HUAWEI MatePad Air (2026) Review – Thin, Light, and Surprisingly Powerful » YugaTech

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Today’s tablets have increasingly blurred the line between being an oversized smartphone and a laptop, and the HUAWEI MatePad Air (2026) is clearly designed with the latter in mind.

It comes with a large 12-inch OLED display, a 5.3mm-thin body, a chiclet-style keyboard, M-Pencil Pro, and a mouse. HUAWEI is also putting a lot of emphasis on AI-powered productivity, with features built into HUAWEI Notes and WPS Office.

On paper, it sounds like a tablet trying to do everything. And after spending time with it, we think the more interesting question is whether it can actually replace a laptop for certain types of users.

Let’s get into it.

Design and Build

The MatePad Air immediately makes an impression with its size and thinness.

At just 5.3mm thick and weighing in at 509g, this is a surprisingly easy tablet to carry around despite having a relatively large 12-inch display. The thin profile also gives it a sleek appearance, while the curved edges make it comfortable to hold.

The Airy Blue finish on our unit gives the tablet a more distinctive look without being overly flashy. HUAWEI also offers White and Sakura Pink variants.

Despite being so thin, the MatePad Air doesn’t feel fragile. HUAWEI says it uses a high-strength structural architecture designed to maintain durability while keeping the chassis thin and it shows.

The camera module at the back follows HUAWEI’s Star Orbit design language, while the rest of the rear panel remains fairly clean.

The 12-inch form factor is also worth highlighting. It’s noticeably larger than the typical 10 or 11-inch tablet, which gives us more room for multitasking, drawing, editing, and working on documents.

Attach the Smart Magnetic Keyboard and the experience changes considerably.

The keyboard gives the MatePad Air a more conventional laptop-like setup, while the tablet and keyboard together weigh just 817g. That’s still light enough to comfortably carry around in a bag.

There’s much to love with the build and design of the MatePad Air. The display bezels are quite thin (4.69mm), it doesn’t feel like a toy, and its overall weight is great for portability even with the bundled accessories included.

Display, Multimedia and Biometrics

The MatePad Air’s display is arguably its strongest feature.

It sports a 12-inch 2.8K OLED panel with an exact resolution of 2800 x 1840. It also features up to a 144Hz refresh rate, P3 wide color gamut, a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and up to 1,200 nits of peak brightness.

But what makes this display different is the PaperMatte finish.

Rather than using a completely glossy surface, HUAWEI uses nanoscale etching to reduce glare and reflections. In actual use, this makes a noticeable difference when working near windows, under bright lights, or even outdoors under direct sunlight.

The matte surface also gives the M-Pencil Pro a little more resistance when writing. It doesn’t completely replicate writing on paper, but the additional friction makes handwriting and drawing feel a lot more natural compared to a glossy surface.

Colors are definitely vibrant thanks to the OLED panel, while the high contrast gives movies and other HDR content plenty of depth. The 144Hz refresh rate is another nice touch. Scrolling feels fluid, animations are smoother, and stylus input feels responsive.

The large display also makes multitasking more practical. Split-screen applications have enough space to remain useful instead of feeling cramped.

Audio is another strong point. The MatePad Air uses a six-speaker HUAWEI Sound system which sound phenomenal, and provides a surprisingly full soundstage for a tablet. It’s good for watching any sort of video content, listening to music, playing games, and joining video calls.

For biometrics, there’s no fingerprint sensor in sight, which is quite normal for tablets these days, but there is optical face unlock which we can use to unlock the tablet, locking apps, and encrypting files.

Cameras

The MatePad Air isn’t trying to replace your smartphone when it comes to photography, but it does come with reasonably capable cameras for a tablet.

There’s a 50MP rear camera and a 12MP front-facing camera.

The rear camera is useful for quick documentation, whether that’s scanning important paper work or photographing something that you want to work on later. We can even use it together with GoPaint, where we can import captured images and use them as part of a creative workflow.

The front camera is arguably more important here.

With a tablet this large, video calls are a major use case, and the 12MP camera is designed to provide a clear image for meetings and calls.

But like we always say, cameras aren’t the reason to buy any tablet. They’re good to have, but the display, accessories, and productivity features are much more important to the overall experience.

