Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 review

Large OLED, 144Hz

The Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 packs a 13.2-inch OLED with 3:2 aspect ratio and 2,880 x 1,920 pixels or 262ppi. It supports 144Hz refresh rate, 10-bit color depth, HDR10, and up to 1,000 nits of peak brightness.

The screen covers the DCI-P3 color gamut and has a thing but long notch, obviously.

We have completed our display test and the measurements are great. We captured 626 nits of maximum brightness when using manual control and 770 nits in auto mode. This is probably one of the brightest screens on a tablet we've seen.

The minimum brightness at point white was just 2.1 nits!

Color accuracy

The MatePad 13.2 Pro display supports DCI-P3 and sRGB color spaces. The display color options offer two different color models - Normal (default, sRGB) and Vivid (DCI-P3), You can fine-tune the color temperature for each mode.

The Natural option reproduces sRGB incredibly faithfully. Vivid is fairly accurate towards DCI-P3 targets except for the slightly bluish-white and gray hues.

There is also Natural tone option - when enabled the screen will calibrate its colors depending on ambient light.

Refresh rate

The Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 offers four refresh rate options - Standard (60Hz), Medium (120Hz), High (144Hz), and Dynamic (auto switch with up to 144Hz).

Colors • Refresh

Unfortunately, the integrated refresh rate counter which is part of the Android API (corresponding to Android 12) showed only 60Hz in Standard and 120Hz for the rest. This has happened before and that is why we cannot confirm if the screen refresh rate is a dynamic one or not.

We suspect that the integrated Android counter may have been wrong because it's part of an older Android version.

HDR and streaming

The MatePad Pro 13.2 supports HDR10 video and it has Widevine L1 DRM support.

We were able to get FullHD streams in Netflix but not HDR. However, YouTube will play back videos up to 4K@60fps HDR.

Netflix via Gbox • Netflix • YouTube

Battery life

The Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 is powered by a 10,100 mAh battery split in two halves so it can recharge faster. It seems enough capacity for such a large tablet.

As you might already know, we recently retired our original Endurance rating battery test and have now moved on to our new GSMArena Battery test 2.0 and the so-called Active Use Score. In the case of a Wi-Fi only tablet, the call runtime is tested over WhatsApp.

The MatePad Pro 13.2 scored a below average 8 hours and 15 minutes of active use score.

While the tablet offers over a day of Wi-Fi calls and over 9 hours of video gaming, it did poorly on the web browser test (about 6 hours) and the game one (abou6 and a half hours). Sure, this is a huge screen to power up, but we expected a bit more, at least on the browser test.

Charging speed

The Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 supports Huawei's 88W SuperCharge. The retail bundle contains the new 88W power adapter and a proprietary 6A-rated USB-A-to-C cable.

The 88W charger comes with two USB ports - A and C. This way, you can use this adapter on laptops and tablets, not only on smartphones. Note that you cannot use both ports simultaneously.

The MatePad Pro 13.2 uses the maximum 88W charge for a longer period only with the Turbo mode active. You won't find a toggle for the Turbo charging mode anywhere in Settings. The only way to enable that is to tap and hold on the charging bubble - something that's far from obvious. Don't you worry though, as the difference between Turbo and non-Turbo is usually minor.

Battery options • Turbo Charging

Huawei promises 85% of charge in 40 mins.

We started out test with an empty battery and we got 35% of charge in 15 mins, 64% in 30 mins and 85% in 45 mins. A full charge took 70 mins, which is incredibly fast for a tablet!

Like many other devices, the MatePad Pro supports Smart Charge, which drops the charging speed once it reaches 80%. You can also choose the safety mark yourself if you prefer to avoid it being fixed at 80%.

Speakers

The MatePad Pro 13.2 uses a 6-speaker system with 4 woofers and 2 tweeters just like the MatePad Pro 11. It also features 'Huawei Sound', which the official specs don't elaborate on, but it should be great we suppose.

The MatePad Pro 13.2 scored an Excellent mark on our loudness test and indeed, it sounds incredibly loud even when the volume is at ab out 50%! Even better, its sound quality is brilliant - there is deep bass, great vocals, well-presented high range.

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.