face
• USB: USB Type-C 3.1, OTG, DisplayPort 1.2, accessory connector pins
• Sensors: Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
• Battery:5050 mAh, up to 100W charging

Things included

• Tablet
• Cleaning cloth
• Keyboard case
• USB-C to USB-C charging cable
• 100W charger
• Huawei M-Pencil 3 with one replacement pen tip
• User manual

Items included may vary depending on region. Here in Singapore, the tablet is sold together with the keyboard case and M-Pencil 3.

Design

Design of the Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 (2025) looks beautiful. Build quality is solid with the magnesium alloy and glass fibre back.

The display is big and I love the 3:2 aspect ratio which is great for use in both landscape and portrait orientation. 3:2 is better than 16:10 in portrait orientation, for drawing and for displaying web pages.

The display looks immersive with the very thin bezels. There is a noticeable notch at the centre in landscape orientation for the front 16MP f/2 camera which supports face unlock, but it does not have security clearance to unlock banking apps which you can still unlock with fingerprint.

The tablet is just 5.5mm thick. Weight of 580b for a tablet at this size is considered lightweight. But once you add the included keyboard case, the weight adds up obviously, but still quite portable, like one of those lightweight 13-inch laptops, except you can detach the tablet here.

There are six speaker hidden behind the four sets of speaker grilles and the audio quality is amazing. Audio has good amount of clarity, decent bass and the surround experience provides that all-around-you effect. I am pleasantly surprised at just how good these speakers are.

Huawei is still using the rounded sides that they have been using since their first MatePad Pro and I like that. This makes their tablet more comfortable to hold compared to tablets with flat edges, such as those from Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi.

Here in Singapore, the tablet is only availbable in this Premium Gold colour. This is a glass fibre back with a matte texture.

Huawei has gone for a patchy, almost scratched-up or rock-like look, for the back and this is an interesting choice. If you do scratch the back, I doubt you can even see where the scratch is when it's camouflaged by the patchy design.

The cameras on the back are a wide 50MP f/1.8 and ultra-wide 8MP f/2.2, and there's flash. Video recording is up to 4K UHD 30FPS with the main camera, and 1080P 30 FPS with the ultra-wide camera.

The USB-C port has USB 3.1 transfer speed and supports video output.

Keyboard

The keyboard uses NearLink wireless connection instead of Bluetooth. And since it's a wireless keyboard, you can use it away from the tablet. Shown above is a simple desktop setup you can have just by adding a tablet stand.

This is how thick the tablet is with the keyboard case. I don't have the exact weight of this total setup.

Keyboard is full-sized and comfortable to type with. Keys have good travel and feedback. Touchpad is big and clicks are firm.

There are four rubber feet on the back to prevent scratches on the back.

Keyboard has no backlight. I'm not sure how long the battery can last, but you can always attach the keyboard magnetically to the tablet for charging.

This is the detachable back cover with the kickstand. The hinge is strong enough to hold the tablet at any angle, but it's not strong enough to hold the angle while hand is on the tablet.

The hinge protrudes out so the back cover cannot be completely flat on the tablet.

Huawei M-Pencil 3

The Huawei M-Pencil 3 can attach magnetically to the side of the tablet for charging and pairing. This stylus uses NearLink instead of Bluetooth for connection.

Build quality of the pen is good. The matte surface is comfortable to hold. Pen tip replacements can be found easily.

The Huawei M-Pencil 3 supports palm rejection, tilt, over 10,000 levels of pressure sensitivity, and there's double-tap shortcut.

Huawei did not advertise the exact milliseconds of latency but from what I can see, it's comparable to the Apple Pencil 2 which has 9ms latency, but definitely not as fast as Samsung's 2.8ms on their latest tablets. Note the issue with broken lines near the end shown above when I'll talk about later.

Display

This tablet has a 13.2-inch PaperMatte OLED display with 2880 x 1920 resolution (262 PPI). Visuals are sharp and colours are vibrant. Maximum brightness is up to 1000 nits, usable even under direct sunlight, although the tablet will become hot due to the extra brightness, and battery will drain much faster, not expected.

