Huawei MatePad 11.5S PaperMatte Edition Review

Introduction

When I reviewed the Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 in January, I was super impressed with the ultra-low-latency stylus. At the time, I said it was probably the best Android tablet for drawing. With the introduction of the MatePad 11.5S PaperMatte, though, that changes.

Huawei’s latest tablet has a matte-textured paper-like display. Not only does it look great and reduce reflections, but it provides some friction to the stylus, making sketching feel more natural than ever. Combine this with a new Huawei-exclusive drawing app, designed to compete with the Apple-exclusive Procreate, and you have a serious digital art tool on your hands. 

The tablet retails for a reasonable £349 / €399, but being a Huawei product, it comes with some baggage. US sanctions mean that it’s not packing the latest and greatest chipset, and accessing Google apps will require some tinkering, too. I’ve been using it for the past few weeks to figure out if it’s worth the hassle.

Design 

• 261 x 177.3 x 6.2 mm, 209g
• PaperMatte display coating
• Grey and Purple colour options

As you may have guessed from the name, the MatePad 11.5S has an 11.5-inch display. This means it’s slightly larger than an iPad, but smaller than an iPad Pro. Its weight also falls between these two devices, at 510 grams. It’s a nice size, and I found it much easier to use than the super-sized MatePad Pro 13.2.

The tablet has an aluminium unibody construction, and it’s available in two different colourways in the UK: Purple and Grey. Outwardly, it doesn’t look too different to last year’s MatePad 11.5 and the 13MP rear camera unit seems to be identical, too. 

The optional keyboard cover comes in white or dark grey. The UK site bundles the white keyboard cover with the purple MatePad, but oddly my review package came with the darker keyboard instead. The M Pencil, meanwhile, is only available in white.

All the accessories connect to the tablet magnetically, there’s a rear cover that doubles up as a kickstand, and the keyboard cover is a separate piece that attaches with magnetic tabs and can be used wirelessly over its NearLink connection. The M Pencil can be stowed on the top side with strong magnets, and both the keyboard and stylus charge while they’re attached.

The keyboard cover has a relatively compact layout with no trackpad. I didn’t find the trackpad very useful on the MatePad Pro 13.2, it’s easier just to swipe around on the display, so I’m not too sad about the loss. The keys feel great, there’s plenty of key travel and the deck is extremely rigid, despite the slim chassis.

The keys have a natural-feeling spacing and I was able to touch type without issue, which made typing a lot faster than using the on-screen keyboard. There’s no built-in palm rest, so using the keyboard on your lap takes some getting used to, but it feels great on a desk or tabletop.

Huawei’s NearLink technology provides a stable low-latency connection between the tablet and its accessories. I like the fact that you can prop the tablet up on a desk and type wirelessly, but without a trackpad, you’re quite limited in what you can do when the tablet is out of reach.

One thing I find quite annoying, though, is that you can’t turn the accessories off individually. You can toggle NearLink on and off in the OS, but that affects both the stylus and the keyboard. So if, for example, you want to use the stylus without worrying about accidentally touching the keyboard, you’re out of luck.

Screen 

• 11.5-inch 144Hz IPS panel
• 1840 x 2800 pixels
• 16.7 million colours, P3 wide gamut support

The Huawei MatePad 11.5S has an OLED display with a 3:2 ratio, a 2.8K resolution and an adaptive refresh rate of up to 144Hz. The real star of the show is the PaperMatte coating, though. Huawei says this coating reduces reflections and glare by up to 98%, and it’s effectively immune to fingerprint smudges.

The spec sheet lists the output as 500 nits, which doesn’t sound like that much, but it looks plenty bright in use. It’s excellent indoors, and it does a great job outside too, as long as you stick to the shade. It can get a little difficult to see in bright direct sunlight. 

That said, the PaperMatte coating does make a big difference in bright environments. Reflections are almost non-existent, and it makes for a wonderful viewing experience free from distractions. 

The downside to most matte-finish displays is that they lack clarity and sharpness compared to their glossy counterparts, and I’m pleased to say that’s not the case here. Sure, there’s bound to be some sharpness lost, but it’s so marginal that it’s hard to tell. Even small text looks crisp and clear on this panel.

Of course, with creative folk being the target audience, colour accuracy is of the utmost importance, and the MatePad 11.5S delivers on that front, too. The panel can display 16.7 million colours and covers the entirety of the P3 wide gamut. There’s also a decent amount of customisation if the colours aren’t to your liking as standard.

Huawei reckons its PaperMatte display is easier on the eyes than a typical tablet display, boasting a 34% reduction in eye fatigue, to be exact. You don’t have to take Huawei’s word for it, though, as it has also received a Low Visual Fatigue certification from SGS along with Low Blue Light, Flicker-free and Reflection-free certifications from TUV Rheinland.

