The Huawei MatePad Pro Max is incredibly thin, superbly built, and ready to power your creative potential

The Huawei MatePad Pro Max is coming to the UK. To most of Europe, in fact. And this is great news for those of us who want alternatives to Apple and Samsung. Now, some cynics might see this as just another tech brand adding the same combination of words (Pro, Max) on their device to make it sound bigger and better. But having used the Pro Max for a week, I can honestly say this is a tablet worthy of those titles.

To begin with, it's impossibly thin at just 4.7mm – the thinnest 13in tablet in the world, according to Huawei – certainly slimmer than any recent tablet tested by ITPro. But it's also just simply great to work with. The bright display has Huawei's PaperMatte technology, and with the Huawei M-Pencil, it gives you that true-to-life pencil-on-paper feel.

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Huawei aims its MatePads at both consumers and business people, and there is a solid argument that this can be a laptop replacement – particularly as Huawei's actual laptop business has stalled in the Western world. For me, however, this is a bona fide creative powerhouse. That Huawei M-Pen and the GoPaint app make it arguably one of the best around for creators.

Huawei MatePad Pro Max: Design

The MatePad Pro Max is a 13.2in tablet, encased in a very sleek-looking metal body. Our review unit is a soft satin blue with the thinnest of frames (4.7mm) and some of the smoothest corners I've seen on a tablet. It weighs just 509g, feels very comfortable in just one hand, and goes in and out of a rucksack or bag with zero effort.

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The back cover has a sort of two-tone finish thanks to nano-level coating on top of its metal body. It creates a pleasing light and shadow effect that allows the features (shiny Huawei logo, camera bump) to stand out. In the top corner is a black camera ring with an 'AI Camera' logo. And at the bottom (in portrait) is a USB Type-C port flanked by two sets of speaker holes. In the same corner as the camera, there is a volume rocker and a power button.

Pogo pins connect the Huawei's NearLink Keyboard, which is connected right out of the box, and there is also a trench to house your M-Pencil. You can also connect the pen to the top of the laptop (in landscape), where there is a small, thin oblong to indicate its docking position. Whether on top or on the keyboard, the pen will charge.

Huawei MatePad Pro Max: Display

By now, we should all know about Huawei's PaperMatte technology, which again features on its premium tablet. For the uninitiated, it's a micro-layer that provides both anti-glare cover and gives that feel of pen on paper – ReMarkable, and its Paper Pro (and Pure) tablets are, in my opinion, the most paper-like, but the Huawei MatePad Pro Max is as close as you can get on a more traditional tablet. Combine that with the Huawei M-Pencil Pro, and you can really create quite striking illustrations (more on this further down).

The 13.2in display is a Flexible OLED panel, with a 3000 x 2000 resolution, and 273 ppi. It's gloriously large and vibrant, and, as I mentioned above, there is hardly any glare on this matte finish. You also get lots of brightness with the tablet peaking at 603.32cd/m2 during my tests. Huawei says it can achieve 16oo nits, which actually suggests it's capable of a lot more.

Colour reproduction is also good. In our tests, the Pro Max produced 98.2% for sRGB gamut color coverage and 100.5% for volume. That's slightly above the M5 iPad Pro for color coverage (97.3%). It just missed out on a good Adobe score, ever so slightly under 70%, which is the threshold for us to recommend it for photography professionals. Though this is perfectly suitable for illustrators and graphic designers.

Huawei MatePad Pro Max: Specs and performance

Much of this quality comes from the powerful processor in the MatePad Pro Max. It features a Kirin T93 Pro, but unfortunately, we can't get a specific benchmark for that as Geekbench isn't available on the Huawei App Gallery. You can, of course, use certain pathways to get Google Apps on Huawei devices. For more, check out our explainer video.

As for the T93 Pro, it appears to be a very smooth CPU, powering a wealth of functions and features with ease. And although we don't have a specific benchmark, the Pro Max is highly responsive, fast through tasks, and works faultlessly through its many pre-installed apps.

On that topic, there are way too many apps installed out of the box, some you will never open, not even for curiosity's sake. But it's getting better and better when it comes to adding your favorites. With each interaction of MatePad, I have found finding and installing Netflix, Spotify, and even Slack a little bit easier.

The battery is fairly decent, too. In our looped video test, the MatePad Pro Max lasted 14hrs and 11min. Which is near enough to the likes of the OnePlus Pad 3 and the Honor MagicPad 4 to be competitive. In real terms, it easily makes it through a working day.

Huawei MatePad Pro Max: Features

In my view, where this tablet has its biggest selling point is the combination of the Huawei M-Pencil Pro, the PaperMatte display, and the GoPaint app – all of which make it a formidable creative hub. With each of those elements, you can really create quite striking illustrations.

The pen feels natural in the hand, it has innovative shortcuts, and pressure-sensitive controls. It both glides across the surface for adding color, but then has slight resistance for sketching.

And the GoPaint app continues to evolve. The sheer number of brush strokes and customizations puts it up there with the likes of Procreate and Sketchbook – but there doesn't appear to be the same monetization behind it. You're not limited to certain tools through different pricing tiers.

If a tablet is going to become your work machine, something that can replicate or replace your laptop, then its keyboard and trackpad need to be pretty good. And the NearLink model on the Pro Max is excellent. The keys are nice and clicky, with decent travel (1.8mm) and fairly large icons. The trackpad is OK, maybe a little on the small side, but nothing you wouldn't expect from a tablet keyboard.

Now I know camera systems on tablets are less interesting than they are on phones, but you get quite a high-spec camera system on the Pro Max. It comes with a 50MP (f/1.8 aperture, AF) rear lens and a 12MP (f/2.4) selfie camera. The rear lens also shoots video at 4K up to 30fps. Admittedly, it was the least used feature during my review, but uploading my sketches on paper was a breeze with the detail the 50MP camera captures.

Huawei MatePad Pro Max: Is it worth it?

The MatePad Pro Max is an excellent tablet, but it isn't going to replace a standard laptop; there are too many limitations here, like the lack of Google. But also, I think you just don't buy tablets for office workers.

You do, however, buy them for creative work. And the MatePad Pro Max is right up there with the best around. The M-Pencil and the GoPaint app are great additions that get better with each new tablet. And the new tablet itself is a phenomenal slab of technology.

Huawei MatePad Pro Max specifications