The PaperMattte has effective anti-glare and visuals can still be seen clearly even through diffused reflections because the display is very bright. The matte glass surface provides a subtle tactile writing or drawing experience, something quite similar to what you can get with pen tablets and pen displays, but it's not as rough compared to matte screen protectors.

It's great that Huawei is releasing more tablets with the PaperMatte display because the display just looks better simply because it removes all reflections. Some colour vibrancy may be sacrificed when compared to a glossy OLED display, even with anti-reflective coating, but seriously the colours still look exceedingly good on a matte OLED display.

Most matte glass surfaces will introduce some grain or colour noise to affect image quality, but I don't see any negative effects on this PaperMatte display. Image quality is outstanding. Colour support is up to 1 billion colours with P3 colour gamut. Contrast ratio is 1 million:1

The display is laminated so when writing or drawing, there's no gap between the pen tip and the line beneath.

Performance

The tablet comes with Kirin T92 processor and 12GB of RAM. Overall performance is fast, smooth and lag-free. Apps launch instantly. Multi-tasking works great and most apps are retained in memory without having to reload thanks to the 12GB RAM.

There are no issues with gaming obviously, given that this is the flagship tablet of Huawei.

OS and app

This tablet runs on HarmonyOS 4 and the app store is called Huawei AppGallery. HarmonyOS seems stable and I did not have any issues with the OS with my two weeks of usage.

Huawei's own ecosystem is called Huawei Super Device, which are collaborative software features shared among Huawei devices such as smart watches, wireless speakers, laptops, phones and tablets. These devices can connect to one another to share files, clipboard and sometimes the screen. Even if you don't have other Huawei devices, this tablet runs on Android so you can install collaborative apps easily, such as SuperDisplay to use this tablet as an external display, or LocalSend to send files wirelessly to and fro from any device with any OS.

One thing I don't like about HarmonyOS is there are many ads.

This is how many pre-installed apps and folders of bookmarks to apps there are. There are several pre-installed apps such as Agoda, Booking.com, and many folders containing bookmarks to apps (close to 50) that you can install. There are many so you have to uninstall or delete them one by one. Even Huawei AppGallery (app store) would show you a fullscreen ad the next time you open it after a few hours.

Installing Google Play Store is quite straightforward even though it's not included with HarmonyOS. Just search for GBox within Huawei AppGallery, install that and you'll get Google Play Store.

The apps installed from Google Play Store through Gbox mostly work fine. I was able to restore my past app purchases without issues. There are some apps that cannot be installed, such as Brave browser, Medibang (drawing), Lazada, and possibly others. The workaround to get those apps from the Huawei AppGallery, or find the standalone APK installation files.

Notifications for apps installed from Google Play Store with the help of Gbox all come with the Gbox icon so it's difficult to identify which notifications are from which apps.

Exporting artworks has some issues. Huawei AppGallery apps cannot export directly to cloud storage services installed from Google Play Store, e.g. Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox. Workaround is to save the artwork to local storage, then upload to your prefer cloud storage. This is also to say that Huawei's default file browser does not have integration with Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox.

Google Play Store apps can export artworks directly Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox.

The virtual keyboard needs a setting that's sorely missed. When virtual keyboard is enabled when a physical keyboard is connected, there is no setting to hide the virtual keyboard when I tap in textbox with my finger, which indicates that I want to use a virtual keyboard. This is not a Huawei-specific issue though. Since Huawei keyboard uses NearLink wireless connection, it's still connected when physically detached from the tablet, and when you tap in a textbox with your finger, there's no virtual keyboard.

The proper portrait orientation is with USB-C port at the bottom, camera on the right. This unfortunately interferes with auto brightness as I am right handed. If I turn the tablet so that the USB-C port is at the top, some UI will appear upside down, e.g. export screen. Also when using drawing apps in landscape mode, UI will rotate to vertical during export which is a bummer.

Some apps only open in portrait mode and won't rotate for landscape orientation. The workaround is to drag the app to the top right and have the app open as a floating vertical window.

Mentioned above are all minor software issues Huawei has to refine to improve the user experience.