Personally, my favourite thing about the display is the way that it feels. It’s luxurious and velvety on your fingertips, and the texture of the panel adds some much-needed drag when you’re using it with the M Pencil. It sounds like a minor thing, but when a display feels this nice, it just makes you want to use it more – and as a result I found myself reaching for this tablet more often than normal.

Cameras 

• 13MP f/1.8 rear camera
• 8MP f/2.0 front camera
• 1080p video recording

The Huawei MatePad 11.5S has two cameras, a 13MP rear camera and an 8MP selfie camera. As is the case with most tablets, they’re not the most exciting lenses and are likely to find themselves relegated to video call duty and QR code scanning rather than any serious photography.

The 13MP rear camera is the better of the two, but it’s still woefully unimpressive. The dynamic range is limited and there doesn’t appear to be any image stabilisation, so it’s pretty useless when the light gets low. It does, at least have autofocus.

The selfie camera is adequate for the occasional video call, but I think it would benefit from a wider FOV, as the frame feels very cramped when the tablet is handheld. Again, the clarity is a little lacking, the dynamic range is quite poor and it struggles in low-light conditions.

Pretty much any modern phone you can find has more impressive cameras, so for any situations that require high-quality images, just whip your phone out instead.

Performance 

• Kirin 9000WL chipset
• 8GB RAM, 256GB storage
• Quad speakers with Histen 9.0

As we’ve seen with other Huawei products, US sanctions mean that the brand is fairly limited with what chips it can use. There’s no Qualcomm or MediaTek here, instead, it uses Huawei’s own Kirin 9000WL processor, along with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

So what does that mean in practice? Well, benchmarks show that its graphical performance is closer to the Snapdragon 865 of yesteryear than any modern flagship chips. It’s not likely to be the top choice for gamers, but that said, it feels plenty fast in use.

Swiping around the OS is smooth and stutter-free, apps open quickly, and for casual use, you’d have a hard time telling the difference between this and a flagship chip. Whatever Huawei has done to optimise its software is very effective.

It’s perfectly capable of gaming too, you just have to temper your expectations. I had a great time playing CarX Highway Racing on high settings, but if I tried to run something more graphically demanding, like Genshin Impact, then I had to stick to Medium settings to achieve smooth framerates, and it still got pretty toasty in the process.

The Huawei MatePad 11.5S has quad stereo speakers that are optimised with Huawei’s proprietary Histen 9.0 software. These speakers are truly impressive, they can kick out very high volumes and there’s more bass than you’ll get from most tablets. So whether you’re listening to some tunes while doing the dishes or catching up with your favourite Netflix show, you’re in for a good time.

Software 

• HarmonyOS 4.2 based on Android
• Exclusive GoPaint app
• No Google services

The MatePad 11.5S runs HarmonyOS 4.2, Huawei’s custom skin that’s based on Android, and it’s undoubtedly the biggest pain point of this device. That’s not because it’s a bad operating system, on the contrary, it’s quick and reliable, has plenty of customisation and looks nice, but there’s no support for Google services.

This means if you want to use things like Gmail, Google Drive and Maps, then you’ll need to use a workaround. It’s not the most challenging thing, you can easily set up Gbox, and with the MicroG project you can get apps running almost natively, but it’s a hassle that you don’t get with competing devices.

These workarounds are never perfect, either. As I found when I reviewed the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra, you’re almost guaranteed to be missing notifications, and updates can introduce other bugs. However, while that was a real pain on a smartphone, it’s much less annoying on a tablet.

On the other hand, Harmony OS 4.2 does come with some distinct advantages. The main one being GoPaint, a new illustration app that Huawei has developed exclusively for its products. 

GoPaint is essentially a 1:1 clone of the popular Procreate app that’s only available iOS, so no bonus points for innovation, but I think it’s a good thing overall. Procreate is so well-liked that it’s the sole reason a lot of creatives choose to use an iPad for digital painting, offering the same thing means that it’s much easier for existing users to pick up, and it means the wealth of online Procreate tutorials are likely to apply to GoPaint, too.

Battery life 

• 8800 mAh battery
• 22.5W wired charging
• Charger included

The Huawei MatePad 11.5S houses an 8800mAh battery pack, which is an 1100mAh increase over the MatePad 11.5. The battery life is decent, but even with that increase in capacity it’s not the longest-lasting tablet around and it’s quite noticeable if you’re gaming or drawing for long periods.

Still, for the way that I use a tablet, this battery is more than enough, and I only had to charge it once every few days. That’s with a couple of hours of doodling, playing games and watching YouTube each night. I wasn’t using it for work, and I’m sure I’d be charging much more frequently if I did.

There’s a nice compact wall charger included in the box, but it’s a little sluggish. The tablet charges at up to 22.5W, and that means a full charge from flat will take just under 2 hours. It’s not awful, but compared to the speedy charging of the MatePad Pro 13.2, it’s a little disappointing.

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