Display & Design
The C5e is basically a re-release of the MatePad SE, so it features the same design and build as the other model. You get a slim plastic body with a simple matte finish. The back panel is pretty bare, with the only thing interrupting the plain design being the circular camera bump which features a single camera unit.
On the front, you have a 10.1-inch FHD+ IPS display surrounded by thick bezels on all sides. The screen has a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1200 and a pixel density of barely 224ppi. You get a pair of stereo speakers tuned by Harman Kardon and a 3.5mm audio jack at the bottom. Right next to the USB-C port, which supports 10W fast charging for the 5100mAh battery. The company claims that the setup comes with support for Histen 7.0 sound, but the overall experience will still be on par with a budget offering.
Internals
On the inside, the MatePad C5e features Huawei's own Kirin 710 processor, which is made up of four 2Ghz Cortex-A73 cores, four 1.7Ghz Cortex-A53 cores, and a Mali G51 GPU. The setup is paired with up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage space, which can be further expanded up to 512GB via a microSD card. The system runs the Android 12 OS, with an EMUI 10.1 skin on top, with the company promising at least two years of software and security updates.
The story is pretty simple on the camera front, with a 2MP selfie unit on the side bezel for a landscape 720p video conferencing experience. Along with a 5MP rear unit that is enough for shooting 1080p videos and decent still photos as long as you give it enough light to work with. While the software does include the usual filters and AI optimizations associated with Huawei devices, the output is pretty limited due to the hardware itself.
Price & Availability
Huawei has officially launched the MatePad C5e in Japan for a starting price of around $200, which is the same that the SE model costs in the Chinese market. So, we can expect other regions to get the same deal when they get access to the tablet in the coming weeks.
