Review: Huawei MatePad 11.5 S (2026) with M-Pencil 3

The Huawei MatePad 11.5 S (2026) is the update to the Huawei MatePad 11.5 S (2024). There are now so many Huawei MatePad models that it's getting confusing. So confusing in fact that when I tried to buy the MatePad 11.5 S (2024) for review, I had bought the MatePad 11.3 (2023) by mistake.

Here in Singapore, the tablet is priced at SGD 648 (~USD 508) and comes with 12GB RAM, 256GB storage, the Huawei M-Pencil Pro and Huawei Smart Magnetic Keyboard. Availability starts from 3 April 2026.

Specifications

Main differences are the increase of RAM from 8GB to 12GB, the Kirin T92C processor is 10-20% faster, thickness has reduced from 6.2mm to 6.1mm, and fast charging speed has increased from 22.5W to 40W.

Things included

• Tablet
• Polishing Cloth
• Charger
• Type-C Cable
• Quick Start Guide
• Warranty Card

Items included may vary depending on region. Here in Singapore, the tablet is sold as a bundle together with the keyboard cover and pen.

Huawei Smart Magnetic Keyboard included comes in two parts. There's the detachable keyboard and the back cover with kickstand.

The keyboard is powered by battery and can be used wirelessly away from the tablet.

Downside is the keyboard case does not provide full protection for the tablet, and the upside is the tablet can be removed easily from the magnetic back cover.

Another downside or limitation is there's only one angle for deployment.

The tablet works with Huawei M-Pencil 3 and Huawei M-Pencil Pro.

Design

Design of the tablet looks beautiful. Bezels are thin and uniform. Corners are rounded off.

There's an 8MP landscape camera with face unlock that works fast and effectively. There's an auto-brightness sensor on the left of the camera that works well.

Sides of the tablet are rounded and makes it more comfortable to hold compared to tablets with flat sides. The USB-C port has USB 3 transfer speed and cannot output video. Audio quality from the 4-way speakers is good.

The back is full metal with a 13MP camera and flash. Here in Singapore, the tablet is only available in green.

Pen

This tablet supports Huawei M-Pencil 3 and Huawei M-Pencil Pro. The pens can attach magnetically to the tablet for charging and pairing.

The Huawei M-Pencil Pro has more features, but since many drawing apps actually do not use those extra features, there isn't much advantage to get the Huawei M-Pencil Pro over the Huawei M-Pencil 3.

The Huawei M-Pencil 3 and the keyboard case both use NearLink for pairing instead of Bluetooth. Connection is good, and you can disable Bluetooth without disconnecting the pen and keyboard case.

Built quality of the pen is solid.

The pen supports tilt, pressure sensitivity and palm rejection. There's double-tap shortcut but only works with Huawei apps and GoPaint.

The default pen tip is quite smooth on the display and it is difficult to control the pen for drawing. The pen is better for writing than drawing for that reason.

There is a white pen tip included too and that has slightly more tactility but is also quite smooth. To get more resistance for drawing, you can look for rubber tips on AliExpress (Seller A | Seller B)

Display

The display is a 11.5-inch LCD with adaptive refresh rate up to 144Hz. Resolution is 2800 × 1840 so visuals look sharp without pixelation. Aspect ratio is 3:2.

Visual quality of the display is great. Brightness is 500 nits and contrast ratio is 1500:1. The display is said to support wide gamut P3.

Main highlight of the display for me is the PaperMatte surface which has effective anti-glare, and is quite resistant to fingerprints. Reading with this tablet feels like reading paper because of the matte surface.

Viewing angle is wide. There's minimal colour shift or drop in brightness when viewed from the side. There is slight IPS glow which is to be expected from LCD. The display is laminated so pixels look like they are on the surface of the glass.

There are people who prefer glossy displays because colours are more vibrant, but I prefer matte surface because I hate reflections. Colours still look pretty good to me. And unlike Apple that charges an extra USD 100 for their nano-texture glass, Huawei includes this as a standard feature.

Performance

Performance of the tablet is responsive and smooth. 12GB RAM is plenty for multi-tasking. It's possible to game on this tablet, but don't expect to play games at the highest graphics settings.

OS and software

The tablet runs HarmonyOS 4.3 and there are many useful features. There is split screen, floating windows, knuckle knock two to record screen, 3-finger swipe to take a screenshot, double tap or lift to wake.

If you use other Huawei devices, there's the Huawei Super Device for cross device collaboration.

80% smart battery charging is available.

There is no Google Play Store. To find apps, there's the Huawei app store called Huawei AppGallery. Most apps in the Huawei App Store are in Chinese since this tablet is actually made for the China market. There are some apps that are officially ported over from Google Play Store to Huawei AppGallery but many of the popular apps are not available, e.g. All the Google Apps, Amazon, Netflex, more.

Huawei's file management does not have direct integration with Google Drive, DropBox, Microsoft OneNote. You have to open those cloud storage apps to transfer files.

Not having Google Play Store is a huge downside as you lose access to a huge variety of apps.

It is possible to install Google services using MicroG, GBox and GSpace. I did not test MicroG but I did test GBox and GSpace which are available from the Huawei AppGallery. After installing GBox and GSpace, Google Play Store becomes available.

Here's what I found.