OS, Apps and UI

The MatePad Air runs on HUAWEI’s HarmonyOS 4.3 out of the box, with the interface designed around a combination of conventional tablet navigation and PC-like multitasking. And to be honest, it’s akin to a smooth modern-day global EMUI as seen from their smartphone releases this year.

The tablet supports Split Screen, Multi-Window, and Floating Windows, allowing us to run multiple applications simultaneously. It can also connect to external displays through wired or wireless projection.

This is where the larger display starts to make a lot of sense.

You can have a document open alongside a browser, keep a video call in a floating window, or use the tablet with the keyboard and mouse for a more conventional desktop-style workflow.

The app situation has also improved considerably.

We have easy access to all kinds of apps like Canva, CapCut, Filmora, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, Outlook, Google Drive, Dropbox, Notion, and Trello, alongside AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and DeepSeek.

Afterall, app availability remains one of the things you need to consider when buying any HUAWEI tablet. And it’s pretty much a non-issue here.

AI Features

AI is integrated into several parts of the MatePad Air experience.

HUAWEI Notes has AI-powered speech-to-text, handwriting enhancement, and AI Tutor features. Speech-to-text can transcribe recorded audio, while AI Tutor can help work through math problems step-by-step (which is definitely a big win for students.)

WPS AI takes a more productivity-focused approach.

It can summarize PDFs, help create and edit documents, generate presentations, and analyze spreadsheet data.

These are much more useful applications of AI than simply having a chatbot built into the operating system. If you’re regularly dealing with long documents, presentations, notes, or spreadsheets, these tools can potentially save quite a bit of time.

There’s also GoPaint, HUAWEI’s own drawing application, which supports a wide selection of brushes, frame-by-frame animation, and AI-powered color palette extraction.

The biggest limitation is that some of these AI features are tied to specific applications, so the overall experience depends heavily on the software you actually use.

Performance and Benchmarks

The MatePad Air is powered by HUAWEI’s Kirin T93C processor, paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It’s also worth mentioning that it does come with an additional 8GB of virtual memory set by default.

In synthetic benchmarks, the tablet produced the following results:

One thing worth pointing out is the AnTuTu V11 result. The overall score of 1,018,907 doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story because the GPU portion of our AnTuTu run returned a 0 score. This obviously has a significant impact on the final total.

We also weren’t able to complete the Geekbench 7 OpenCL test, while the Vulkan test did run and returned 4,149.

Taken together, this suggests there may be some GPU/API compatibility issue affecting certain benchmark workloads on the MatePad Air. I wouldn’t interpret the 0 GPU result as meaning the tablet has no usable GPU performance, especially given its actual gaming performance.

And that brings us to real-world use.

For Genshin Impact, the MatePad Air was able to run the game comfortably at the Highest graphics preset with the frame rate manually set to 60 FPS. Even during fights involving larger groups of enemies, performance remained playable and generally smooth.

We also tried something heavier with Neverness to Everness (NTE). At the Extreme graphics preset with the frame rate set to 60 FPS, the game remained quite playable with some noticeable frame drops during fights. However, for a more consistently optimal experience, dropping to the Balanced preset is the better choice.

This is actually a good example of why benchmark scores shouldn’t be taken in isolation. Despite the unusual AnTuTu GPU result and the unavailable OpenCL test, the MatePad Air is clearly capable of handling demanding games at respectable settings.

For everyday productivity, the performance is more than adequate. Apps open quickly, multitasking is smooth, and the tablet can comfortably handle a combination of office applications, browsers, media, and creative software.

Accessories

The MatePad Air makes a particularly strong case for itself when you look at the accessories that come with the complete package.

The Smart Magnetic Keyboard turns the tablet into a laptop-style workstation. It connects magnetically, and the great viewing angles from its display make it practical for desk work, writing, and presentations.

Then there’s the HUAWEI M-Pencil Pro.

It connects using NearLink and supports low-latency input, tactile feedback, gesture controls, and brush rotation. It also has a particularly useful Air Mouse function that lets you control presentations remotely and use a virtual laser pointer.

For artists and people who take handwritten notes, the PaperMatte display and M-Pencil Pro combination is one of the strongest parts of the package.

