The HUAWEI MatePad 12 X (2025) is a powerhouse Android tablet with some frustrating baggage

I’ve been trying to make the most of my tablets since I was 10 years old. Even when I got my first laptop in university, the tablet remained my main device. It carried me through typed assignments throughout high school and hundreds of calculus lectures in university. I know what it feels like to have a device that is so close to being perfect, but ultimately held back in silly ways that break the laptop replacement experience. HUAWEI says the £599 (~$783) MatePad 12 X (2025) is the perfect tablet for freelancers, creatives, and students. Naturally, I wanted to put that claim to the test and see how it compares to the best Android tablets.

The design of this tablet really is quite nice. At 6mm thick and a curb weight of 555g, it’s slightly thicker and heavier than an 11-inch iPad Pro. The body is also striking, and really gives a similar feel to sandstone, just slightly smoother. HUAWEI doesn’t advertise any water or dust resistance, nor does it mention anything about the durability of the glass. One touch I do like is the sloped corners on the back of the device. I don’t think it looks quite as nice as a sharper edge, but it’s far more comfortable to hold. Comfort really does sum up the experience of this tablet. The whole thing is cozy in a way and feels very comfortable in the hands.

The display is easily the most impressive part of the tablet, and its matte finish is something I wish were featured more commonly on other tablets. The anti-reflection is also incredible and makes direct interior lights a non-issue. It even makes using the tablet outside far more comfortable by diffusing any oncoming reflections. The matte finish, unfortunately, makes fingerprints more pronounced.

It achieves a peak brightness of 1,000 nits, and the 144Hz refresh rate makes animations smooth as butter. The 2,800 x 1,840 resolution in this 12-inch screen provides fantastic sharpness and is a nice bump over the Galaxy Tab S11 at 2,560 x 1,600. Although there has been a lot of debate on whether matte screens are better than a glossy panel, I can say without a doubt that this one impressed me. I haven’t noticed any fringing, and the brightness certainly gets through. It feels incredible to the touch and when using HUAWEI’s M-Pencil Pro (not included). Sure, it’s no OLED, but at just under £600, it’s also not priced to the same level as a flagship tablet either, so concessions like this are to be expected — similarly priced competitors like the Galaxy Tab S10 FE Plus and OnePlus Pad 3 also opt for an LCD panel.

One thing about the MatePad 12 X you can tell from the spec sheet: the battery is huge. 10,100mAh gives this tablet a 20% bump over the Galaxy Tab S11 (8,400 mAh) and just 15% less than the Tab S11 Ultra (11,600 mAh). HUAWEI claims a fourteen-hour video playback, but I was only able to run 480p YouTube videos for about six hours. The tablet also supports fast charging up to 66W, but only when using HUAWEI’s proprietary fast charger, sold separately.

The MatePad 12 X features a HiSilicon Kirin T92. This, combined with 12GB of memory, makes it perfectly suited for some light video editing in Wondershare Filmora, and can take on 250 4K layers in GoPaint.

I’ve been impressed by the speakers, too. There are six of them around the device, and they produce a shocking amount of bass and volume. I did notice the mids and highs are less pronounced, which made media content a little muddy, but it wasn’t distracting enough to pose an issue.

The magnetic keyboard folio that comes bundled with the MatePad 12 X is fine. The key travel is quite deep, which is nice, but the board itself doesn’t have a trackpad. It’s thick and heavy, so when I don’t want to use it, even though it flips around to the back, I find myself just taking it off. Thankfully, it attaches with magnets, so that’s easy enough, but overall, this accessory feels like an afterthought. Though it is an included accessory, and it gets the job done, so if it’s good enough for you, the package does provide a pretty good value.

To me, the M-Pencil Pro, which can be purchased separately for €129 (~$168), is the biggest reason to pick up a tablet in the first place, and HUAWEI isn’t playing around with this one. It has some incredible specs and makes the Galaxy S Pen look like a joke. It has 16,384 levels of pressure sensitivity, a rotate gesture, a double-tap, a button, and a pinching function. I can only get the pinch feature to work about 30% of the time, but the rest are fairly reliable. I can say confidently that if there are any bottlenecks in the drawing experience, it’ll be software, not hardware.

For most, the software on the MatePad 12 X is where the whole “creative professional” experience really falls apart, unfortunately. Due to the ongoing legal tie-up with HUAWEI and the US, the company is unable to officially use Google Play Services or access the Google Play Store and all the many apps that other tablets can offer. And while you can use popular streaming apps like YouTube, Netflix, or Disney Plus, for example, these are only accessible via the browser.

Without professional apps, you don’t have a professional device, and while there are workarounds to get any incompatible apps working, these are often finicky, time-consuming, and unreliable. Other Android tablets already struggle with app selection compared to iPadOS, but having to rely on APKs and other methods does make the MatePad 12 X only viable for those who are willing to go the extra mile.

Personally, once I was over that hurdle, the tablet revealed its true capabilities, which makes the situation all the more frustrating. For drawing, the tablet comes preloaded with GoPaint and M-Pencil Zone. Their interfaces felt similar to Procreate, and I was blown away by the feel of using those apps on  this tablet. The high refresh rate, low latency drawing with the added PaperMatte texture made for a very satisfying drawing experience. To HUAWEI’s credit, there is also a large selection of different drawing apps to pick from on its own AppGallery, including the familiar Sketchbook. I wish I was better at drawing to be able to truly test the capabilities in this realm, because I think better artists would be impressed. That said, those same artists may be reluctant to switch their portfolios to entirely new apps rather than use the ones they are already familiar with from the Play Store.

Should you consider buying the MatePad 12 X 2025?

At £599, the MatePad 12 X tries to hit a sweet spot for students, freelancers, and other creative professionals that don’t want to spend Galaxy Tab S or iPad Pro money. If you’re any of those people, you’d know that a device is only as good as the software it runs. HUAWEI’s Android-based version of Harmony OS is designed for a market of people who don’t rely on commonly used apps in the West. And while there’s long been the promise of an Android-less platform in Harmony OS Next from HUAWEI, that rollout has yet to extend to all global markets.

Of course, even if Harmony OS Next does roll out globally, it’ll still mean that developers will have to individually commit to making their apps supported, leading to further app choice restrictions, which is already the biggest pain point of using the device. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the drawing experience on the MatePad 12 X is fantastic, and I love how impressive it was for outdoor usage thanks to the matte display. The hardware this tablet packs at this price is great if you value the included keyboard and the unique display, but ultimately, you’ll need to decide if you can stomach the cost of time spent making your favorite apps work or moving to entirely new ones.