Huawei MatePad 13.2 Review – Premium Tablet for Entertainment and Gaming

Tablets are growing once again due to the category’s profound expanded capabilities and could be even a viable replacement for laptops in some scenarios now. All thanks for being lighter than a laptop, with better touch functionality cause of their OS, and even an flexibility of having a physical keyboard when needed.

Enter the Huawei MatePad 13.2 this particular tablet taught our eye as early as December 2023, and honestly it’s been quite some time we’ve been amused with such as device with a combination of offerings and flexibility.

Flexible form factor

The kickstand of the Huawei MatePad 13.2 is more flexible compared to previous accessories / generations. The difference is just that the MatePad 13.2 is more of a magnet type clamping rather than having cover type case that snugs on the bezels, delivering more space to maneuver better for consumer benefit.

While still being 5.5mm thin and the magnetic kickstand is robust, the overall form factor is still light and less cumbersome. It’s definitely a step higher than previous tablets Huawei did like from the Papermatte edition and more.

Profound Entertainment Appearance (Display and Audio)

First and foremost, this is the biggest tablet yet of Huawei at 13.2 but still at the sleekest  with a fresh light green color one combined with its white detachable back stand and bluetooth keyboard.

The display is a flexible OLED at 2.8K resolution pops out its brightness and clarity that it can definitely invite you to watch movies and have a portable cinema on the go. Especially when you get to head the quad-speakers of this tablet, the volume can definitely pack a punch with distinct clarity and a bit of rumbling for that low frequency feel.

Particularly for my in my journey to Australlia, I was able to pre-download a lot of videos and was finally able to catch up with the last year’s hit Maria Clara at Ibarra. Though it was via noise cancelling headphones, the important factors was that the size was just exactly at the size of the tray table making it excellent to bring anywhere plus the 13.2″ OLED display is vibrant or low enough in brightness in the situations I need.

Gaming is King (Performance) 

Gaming outdoors in a garden while still the MatePad’s AMOLED display can tolerate the bright sun is one strong factor to use this tablet. Aside from the powerful Kirin 9000 is strong enough to do the highest settings in graphics in 60fps for Genshin Impact. Which is ideal and a premium experience for my opinion in playing the hit gatcha game.

Along with the strong quad Huawei speakers, its immersive indeed just be aware of that two of the speakers will be covered from time to time especially if you use your palms when navigating using the arrow menu at the left and skill controls at the right.

When you go indoors the MatePad 13.2 powerful to fill a small room good for even 2-3 people to hear the audio with strong clarity, so you don’t have to crank the volume to full everytime….unless you want to (hehehe).

On non gaming scenarios the Kirin 9000 processor can kick multi-tasking easily like my casual social media and email rounds while having a Disney+ or Netflix on the side as well. Though I have to emphasize that the MatePad 13.2 has a strong proposition in creativity, this isn’t our spectrum to cover as the writer or reviewer is more of a content consumer when using these devices.

Battery Life / Endurance

This tablet can take a beating when it comes to any task you throw at it, from socials, watching movies and even my casual Genshin Impact commission paths the MatePad 13.2 can tolerate a whole day of use. Watching 3 movies on this tablet just took 22% in the battery with decent brightness

Though I have to admit that I am not using the 88W charging brick all the time which can charge the tablet to full in just an hour. Instead I’m already satisfied to charge via the fast charge PD (Power Delivery) GaN chargers via 65W which can also. charge my other devices. It may be slower but in traveling its still nice to know that it can charge the tablet in less than 2 hours.

Some heads up

In 1 month using the Huawei MatePad 13.2 I just have two noticed factors that might affect your decision to purchase this tablet. No.1 would be the top priority and hopefully Huawei would be more than open to hear out my observation.

1. Given the inspector gadget style of the MatePad 13.2 for the bluetooth keyboard, when detaching it you will need some time to get used to that it doesn’t completely disconnects as the main connection is bluetooth. Hence if you fold or tuck away the keyboard to stow when not needed, you can still accidentally press some buttons. Hopefully there would be a sensor or option for Huawei to improve on that if the keyboard is detached (magnetically) there is an option to completely disconnect the keyboard when needed.

2. I’m a bit weirded that Huawei didn’t included an LTE modem for this tablet which kinda limited the mobility of this device compared to others at the same price point. But asking the officials from Huawei I eventually understood that the use of the Huawei MatePad 13.2 isn’t really more of on-the-go tablet but more of a laptop / entertainment centrice tablet where WiFi is more needed and preferred cause of the connection stability. Plus removing the LTE & 5G connectivity on a tablet is around 8k in price competitiveness making the SRP of the MatePad 13.2 very compelling compared to other tablets in its price point.

Conclusion – 

Entertainment and Gaming is just one spectrum where the Huawei MatePad 13.2 is simply a piece of cake to deliver. Our purpose of having a tablet is to make it dedicated in our leisure and disconnect from work and feed my needs with my weekly streaming needs or even my daily grind in Genshin Impact.

Of course this is just the tip of the ice berg when it comes to what the Huawei MatePad 13.2 can provide, for creative users the 3rd Generation M-Pencil is advance enough to be a creator’s companion tablet. But as per mention, we’re not honestly the target audience for this scenario, so the best

For the price of Php59,999 you can get the whole offering of the Huawei MatePad 13.2 and its avengers of accessories (Keyboard / Magnetic Stand / M-Pencil / FreeBuds Pro 2 / Bluetooth Mouse plus software subscription and a trade-in token worth Php33,894 when you purchase until Feb 29, 2024.

Update: Offer is still applicable even after Feb 29, 2024

The overall offering of the Huawei MatePad 13.2 is highly competitive even if you compare with other premium tablets like from the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9+.