Huawei MatePad Pro 11 (2022) review

Beautiful 120Hz OLED display

The MatePad Pro 11 is equipped with an 11-inch OLED display with a 2,560x1,600px resolution in a 16:10 aspect ratio (the pixel density works out to 274ppi). It's a step up from the similarly-sized Pro 10.8 from last year - not so much in size as it is in technology, as the outgoing model had an LCD. The Pro 11 then joins the Pro 12.6, making them the only two OLED tablets in Huawei's lineup.

It's a 120Hz panel, too, so you get to have smooth scrolling, while the 1440Hz PWM should make flickering at lower brightness levels generally undetectable by even the most discerning eyes.

Speaking of brightness, the MatePad Pro 11 is one of the brightest tablets we've seen - under bright ambient light and with the adaptive brightness toggle switched on, we measured 591nits, 100nits and change more than the Galaxy Tab S7+. When adjusting manually, we got 409nits at the rightmost end of the slider, which is more or less par for the course.

Color reproduction is remarkably accurate on the MatePad Pro 11 in the default 'Normal' mode, where we tested for sRGB accuracy - the faintest of blue shifts in the grayscale swatches can be removed by fiddling with the color temperature wheel. The 'Vivid' mode isn't as spot-on, but it is more vibrant, as expected.

The high frame rate implementation is such that it will give you 120Hz across the UI, regardless of whether you're interacting with the tablet or not, and that's what it will do in certain in-house apps like the gallery or the... AppGallery. The in-house browser is capped at 60Hz, however. Video-related apps are also limited to 60Hz. Of course, if you'd like to limit the refresh rate to 60Hz across the board, you get that option in settings.

Huawei MatePad Pro 11 battery life

The MatePad Pro 11 is powered by an 8,300mAh battery - a reasonable capacity given the rest of the hardware and possibly the most that would have fit in the thickness and weight constraints. We clocked just over 11 hours of looping videos on the MatePad, and the tablet was good for 9:36h on our Wi-Fi web browsing script. Both tests were carried out with the display running at 60Hz. The MatePad Pro 11 defaults to that refresh rate for both tasks.

Do note that the above endurance numbers apply to the cellular-enabled version of the MatePad Pro 11 with the Snapdragon 888 - the Wi-Fi-only Snapdragon 870 variant may or may not be more frugal.

Charging speed

Tablets that charge fast are anything but common, so it's nice when we stumble upon one. The MatePad Pro 11 took just 1:15 for a full charge from flat and was at 40% at the half-hour mark. That's when using the included 40W adapter, which in practice peaked at just under 30W.

We had a 66W Huawei adapter lying around, and with that one, the tablet reached up to 55W of peak power transfer. A full charge with that one took 1:05h, and the battery indicator showed 61% 30 minutes into it.

30min charging test (from 0%)

Higher is better

• Huawei MatePad Pro 11 (2022)
  61%
• Huawei MatePad Pro 11 (2022)
  40%
• Huawei MatePad 11
  36%
• Honor Pad 8
  35%
• Huawei MatePad Pro 12.6
  33%
• Realme Pad X
  30%
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  27%
• Xiaomi Redmi Pad
  25%
• Oppo Pad Air
  25%
• Apple iPad 10.2 (2021)
  24%
• Realme Pad
  23%

Time to full charge (from 0%)

Lower is better

• Huawei MatePad Pro 11 (2022)
  1:05h
• Huawei MatePad Pro 11 (2022)
  1:15h
• Huawei MatePad 11
  1:50h
• Honor Pad 8
  1:57h
• Realme Pad X
  2:00h
• Xiaomi Pad 5
  2:00h
• Huawei MatePad Pro 12.6
  2:10h
• Xiaomi Redmi Pad
  2:21h
• Oppo Pad Air
  2:25h
• Apple iPad 10.2 (2021)
  2:45h
• Realme Pad
  2:55h

You can also use the MatePad to supply power to other devices - it has reverse charging capability.

Speaker test

The MatePad Pro 11 has a 6-speaker system with 4 woofers and 2 tweeters. That sounds like a downgrade from the 8-speaker setup of the Pro 12.6, but it's still two more than the Pro 10.8. It also boasts something that's called 'Huawei Sound', which the official specs don't elaborate on, and we didn't find it mentioned anywhere in the UI either - just on the box.

MatePad Pro 11 speakers

The MatePad Pro 11 earned a 'Very Good' score for loudness in our test - on par with the Pro 12.6 and a notch below tha MatePad 11 (non-Pro) from last year. The latest MatePad does sound better to our ears than the larger Pro, at least in the controlled environment of our testing rig and with the set of 7 tracks we have. The MatePad 11, meanwhile, is a bit boomier at the low end, but not necessarily in a good way. Overall, it's a great-sounding speaker setup on the MatePad Pro 11.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.