GBox

• CSP can't be installed for some reasons
• Installed apps from Gbox all shows 0B in Google Play Store
• Apps already available from Huawei AppGallery cannot be installed from GBox, e.g. Lazada, Edge, Outlook
• Lazada (Huawei) cannot sign in with Google
• I could not sign in to Shopee, Notein, MyScript Nebo even though I've signed in to Google already
• I could not restore purchase of Medibang, Infinite Painter, Solid Explorer, Concepts

GSpace

• I can sign in with Google
• Amazon, Facebook, Google auto-login works
• There's no Infinite Painter, CSP, Notein, Myscript (Nebo)
• I could restore purchase with Concepts, Medibang
• CPU-Z doesn't install

Huawei AppGallery

• There are Edge, OneNote, NoteIn, Medibang, Lazada
• Medibang is different version from GPS, so purchases cannot be restored even if you sign in
• NoteIn is a separate account
• Microsoft has several apps available but not all apps, no Copilot, OneDrive

I started by using GBox but had to switch to GSpace after I found out I could not restore my purchase of Concepts app, my main drawing app.

The point I want to make here is it's not possible to know whether the app you need will work properly when using MicroG, GBox and GSpace. Sure there may be issues with Google Play Store (original) at times, but it is still very difficult to go wrong with Google Play Store (original).

If you're switching from another tablet with Google Play Store, you can expect some issues such as inability to restore past purchases, can't sign in apps using Google authentication even though you're signed with Google already.

One downside of HarmonyOS is there are many ads. There are some pre-installed apps, and bookmarks to apps which you can remove. There are ads in some Huawei apps too, such as Huawei AppGallery where you often see fullscreen ads upon launch.

Line tests

Line tests below were created with the Huawei M-Pencil 3 and Medibang Paint. I'm surprised the pen performance is actually better than the Huawei MatePad 12 X (2026) with Huawei M-Pencil Pro that I reviewed months ago. I noticed that the pen performance with some tablets can be better even though they all use the same technology (I suppose).

1. The slow diagonal lines are quite straight. Thin lines can be drawn easily even with a thick brush selected. When drawing with minimal pressure, there's line width variation so it's difficult to maintain a consistently thin line.

2. Lines can taper well.

3. Line transition from thin to thick and back is smooth. This is also a diagonal line, and there isn't noticeably diagonal line wobble.

4. Consistent line width can be maintained with consistent pressure. This is also a diagonal line, and there isn't noticeably diagonal line wobble.

5. Dots can be drawn easily.

6. There are no issues with cursor tracking. Lines can join without gaps or overshooting.

And below are line tests with Concepts, my main drawing app.

Then drawing thin lines here, there isn't any line width variance. So pen performance will also depend on the app used. Line taper here looks strange, but that's actually normal with Concepts. Tilt sensitivity works. This app does not support double tap shortcut with the pen, and the cursor hover feature has flickering cursor.

I wanted to test tilt with Krita (GSpace) but that app crashes upon launch. Krita (APK) works fine and the cursor can follow the direction of the pen, so tilt works fine. Krita's UI is not designed for running on small display though, e.g. brush settings box will be cropped off and can't show all settings.

Drawing experience

One feature to switch off first is "Slide across bottom to switch apps" under Gestures settings. When drawing, my resting palm has the tendency to switch app unintentionally and that is incredibly annoying.

I'm glad the auto-brightness sensor is by the left of the front camera. When tablet is held vertically, it is less likely to cover that sensor which will cause the display to dim.

The tablet weighs 515g and is still light enough to carry in hand to draw. I prefer to remove the back cover if I really have to stand and sketch with the tablet in hand. The sketch above was drawn on the train while I was commuting to work.

The default pen tip is really smooth on the matte glass surface. It is not easy to control the pen. The matte glass surface doesn't actually provide noticeable tactility with the pen tip.

The pen performance is actually good but having a pen tip this smooth is better for writing than for drawing. And the writing or note taking experience is very good.

Battery life

Battery capacity is 8800 mAh. Battery life is around 8 - 10 hours depending on usage. Battery life is considered good as I don't have to worry about battery life. The tablet supports 40W fast charging which is great if you want a quick top up.

Conclusion

Huawei has been making tablets with good hardware for many years now, and selling them at competitive prices. The build quality is solid, display is bright, vibrant and sharp. Performance is responsive. Battery life is long.

The Huawei MatePad 11.5 S (2026) has better hardware than the base model Apple iPad (2025) around the same price range.

Hardware is almost as good as the Apple iPad Air (2026) but the Apple M4 processor is significantly more powerful, but the iPad Air is also significantly more expensive.

The main downside of limitation of Huawei tablets is there's no official support for Google Play Store. It's possible to install Google services with the help of MicroG, GSpace and GBox.

But even with Google services installed, not all Google services may work, e.g. You may not be able to restore purchases made, or can't auto-sign in with Google authentication.

The workaround to not having Google services is to use the website versions for apps that you need. E.g. facebook.com, primevideo.com, youtube.com, drive.google.com, etc.

Due to the lack of Google services, the main use of this tablet is restricted to mostly multimedia use, e.g. for watching shows. You can certainly use the tablet for productivity, but you'll mostly likely have to use the apps from the Huawei AppGallery (app store) or run whatever you need through the web browser.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Beautiful design with solid build quality
+ Has face unlock
+ Bright, sharp, vibrant display
+ Matte glass has effective anti glare
+ Good battery life
+ Keyboard case can work wirelessly
+ Good pen performance
- M Pencil 3 can charge when attached to the tablet
- 4-way speakers lack the clarity and definition of the premium MatePad Pro tablets
- No official support for Google Play Store
- Google Play Store can be installed by not all Google services work properly
- Pen tip too smooth to control for drawing
- Too many ads with Huawei apps

Availability

Here in Singapore, you can buy the tablet from Shopee SG and Lazada SG.