Huawei MatePad 10.4 (2022) review

Once a company that bested the likes of Apple and Samsung, HUAWEI is now left licking its wounds and planning a recovery of some sort. It has been years since the political situation around the brand has rocked the entire mobile world, and now the company seems to be standing stable on its feet once again.

A cornerstone of HUAWEI’s road to recovery is its HarmonyOS. It focuses on being suitable for every piece of hardware imaginable. Regardless of how cumbersome this would be for developers, we want to see what it looks like when used on daily basis. Thankfully, the 2022 version of the Matepad 10.4 is now using it.

See, HUAWEI pulled a sneaky on all of us by releasing two devices with almost identical names, almost simultaneously. The first one is the 2022 model, while the other is the updated version of the 2020 model (the one we have here).

The main difference here is with the chipset, as the 2022 version features a 7nm Kirin 820, while the 2020 (2022 edition) features the 14nm Kirin 710A SoC, which should be less powerful than the Kirin 810 inside of the OG 2020 version. If you think it’s confusing, then that makes two of us. Do you want to be even more confused? The 2022 2020 version has a 13MP back camera, while the real 2022 version (the one with the better SoC) only has an 8MP one. And the Kirin 710A SoC is slightly more affordable than the other one, albeit featuring a denser camera sensor, but featuring the visually the same body.

Furthermore, HUAWEI is kind enough to provide a keyboard case with your tablet, which casually makes it suitable for a laptop replacement. Even though its price tag is budget-friendly, the device comes with a 10.4-inch (hence the name) IPS panel with a 1200×2000 resolution, and a 60Hz refresh rate.

You can check the current price of HUAWEI Matepad 10.4 here: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)

Contents


Specs Sheet

HUAWEI Matepad 10.4 (2020)
Dimensions245.2 x 155 x 7.5mm / 460 g
Display10.4-inch 1200×2000 60Hz IPS LCD
SoCKirin 820 5G (7nm)
Configurations64GB 4GB RAM, 128GB 4GB RAM
CameraBack – 8 MP (1080p@30fps); Front – 8 MP (1080p@30fps)
SoftwareHarmonyOS 2
BatteryLi-Po 7250 mAh, 22.5W fast charging
FeaturesQuad-stereo speaker, accelerometer, proximity, compass, 4G LTE (optional), GPS

What’s in the box?

Well, inside the package, you will find the tablet itself, the keyboard case, a USB Type-A to USB Type-C cable, and a 22.5W “fast” charger. The maximum output it supports is 2.25A at 10V.

Design and construction

Owning an inexpensive product doesn’t mean that you will have poor build quality. Not anymore! The Matepad 10.4 (2020) features an aluminum frame and aluminum back, which makes it feel cool to the touch. With that said, the device doesn’t really feel super sturdy, and we would take care not to sit on it.

Probably the main reason for that is the fact that it weighs only 460 grams, while its profile is 7.5mm thick. Respectively a glass sheet covers the display and offers some protection against scratches. While there, you will find medium-sized bezels all around the display with the corners being rounded – something that looks cool but is not really useful, as it takes up some space of the display.

As you can see, the top bezel houses a camera, which has an 8 MP resolution and can shoot 1080p videos at 30 fps. The back is complemented by a 13 MP sensor, which features autofocus, and an LED flash.

Its button duo is placed in the top left corner – the power button on the side, while the volume rocker up top. Not on the last place, there is a USB Type-C port used for charging, and not one but four stereo speakers, supposedly powered by Harman/Kardon.

Now, here comes the fun part. As we said, this tablet comes with its own keyboard case. It has a nice faux-leather finish and comes with magnets that keep the tablet in place when you put it in an upright position.

The keyboard element is pretty satisfying to use, especially compared to the capacitive touchscreen compromise. Furthermore, it has a USB Type-C connector, supposedly meant for charging and using while it has no battery. There is also a switch, which turns the Bluetooth On/Off.

Software

HUAWEI offers most of its devices with the HarmonyOS 2.0. It is very reminiscent of Android, and rightfully so – it is based on it. It even operates with .apk files, which can be installed via the clever AppGallery. Additionally, there are plenty of customization options, as expected, and it does support a multi-window setup, which is neat.



Battery

We tested the battery life with 3DMark’s Wild Life stress test, whilst setting the screen brightness to 120 nits. This device comes with a 7250mAh battery, which drained by 4% during the 20-minute test. This equals about 8 hours and 20 minutes of gaming, which is a very solid result.