Line tests

Line tests above were created with Clip Studio Paint.

1. Initial activation force is very low. Thin lines can be drawn easily with almost no pressure at all, even with a thick brush selected. There's no noticeable wobble or jitter with slow diagonal lines.

2. Lines are able to taper smoothly and sharply. When applying minimal pressure, there's a tendency for lines to break up even when pen tip is still in contact with the glass surface. This problem is more obvious with Medibang Paint, which is the reason why I switched over to use Clip Studio Paint for the line tests.

3. Line transition from thin to thick and back to thin is smooth. Note the broken lines. Those are separate lines that can be undone separately.

4. Consistent line width can be maintained by applying consistent pressure.

5. No issues with drawing dots.

6. No issues with cursor misalignment. No problems with lines overshooting or leaving gaps. Line always appears directly beneath the pen tip regardless of how the pen is held.

Tilt sensitivity works fine.

Drawing experience

Due to the issue with lines breaking when drawing with minimal pressure, I created another set of line tests with Huawei GoPaint (above) as well. The straight line tests are alright, but the curving line tests also have lines breaking. The pen may have some issues with maintaining minimal pressure sensitivity.

I did not experience this issue with the Huawei MatePad 12X (2024) and M-Pencil 3 that I tested a few months ago.

Thankfully, the issue with broken lines did not happen when I'm actually drawing. The sketch above was drawn with Huawei GoPaint.

Huawei GoPaint is a decent drawing app, and it's free, and thankfully free from ads. The UI is clearly heavily inspired by Procreate (I'm not complaining). The app may not have as many features as Procreate, but it's a capable app.

There are many capable drawing apps available from the Google Play Store. The big 13.2-inch display means apps with many UI elements can also work well, e.g. Clip Studio Paint, Krita.

This was drawn with Concepts and I did not have any issues.

This was also drawn with Concepts. I was using the tablet as a digital sketchpad to sketch my daughters and this tablet may be too big as a portable digital sketchpad. My personal preference for a portable digital sketchpad is 11-inch, so I would even consider a 12-inch tablet to be big. But that's just personal preference.

580g for a 13.2-inch tablet is considered lightweight, but its large physical size not as easy to handle compared to a smaller tablet. This is a tablet that has to be set down on a surface for drawing or writing.

Handwriting or note taking performance is fantastic. My handwriting style could be captured accurately. There are no issues with lines breaking.

Latency while drawing is quite similar to what you can get with Apple Pencil 2. Latency also depends on the app used.

Tools cannot be selected when pen is close to the display, which activates palm rejection.

Battery life

Charging speed is up to 100W but you have to use the included charger to reach that speed. My 140W power bank can only charge it at 10W. That's to say that the correct charging protocol is needed for ultra fast charging.

Battery life is around 8 hours. And may vary, of course, depending on usage and display brightness.

Conclusion

The Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 (2025) is a great tablet. Display is gorgeous and build quality is solid.

I did not have an issues drawing even though the line tests show broken lines when drawing with minimal pressure.

Overall user experience is affected by the OS and software side. There are some minor annoyances, especially with the app orientation, but I can't say any are deal breakers.

If you're also using other Huawei devices, this tablet will fit right into the ecosystem. And even if you don't use other Huawei devices, this is an Android tablet so you can probably find an app that can work with your other devices.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Beautiful design
+ Solid build quality
+ Vibrant, bright, sharp OLED display
+ Auto-brightness works well
+ Maximum 1000 nits brightness
+ Matte glass surface
+ 8 hours battery life
+ Excellent audio quality
+ Accessories are well made
+ Keyboard is wireless and detachable
+ Has face and fingerprint unlock
+ Has wide and ultra-wide cameras
+ Gbox allows access to Google Play Store and it works quite well
+ Good pen performance with one downside
+ Responsive smooth performance
- No official Google Play Store support
- Too many ads
- Huawei file manager has no intergration with Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, DropBox
- Kickstand hinge prevents tablet from laying completely flat on table
- Lines have tendency to break when drawing with minimal pressure

Availability

The Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 is available from Shopee SG, Lazada SG and Huawei Experience Stores in Singapore.