There’s a bit of a thinness arms race happening in the tablet world right now, and Huawei just threw down a serious marker. The company unveiled the Huawei MatePad Pro Max at its “Now Is Your Spark” global launch event in Bangkok this week, and the headline number is 4.7mm. That’s the thinnest flagship tablet Huawei has ever made, and the company is claiming it as the thinnest large-format tablet in the world, undercutting even the iPad Pro’s 5.1mm profile.
To put 4.7mm in perspective, that’s thinner than most people’s thumbs. The Huawei MatePad Pro Max comes in two versions: the standard model at 499g and a PaperMatte Edition with an anti-glare nano-etched display at 509g. Despite the wafer-thin chassis, Huawei managed to fit a 10,400mAh battery inside, good for around 14 hours of video playback on a single charge.
The display is a 13.2-inch flexible OLED panel with 3K resolution, a 144Hz refresh rate, 1,600 nits peak brightness, and ultra-slim 3.55mm bezels. The front camera is hidden inside the bezel itself. Six speakers and four microphones round out the hardware, along with a 50MP rear camera, 66W wired fast charging, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 6.0. Huawei hasn’t officially named the chip powering the tablet, though leaks point to a Kirin 9-series processor.
The Catch You Already Know Is Coming
The Huawei MatePad Pro Max runs HarmonyOS 4.3, which means no Google Play Store and no native access to Android apps. Huawei has been building out AppGallery as an alternative, and HarmonyOS can sort of run Android apps through unofficial workarounds, but that remains the central trade-off for anyone outside Huawei’s existing ecosystem. It’s the same story that followed the MatePad Edge and every other Huawei device since the US trade restrictions cut off Google services. The hardware story is genuinely impressive. The software ecosystem is still the sticking point.
Pricing starts at £999.99 (roughly $1,360) for the 12GB/256GB base model, with higher configurations going up from there. Huawei says the tablet supports keyboard accessories and stylus input via the M-Pencil Pro. The company is pitching the whole package as a laptop replacement, not just a productivity companion. Regional availability varies, and US buyers won’t have an official path to purchase given the ongoing Huawei trade restrictions.