HUAWEI MatePad SE 10.4-inch Review – Multimedia & Productivity capable Tablet

There is many consideration when getting a suitable tablet that you wanted to carry along for the whole time, while we do know there is plentiful number of tablet with strong specifications and features, Huawei do take an approach in mind of catering a Tablet much towards user that still needs most of the work requirement in with some refreshed updated capabilities that comes with a reasonable mid range price to it

Today we will quickly look at the HUAWEI MatePad SE 10.4-inch, a mid range price friendly tablet that is competitive and multimedia centric.

Who is this for?

Basically for those who wanted a large size tablet which last you throughout the whole day and while at the same time the HUAWEI MatePad SE 10.4-inch is also a family friendly tablet, suitable for kids and for the mass users, you still can use it for work, streaming and some play in it.

Unboxing

The HUAWEI MatePad SE 10.4-inch came with the following

• The HUAWEI MatePad SE 10.4-inch unit
• USB A To C Cable
• Pin Ejector
• Power Adaptor
• User Manual/Quick Start Guide

Design

The design approach of the HUAWEI MatePad SE 10.4-inch is a full flat slate that is accompanied with all black outlook, a reasonable bezel size that is comfortable holding it without interrupting the display view with 84% screen to body ratio making it easy to hold. At the back of the HUAWEI MatePad SE, it is looking real clean and flat with no bumps except on the camera portion, and while at it, the whole back and sides is entirely built upon part polycarbonate with metal material which is designed for long lasting use and high levels of durability. The overall weight of the device is at 440 grams with 7.85mm of thickness which makes it quite easy to slide it on your favorite folder enclosure or bag.

You will get the usual USB C for data and charging, a 10.4 inch 2K display, a rear camera with front camera, power button, volume buttons, 3.5mm audio jack, 2 speakers on each side and microphone for communications and noise cancellation.

Display & Audio

From the display perspective, the HUAWEI MatePad SE hosts a 10.4 inch 2K display with HDR10 and refresh rates locked at 60Hz delivering 16.7 million colors with certified blue light filter from TÜV Rheinland. It can be quite reflective on certain viewing environment but general use wise, it still capable of giving vibrant color and contrast display over general usage, including your favorite stream which still have the L1 Widewine certification on the tablet, giving FullHD content on streaming apps. The only downside I see that is the refresh rate is pretty much standard and I do wish it has 90Hz refresh rate on fluid screen responses, but since this is fall under budget tablet category, so can’t complain on it.

Audio Wise, this tablet has a pair of speakers setup on both side with tuning from HUAWEI HISTEN that delivers clear and loud quality audio in a small room with balanced treble but lacking bass. However you can still enjoy it but if you can also pair with any of your headphones via bluetooth or 3.5mm audio jack. Our testing shows that this set of speaker does gives a reasonable experience with the pair of speakers over streaming and music.

Camera

The HUAWEI MatePad SE came with a pair of 2MP Fixed Focus camera located on top of the display and another one as a rear shooter setup configured at 5MP Auto Focus. Tablet camera are known not to be their strong point, so its merely just good being used for video conferencing, some quick snaps provided in a well lit environment with some amount of light when capturing it. So do not expect something stellar but on my personal usage, it is more than enough as everyone should have their phones or cameras as their main use as a camera. So in summary, it is just usable over its intended purposes.

We will still attach the sample shots that we got so that you can take a look, which also includes a rear video camera samples in 1080P, 30FPS which is the maximum it can get to, and I rather use a proper camera or a phone for any video recording, be it indoors or outdoors.

Performance, Experience & Benchmarks

Since this is a budget or starter entry tablet, the HUAWEI MatePad SE is powered by a decent Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 Octa Core Processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. If you are lack of storage, there is a MicroSD slot that can be expanded to 1TB or you could just backup via cloud services or an external USB C storage, but it should be plenty for most when comes to documents, images, a few games and downloaded movies.

It came with Android 12 with HarmonyOS 3 that is Huawei’s own UI that is reminisce to stock Android UI with additional functionality such as dual split screen, app window and Eye comfort mode. To translate over to usage via gaming, you could pretty much comfortable over games such as Mobile Legends and Call Of Duty with a stable framerate while games like Genshin Impact, well you will have to set all to low in order to hover between 30 to 45FPS comfortably.

Performance aside, HUAWEI MatePad SE came with connectivity and collaboration app known as Huawei Super Device which enables user to share exchange files, connect to Huawei related accessories such as Bluetooth earbuds and so on. This merges the gap and enables easy sharing across HUAWEI smart devices.

Experience wise, this basic tablet can last you for about 1 day with a mix of YouTube, checking emails, played some Mobile Legend matches, web browsing, listening some music thru Spotify and snap a few quick pictures. I don’t mind playing with this tablet over eSports titles as the processor with the specifications that can adapt to it easily with a 5100mAH battery. Huawei has also been trying to bridging the gap from developers that created LightHouse, available from the Huawei AppGallery that functions as MicroG to at least bringing in some of the required Google Apps to work, such as Google Photos, Drive, just to name a few as it gets improved time to time

Above is the Benchmark results, which basically indicates this tablet still holds reasonable performance for daily use and multitasking consumption, maybe some gaming, but thats about it, anything more will definitely stress the device and could potentially bottleneck.

Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion

The HUAWEI MatePad SE is an affordable approach from Huawei that is offering the masses with a tablet that is suitable for those seeking a ‘kid friendly’ device, but still offers what a normal user needed the most, from its multimedia capability to collaboration between devices, to your synchronization with Microsoft 365 suite, it is there ready for anyone to just pick it up and get productive, or you could just listen to your favorite podcast while reading some of your favorite articles online. With the current pricetag of RM999, some may argue that lacking a high refresh rate screen could be a bummer, but counter back with a high resolution screen, it is still pleasing on the eyes.

For more information on the HUAWEI MatePad SE, CLICK HERE to find out