Huawei isn’t a name we expect to see back in the US anytime soon, but the Chinese company’s first e-reader boasts a highly-desirable set of features that’s sure to make a few Kindle owners jealous.
The MatePad Paper uses a 10.3-inch E Ink display with a 1,872-by-1,404 pixel resolution (227 ppi). The screen uses a smart refresh feature “that adjusts according to the content you view,” and there’s support for stylus input and the second-generation Huawei M-Pencil is included with the e-reader (along with two replacement tips), meaning it doubles as a note-taking device.
The Paper is powered by Huawei’s Kirin 820E, which is a 7nm six-core ARM chip with Mali-G57 GPU and Huawei Da Vinci Architecture NPU core. It’s complimented by 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a 3,625mAh battery (offering 28 days of life in standby mode) which can be recharged via a USB Type-C port and supports 22.5W fast charging.
The operating system is HarmonyOS 2 and Huawei is clearly pushing the MatePad Paper as a productivity device as well as a way of simply reading digital books. It’s possible to view multiple documents at once, use a number of templates to organize your thoughts, and of course, add notes to the documents and books you’re reading. Add to that the ability to record audio and link the audio to specific notes being made.
Huawei is also advertising the Paper’s ability to accurately translate text into your desired language with support for 40 languages, 32 brightness settings for comfortable reading in any environment, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and a fingerprint power button for security.
This is more of a competitor to the reMarkable 2 and Onyx Book Note Air 2 than Amazon’s Kindle range, and the price certainly reflects that. According to The Verge, Huawei is expected to price it at around $560, but we don’t have a release date confirmed yet. And while US consumers probably won’t have an opportunity to purchase the MatePad Paper, Amazon should take note and think about adopting many, if not all, of these features for the next generation of Kindle.
