Tablets often function as mobile mini cinemas. Not so Huawei’s E Ink tablet. He doesn’t like moving pictures and can only do black and white anyway. Because it is a specialist in reading and writing. 

Matepad Paper is Huawei ‘s new tablet with an e-ink screen, which is available now for 500 euros. The eye-friendly e-ink technology known from pure e-book readers offers an optical contrast that comes very close to real paper, can still be read well in full sunshine and only consumes power when the display content changes.
In addition to reading, the manufacturer also promises a haptic writing experience: A pen (M-Pencil of the 2nd generation) is included, which should be able to convey the feeling of writing on paper if the respective application supports the M-Pencil. The whole thing is accompanied acoustically by the scratching and rustling typical of writing.

Notes, sketches and books

Since the 10.3-inch e-ink display (1872 by 1404 pixels) is designed in black and white, the Matepad Paper is predestined as a notebook or sketchbook and as a reader for e-books. Huawei does without the backlight that is common in e-book readers.
However, the manufacturer has also thought of audio books and music and, according to its own statements, installed two powerful loudspeakers in the Matepad, which is 6.7 millimeters thick and weighs 360 grams. With four integrated microphones, the device should also be suitable as a dictaphone.
Huawei’s Android offshoot Harmony OS powers the Matepad. Therefore, other apps can also be installed, even if no Google services, which shouldn’t really bother the special device design.

Nothing for games and movies

Editing e-mails, planning a calendar or surfing the web is also possible, as long as the black-and-white display and the rather slow frame rate typical of e-ink don’t prevent you from doing so. However, the device is not suitable for games or films.
The technical substructure consists of the in-house Hisilicon chip Kirin 820E, 4 gigabytes (GB) of RAM and 64 GB of storage. The 3625 mAh battery should enable standby times of up to four weeks and can be quickly charged with up to 25 watts via USB-C.
Wi-Fi 6 (ax-WLAN) and Bluetooth 5.2 are on board as radio interfaces. The scope of delivery of the Matepad Paper includes a pen and a cover case that matches the device color (black, light blue or silver), as well as a USB-C power supply unit and cable.