Huawei is apparently working on a tablet with a hole-punch screen. The tablet has been revealed in leaks, but has not been made official yet, but when (or if) it does arrive, it will be the first major release to take the hole-punch design from smartphones to tablets. There are two names being rumored for the tablet, either the MediaPad M7 — which fits in with the company’s existing run of tablets — or a rebranding to MatePad Pro.
The hole-punch screen is what makes the tablet standout at the moment. The design is an alternative to the notch, which is easily hidden by your hand for a fullscreen experience when holding a phone in landscape orientation. This will remain true for a tablet, but notches have never become a common design trait on big-screen devices, and because the Huawei tablet still has bezels around the screen, it’s an unusual choice here.
A series of images leaked by 91mobiles.com show the tablet has a sizable bezel around the screen, and will be available with a keyboard case. The design is similar to the Apple iPad Pro from the front, but on the back is a dual-lens camera array in the top right corner, complete with a small flash unit. A stylus — likely branded an M Pen like Huawei’s other stylus — is shown magnetically attached to the top of the body. Two colors, a silver/white and a gray, are illustrated.
This leak was followed by another, this time from well-known product leaker @evleaks. The picture (shown at the top of the page) in this case shows a press-style shot of the tablet in gray, attached to the keyboard case. It’s here the tablet is referred to as the MatePad Pro, but it’s not clear whether this is a jokey play on the tablet’s visual similarity to the iPad Pro, or an actual name attached to the product.
No technical specifications have been leaked, but the tablet may take on the characteristics of Huawei’s recent Mate 30 Pro smartphone and include the new Kirin 990 processor. Whether there will be a 4G or even a 5G model is also unknown. There’s no indication when the tablet will be announced, but based on previous Huawei tablet releases, it may not arrive until next year, potentially at either the CES or MWC trade shows.
