HUAWEI MatePad 11.5 Tablet Review – Beyond PC Like Experience

One could say that tablet has limitations, especially when you are trying to even browse and edit work stuffs, such as document, and heck, even spreadsheets, and sometimes it is proven to be a challenge when you are missing something to type on, like a keyboard and mouse.

We will look at one of the latest offering from HUAWEI, the MatePad 11.5 tablet, which is also launched alongside with HUAWEI Nova 11 lineup of smartphones, if you want to read the nova 11 pro 5G review, CLICK here to know more about what we think about the phone. With that out of the way, lets see what this small mighty PC Like tablet can do.

Unboxing Contents

• HUAWEI MatePad 11.5 Tablet
• SIM Ejector
• USB A to C Cable
• Power Adaptor
• User Manual
• Detachable HUAWEI Smart Keyboard (Optional)

Who is this for ?

Someone that wanted something lightweight, but does not need a full laptop beside the user all the time, only requiring what is really needed for basic office tasks, typing, emails, and during other times besides work, it can be a companion for some games and movies.

Design

The tablet is very much consist of metal unibody design, making it quite tough over the outlooks of it, with the metallic feel, and despite all of these, the weight (for the tablet alone) is at 499 grams, and thickness of 6.55mm, carrying and keeping it is nice and fits almost everywhere. This overall makes the HUAWEI MatePad 11.5 not just portable, but pretty versatile over it’s companion accessories, which the tablet has a pogo pin that is magnetically attachable to HUAWEI Smart Keyboard, which charges and connected automatically when attached together for the first time, no hassles at all, no configuration required. Other than that, you have one USB C for data and charging, volume button, SIM card tray and power button, a camera located back and front for basic photo taking and video conferencing. Oh yeah, since I mentioned there is a SIM card tray, it does support 4G/LTE connectivity.

Display & Audio

As the name implies, the HUAWEI MatePad 11.5 sports an 11.5 inch 1440P, IPS 120Hz refresh rate display that can display colors at 100% sRGB. While this aint an AMOLED display, the rated IPS display does bring a very good color accuracy and representation, with blacks are still deep, but not as deep as any OLED displays that is available on the market. The 3:2 aspect ratio, which many calls it a golden ratio makes it easy to work with, especially word processing and despite all of these, the visuals can be adapted quite nicely towards videos or streaming, with a downside that the tablet has no Widevine support, render it unable to stream movies via Netflix or Disney+ at HD resolution, however you still can stream it just at a lower resolution via web browser and this may be lackluster for some movie lovers, drama chasers.

OK, towards the audio side, you are pretty much covered with a good audio experience with its equipped quad speaker, two on each side that is tuned with HUAWEI Histen Audio. The experience can be term as subtle with good audio delivery whether its vocal or music, as the two pair of speakers can channel the surrounding area quite equally with no distortion even when set to its loudest.

Performance, Software, Benchmarks

The HUAWEI MatePad 11.5 is powered by a modest Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 SOC with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. Since the unit that review has LTE, so it does have a SIM card tray for data while at this topic, there is also WiFi 6 which does allows you to download and upload at a higher speed, as long you have a compatible WiFi 6 router to go along with it. With that said, you can also use it as a navigator since it does have GPS built in to it, which makes certain professional has some use on it, like example a surveyor, or an architect. The included 7700 mAh battery capacity will get you going at least 16 hours combined with a mixture of work and play apps.

If you love to game with it, we tested it with Genshin Impact, setting it between low mixed with medium can really get you near the 60FPS experience no problem, and this is great if you just wanted to hit a few domains between and after your work hours.

Powered by HarmonyOS 3 and backed by Android 12, the combination of OS and UI bring many fluid features to it, similar to the P60 series and nova 11 series, that further strengthen HUAWEI’s ecosystem seamlessly by bridging both phones and tablet via Super Device connectivity, which allow sync collaboration such as transfers to a simple copy and pasting, which can be done instantly without configuring much, as long you are signed in to the same HUAWEI account. Besides that the AppGallery is much user friendly ever before, installing Google Apps is easy by just searching, and LightHouse will install automatically in the background. The Best part is a premium version of WPS Office is also included, allowing full Office app suite in the tablet, allowing full editing and PDF alteration made easier than ever.

Now to the Benchmarks, since this is powered by the SD7 Gen 1 processor, you have most of the advantages focused on multicore processing and quite modest Adreno GPU inside, allowing you to breeze most things, and if you are not doing things too intensive, it will get by most of your chores no issues, and this is proven with many phones and tablets using such combination.

Technical Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion

The HUAWEI MatePad 11.5 brings together a sense of a portable tablet like with some versatility from a basic laptop, especially with the combined attached keyboard, giving usefulness that stretches beyond work and it can double as a cool big screen entertainer with the smooth framerate display, while it is not the very best available, considering it does include a good set of software inside, it is still a worthy recommendation for those that focuses work as primary with portability in mind.

Lets get to the price, it’s RM1499, and if you get it today HERE, you will also get a HUAWEI Matepad 11.5” Smart Keyboard free of charge.