Compact and light, but barely bigger than a smartphone. Powerful, but their capabilities beg for a bigger screen. Convenient to be used as an ebook reader or Internet browser, but a bit too glossy and vibrant to suit the role.
Naturally, when I heard there’s a Huawei MatePad Mini, my first thought was “yet another one I won’t use”. But now that I’ve had my hands on it… I can see this thing working where others didn’t so far.
It’s all about the bezel and weight
The Huawei MatePad Mini has an extremely thin bezel and fits an 8.8-inch display in a body that measures 7.82 x 5.01 x 0.20 in (198.59 x 127.27 x 5.1 mm).
For comparison, the current iPad mini is 7.69 x 5.31 x 0.25 in (195.4 x 134.8 x 6.3 mm) big and houses an 8.2-inch screen.
Furthermore, the MatePad Mini weighs a mere 9 Oz (255 g), which is closer to the weight of a big smartphone than a mini tablet. The iPad mini is 297 g.
So, as I picked the MatePad Mini from its display stand, I thought “OK, there’s something here”. It’s still a compact, pocketable tablet, but that 0.6-inch difference does bring it up to a more “usable tablet” level. But there was also another detail:
Built-in matte screen
Personally, I enjoy paper-like matte screen protectors. They feel better to touch and swipe on, they don’t show finger smudges as much, they are miles better for stylus use than just swiping across a gloss screen, they reduce glare, and they are great for reading.
Their downside is huge, though — they soften the image from your tablet, they could distort colors or fine details, and it’s generally always a tradeoff.
Now, Huawei had a few products with matte displays this year, so I guess the company is really exploring ways to make it a built-in feature that doesn’t distort the screen image as much.
And yes, the MatePad Mini comes with a matte glass display, which looked great to me in person and had that soft touch that I enjoy when scrolling on my iPad with a screen protector on it.
I did not notice any serious distortions or softening of the image.
It will all be down to the performance
All I had time for was to swipe through some apps and open a webpage or two. The animations were smooth, I didn’t notice slow loading times or hiccups.
The MatePad Mini I held in my hands had the Kirin 9010B chip. It’s an offshoot of the Kirin 9010 that can be found in the Mate 70 and Pura 80 phones, but tweaked to have a slightly different thermal envelope. That is to say — maybe it will throttle more or faster.
It’s more of a midrange chip, with multi-thread performance comparable to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 from 2022, and a single-core prowess that’s still slightly weaker.
So, I am hopeful, but still cautious about this thing in the long run.
The accessories to round it off
You can buy a Huawei M-Pencil Pro and a Huawei MatePad Mini Folio cover for the tablet to get a full package experience.
I think the fact that it doesn’t have a keyboard folio accessory like its bigger siblings is a missed opportunity. Yes, it does support wireless keyboards, but a nice case molded to fit it perfectly and prop it up would’ve been perfect.
Price and availability
The Huawei MatePad Mini supposedly “launched globally” yesterday, but I still can’t get a solid price to give you. Definitely don’t look at the prices from online 3rd party retailers — those will make your head spin, and I do hope this little tablet doesn’t cost anything near that.
I’ll keep you posted, but what do you think? What’s a fair price for this tablet?