Finally, the NearLink Mouse completes the PC-like setup. But of course, any BT mouse would work well too.

With all four pieces, the tablet, keyboard, M-Pencil Pro, and mouse, the HUAWEI MatePad Air feels much more like a portable workstation than a tablet with optional accessories.

All these accessories come bundled in for pre-order worth approximately PHP 33,886, again that’s the keyboard, M-Pencil Pro, and mouse included, as well as a bag and one year worth of WPS AI membership.

That’s an important part of the value proposition because buying a premium tablet is only half the equation if you intend to use it as a laptop replacement.

Battery Life

The MatePad Air has a sizeable 10,100mAh battery and supports 66W HUAWEI SuperCharge. HUAWEI rates it for up to 10 hours of online video playback and up to eight hours of online meetings.

In our PCMark Work 3.1 battery test, the MatePad Air lasted 14 hours and 35 minutes.Which is a very good result for a tablet designed around productivity.

Of course, actual battery life will vary considerably depending on what you’re doing. Gaming and sustained creative workloads will consume considerably more power than reading documents or browsing the web.

Still, the combination of a large battery and 66W charging makes the MatePad Air a device that can comfortably handle a full day of mixed use.

Connectivity

For wireless connectivity, the MatePad Air supports Wi-Fi 7, giving it access to the latest generation of Wi-Fi connectivity for faster and more reliable wireless networking when paired with compatible equipment.

It also supports wired and wireless display projection, which adds another layer of flexibility if you’re using it as a portable workstation or presentation device.

NearLink is used for the keyboard, mouse, and M-Pencil Pro, allowing the accessories to work without the clutter of traditional wired connections.

There’s also Bluetooth 6 with support for BLE, SBC, AAC, LDAC and L2HC, and it’s USB Type-C port is a 3.1 gen 1.

Conclusion

The HUAWEI MatePad Air (2026) is an interesting tablet because its biggest strength isn’t really one particular feature. It’s how everything comes together.

The 12-inch 2.8K OLED PaperMatte display is excellent for both entertainment and productivity. It’s form-factor and weight make it remarkably portable. Add the Smart Magnetic Keyboard, M-Pencil Pro, and mouse, and it becomes a genuinely capable lightweight workstation.

The PaperMatte display is probably our favorite part of the tablet. The reduced reflections are genuinely useful in everyday situations, while the added friction makes writing with the M-Pencil Pro very comfortable.

Performance is also better than the benchmark numbers might initially suggest. The unusual AnTuTu GPU result and failed OpenCL test make the synthetic results difficult to interpret, but actual gaming tells a different story.

The software is similarly impressive in terms of productivity. HarmonyOS’ multitasking features, HUAWEI Notes, WPS, GoPaint, and the various AI tools give the MatePad Air plenty to work with.

There are still reasons to choose a traditional laptop over this tablet, like needing specialized desktop-only available software and applications.

But if your workflow revolves around juggling between documents, presentations, meetings, and web research. The HUAWEI MatePad Air is more than good enough; With a bonus for handwritten note-taking, digital illustrations, great sounding media consumption, and even solving math problems!

What we LIKED:

• Design and construction
• Real-world performance
• Display
• M-Pencil Pro support
• Sound quality

What we DIDN’T Like:

HUAWEI MatePad Air (2026) specs:

12-inch OLED PaperMatte display

2800 x 1840 pixels, 275ppi

144Hz refresh rate

1,200 nits peak brightness

P3 wide color gamut

92% screen-to-body ratio

Kirin T93C chipset

Maleoon 920A GPU

8GB RAM (+8GB virtual RAM)

256GB storage

50MP f/1.8 rear camera, AF, LED flash

12MP f/2.4 front-facing camera

Six-speaker HUAWEI SOUND system

2x microphones

HarmonyOS 4.3

Wi-Fi 7

Bluetooth 6.0

NearLink

USB Type-C 3.1 Gen 1

10,100mAh battery

66W HUAWEI SuperCharge

182.9 x 271.6 x 5.3mm (dimensions)

509g (weight)

Airy Blue, White, Sakura Pink (colors)

HUAWEI Smart Magnetic Keyboard support

HUAWEI M-Pencil Pro support

Mouse support (Nearlink/BT)

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