The new normal is usually referred to as wearing a mask and following the SOPs like scanning before you enter anywhere, hand sanitizing, and you know the rest…
BUT there is another “new normal” which is something that all of us have ALSO been very much used to for the past 2 years or so, which is the term “Work From Home” or WFH.
So with that, if you think it is time for you to upgrade from your super jaded screen tablet and your dusty old laptop, well, the good news is that HUAWEI has just released not one but TWO devices to make your WFH situation extremely satisfying!
HUAWEI MatePad 11
Firstly, let’s look at HUAWEI’s brand new tablet, the HUAWEI MatePad 11, and what I personally like about it.
Display
So remember I said about how you should upgrade from your old jaded screen tablet, well, the HUAWEI MatePad 11 comes with an extremely smooth 120-hertz refresh rate and a great 10.95-inch HUAWEI FullView Display.
With this, you will experience very fluid navigation whether or not it’s webpage browsing, multitasking, zooming in or out various content, even if you want to play videos or even games as well.
What’s extra sweet is that since it has a 86% screen-to-body ratio with slim bezels. You will have a very consistent and immersive viewing experience, especially with the DCI P3 color gamut.
And if you are bound to hours and hours of working, staring at your tablet, the good news is that it also has Double TUV Rheinland certified with Low Blue and Flicker-Free hardware technology, making it easier on your eyes, thus not causing any eye fatigue or damaging your eyes.
So yes, the screen of the tablet is surely one of the first cool factors about the MatePad 11.
M-Pencil 2
Next, as I have highlighted on my MatePad Pro video previously, the HUAWEI M-Pencil 2nd Gen, which is surely a Godsend to make your life easier using it together with this MatePad 11 as well.
So previously, I have mentioned that the MatePad Pro 2021 comes with the new M-Pencil 2, well now, the Matepad 11 also uses the same M-Pencil 2 which is now even better on the Matepad 11, with an extremely low lag of ONLY 2 milliseconds, and has 4096 pressure and tilt sensitivity as well.
So with that, I can’t stress enough how extremely flawless the writing and drawing experience is when using the M-Pencil 2 on the MatePad 11 (although I totally am horrible at drawing…)
Additional features such as the Double Tap to Switch tool are really handy to quickly switch between drawing to writing mode to eraser mode.
And to further enhance the overall experience, this the HUAWEI FreeScript that allows to input text, in any text field for a smoother and natural input experience, not forgetting the built-in shortcuts, to make handwriting input EVEN MORE convenient such as:-
- drawing a horizontal line on a text to select a text,
- drawing a wavy line to delete a text, and;
- drawing a vertical line to add or delete space between characters.
So this proves that THIS M-Pencil is not just your “regular” writing tool!
Then finally, speaking of writing or drawing, other than writing notes on apps such as WPS Office or OneNote. Using these apps with M-Pencil and the keyboard, it is just like a PC to me.
The features on the M-Pencil like Instant Shape and Instant Table are extremely handy for situations where you want to create a quick shape or table!
Battery
So wouldn’t it totally suck if your tablet had a poor battery life? Well based on my usage, I found that the battery life on the MatePad 11 to be really impressive, I got an average of 12 hours and sometimes even more, during my usage daily just from a single charge, making it super handy to charge your tablet from “work mode” to just sitting back on your sofa and watching videos for a quick break and then going back to work.
Audio
Now if you are like me who prefers to watch content on tablets without using headphones and just listening to the tablet’s speakers alone, here is where you will appreciate the speakers coming from the MatePad 11 as well.
The MatePad 11 comes with a quad-channel large-amplitude quad-speaker system, together with the very much improved Histen 7.0 that gives better overall volume and especially on the low-end frequencies of the bass.
And since the overall audio is tuned by the great guys at Harman Kardon, as an audiophile and musician, I could really tell that there was a lot that went into tuning the sound.
Next, to further enhance the audio department, I also found that the microphones on the tablet to be also really great too with the “new normal” of having virtually EVERYTHING.
With 4 microphones in total, 3 along the sides and one smartly placed at the rear camera module, the overall noise reduction, and echo cancellation feature was very handy for online classes or online meetings as well.
Specs
And finally, for you, specs nerds out there, the MatePad 11 comes with a Snapdragon 865 Chipset, yeap! The very first on a HUAWEI device with the Adreno 650 GPU, 6 gigabytes of RAM, and two choices of storage; 128 gigabytes or 256 gigabytes of storage which both can be expanded to 1 Terabyte via the microSD card slot.
Then as for the software, it comes with Huawei’s own HarmonyOS 2.
Cameras
Then as for the cameras, it has a rear 13-megapixel f 1.8 aperture lens and the front camera comes with an 8-megapixel f 2.0 lens.
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And for those of you who do not have a PC and want to get a PC-like experience, you can connect a mouse and also the magnetic keyboard, to have a similar workflow.
