PAD BOON RISING Huawei Matepad Pro 12.6

Tablets masquerading as laptops continue to be a thing – and they’re getting good at it. To be honest, we’ve not spoken to any laptops to find out if they feel threatened, or asked any normal tabs if they’re getting an inferiority complex, but one look at the latest Huawei Matepad Pro hybrid and we wouldn’t blame them.

Running the company’s rapidly evolving Harmonyos, the 12.6in model (there’s also a 10.8in version) comes with a 2560x1600 OLED screen – and yes, once you snap on the optional Smart Magnetic Keyboard, it certainly looks a lot like a laptop. There’s no ‘Intel inside’ here, of course, and you know Apple ain’t sharing its M1 chip with anyone, but Huawei’s own Kirin 9000E processor promises more than enough power. In fact we’ve already had a play, and some of the best bits include a powerful eight-speaker array that sounds great, slim screen surrounds that minimise bulk, and battery life of up to 14 hours. It’s plastic, not aluminium or glass… but if you’re really trying to be a laptop, perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.

As hot as… the fury of a thousand humiliated laptops €799 (est) / consumer.huawei.com