CPU tests

The 2022 Matepad 10.4 (2020) comes with HUAWEI’s own Kirin 710A, built on a 14nm process. It uses four Cortex-A73 cores working at 2.00 GHz, as well as four Cortex-A53 cores, running at 1.70 GHz. Of course, we are talking about an ARM big.LITTLE architecture.

CPU Benchmarkssingle/multi Geekbench 5PCMark Work 3Octane V2Mozilla Kraken 1.1 (lower is better)
HUAWEI Matepad 10.4 (2022)302/1314639595434012.7 ms
Lenovo Yoga Tab 11511/16348404146933143.7 ms
Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE658/19578828195172001.2 ms
HUAWEI MatePad Pro756/2918214792288 ms
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6747/2709236852171 ms
Samsung Galaxy Tab S7972/3000273391972 ms

GPU tests

Respectively, the GPU integrated into the SoC is the Mali-G57 with 6 graphics cores.

GPU Benchmarks3DMark Slingshot (Graphics score)3DMark Wildlife ExtremeGFXBench Manhattan 3.0 (1080p offscreen)GFXBench Manhattan 3.1 (1080p offscreen)GFXBench Aztec Ruins OpenGL (1080p offscreen)
HUAWEI Matepad 10.4 (2022)136015221158
Lenovo Yoga Tab 113362
Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE385644 fps32 fps22 fps
HUAWEI MateBook Pro430195 fps72 fps47 fps
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6917696 fps69 fps42 fps
Samsung Galaxy Tab S713520140 fps97 fps59 fps

Storage

We bought ourselves the 128GB version of this tablet, but it didn’t really impress with its storage speeds. The scores were 464.28 MB/s Read and 96.83 MB/s Write. On the other hand, you get a MicroSD card slot, located at the bottom of the machine.

Stress test stability

It’s not like we didn’t expect to see that, but it’s good to see that virtually no thermal throttling happens in place of the Matepad 10.4 (2022). The stability score is 99.3% with the temperature of the SoC increasing from 23°C to 30°C. Furthermore, the IR image reveals the exact location of the chip inside. The hotspot sits at about 31°C, which is really cool in terms of mobile hardware.


Verdict

My mind literally exploded by the mixed information found everywhere on the Web. We, at LaptopMedia, did everything in our power to find the most accurate information about this tablet, but we can’t give you a 100% guarantee about its full legitimacy. And we highly doubt anyone can. What we can say for sure is that the chip inside of our tablet is the 14nm Kirin 710A, and the back camera has a 13MP resolution, which means we are (or should be) talking about the 2022 update of 2020 MatePad 10.4.

In a nutshell, the discrepancy of information is a big Red flag for us, and we wouldn’t recommend going for this device. However, let’s imagine we’re living in a world without any external sources of information, focusing only on what we have on our hands, and basing our thoughts solely on our test results and experience.

For starters, the Kirin 710A is not a fast chip. In fact, it is below the mid-range, which puts it on the back foot against the Lenovo Yoga Tab 11. You can play games and watch high-quality videos, but you have to keep in mind that graphically-intensive titles will either lag or be unplayable at anything other than low settings.

In addition to that, the HarmonyOS is still in its infancy. It is a bit buggy, and we often found ourselves waiting for an animation to execute before we press, otherwise the tablet won’t register our input. This is not a huge issue, as the “waiting” is not longer than half a second, but it can be annoying if you want to do something on the fly.

On the other hand, we were pleasantly surprised by the battery life. Theoretically, the tablet should last more than 8 hours of gaming before it asks for a top-up. Furthermore, there is basically no throttling taking place. Also, the display offers some options that can make reading an eBook a better experience, while the speakers are the absolute best thing about the Matepad 10.4 (2020).

Indeed the keyboard is really useful, but the fact that it connects via BlueTooth makes it a bit clumsy. We found that it tends to drop connection when you pair a set of wireless headphones to it, which is really annoying.

At the end of the day, the Matepad 10.4 (2020) 2022 edition, or whatever it’s called is an unfinished product that we honestly don’t really understand why exists. Spare yourselves the hassle and get a Yoga Tab 11 for roughly the same money.

You can check the current price of HUAWEI Matepad 10.4 here: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)

Pros

  • Affordable
  • Decent speakers
  • MicroSD card slot
  • Cool and stable
  • Great battery life
  • Usable kickstand

Cons

  • Slow Kirin 710A SoC
  • 60Hz IPS panel
  • HarmonyOS is clumsy and unpolished
  • Big confusion around the specs

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