Especially since you can download all your favorite desktop apps such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel and Word or even download games which are all available in the HUAWEI AppGallery as well.
HUAWEI MateBook D15
So if you are a little “old school” or just prefer to have a laptop experience, well here is where I’d advise you all to look into the new HUAWEI MateBook D15, and here are my personal favourite features.
Build Quality
Starting with the build quality and the design, it’s truly aesthetically pleasing, as you guys can see that it truly cuts away from any unnecessary bulk on the laptop.
It is at ONLY 1.56kg light and 16.9mm thin, so whether or not you place this on your lap or simply carrying it around, you will find the durable alloy slim body to be very handy.
Ports
Then looking at the IOs or the ports available, the MateBook D15 has quite an impressive array of ports, so you don’t need to live a “dongle life” where you will find the 2-in-1 3.5 mm earphones and microphones jack, a USB-C port, 1 HDMI port, 2 USB 2.0 Ports and 1 USB 3.2 Gen 1 port.
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So again, it is nice that even though it comes with this really aesthetically designed laptop, it doesn’t compromise on the really necessary ports for you students or if you are team “Work From Home”.
Performance
Next, diving straight to the performance of the laptop, it consists of the variants of the 10th Gen Intel Core Processor or the 11th Gen Intel Core Processor with four-cores, eight-thread CPU giving you great processing power alone for your regular work.
Coupled with an option of 8GB of RAM and 512GB NVMe SSD storage, it is surely great for simple video editing or casual gaming, with the Intel Iris Xe Graphics as well.
What’s extra sweet is that there never came a point of time where the bottom of the laptop became extremely hot to the touch, since it has HUAWEI’s Shark Fin Fan and a total of TWO heat pipes, which is great to know especially with this kind of form factor as mentioned earlier.
Display
Now like the MatePad 11, a really nice screen is surely a huge MUST, right? Well, fret not my friends because the MateBook D15 comes with a 15.6-inch FHD IPS display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, with anti-glare properties.
And like the MatePad 11, it also has Double TUV Rheinland certified with Low Blue and Flicker-Free, making it easier on your eyes once again during long usage.
The bezels on this are also pretty narrow as well at 5.3mm with a high 87% screen-to-body ratio, making the overall screen real estate to be nice and wide especially with the 16:9 aspect ratio as well. So yes, the laptop could also “convert” from being your workhorse to a great video content consumption machine, especially with the great audio experience.
Tablet PC Collaboration
Okie, so what if you feel like you want to “marry” these two devices together and let the devices work in tandem then?
Well, as you might or might not know, the HUAWEI Ecosystem allows you to do that.
Now in addition to the Multiscreen Collaboration between your smartphone and the tablet, this new MatePad 11 supports a Tablet-PC Multiscreen Collaboration, which as the name suggests, will allow you to connect the MatePad 11 and the MateBook D15 wirelessly.
There are 3 modes available for the Tablet PC Multi-screen collaboration:
Firstly, there is the Mirror Mode. In this mode, the screen of the MateBook D15 will be mirrored to the tablet, showing you the EXACT content.
And this also means that it will “convert” the MatePad 11 into a digital drawing pad, together with the 2nd generation M Pencil as mentioned earlier making it great for signing documents, adding comments on documents accordingly, and many more.
The second mode is called the Extend Mode, and here is when the MatePad 11 serves as an additional or a secondary display for the MateBook D15, to obviously create more space to display your content.
So this personally for me is one of the frequently used modes when I do simple video editing or writing my scripts to have the information on the other screen while typing on another.
And the other “idea” that you could use this mode is to watch a video podcast on one device and the other to either browse or take notes.
Then finally, there is the Collaborate Mode. So remember the days when you needed to either email yourself a photo or a document in order to use it on your other device or copying files on a thumb drive and then taking it and inserting it on your second device? Well, guys, I am here to tell you that those days are GONE!
Because with this Collaborate Mode, you can simply drag and drop files such as images, videos, documents, and more, in this mode.
This is super straightforward and of course, saves tons of time compared to doing it in the “traditional” method as mentioned earlier.
Conclusion
Alright guys, so those are my personal favorite things about the HUAWEI MatePad 11 and the HUAWEI MateBook D15.
The existence of these two devices will surely be a great way to boost your overall productivity, efficiency, and your overall daily task, especially with the new normal of a Work From Home situation.
So depending on your budget, you MIGHT consider getting both as mentioned because the HUAWEI MatePad11’s pricing start from RM1,999 and the MateBookD15’s pricing start from RM2,999 and it is available from the 27th of July, which I will leave links down below for you guys to get it.
And with this, I would love to know what are your favorite features out of all that I have mentioned, do comment down below, also please let me know which one of these are you all considering getting as well? The MatePad 11? The MateBook D15? or….BOTH??
Aside from that, thank you so much for reading. My name is Adam Lobo and I will catch you guys in my next review!
