MatePad Air (2026) flops in GPU benchmarks yet holds 60fps in Genshin Impact
Notebookcheck measured just 13fps in GFXBench's 4K test, but PUBG Mobile held 40fps on high settings and Genshin Impact ran at 60fps on Huawei's Kirin T93C.
Notebookcheck's review of the Huawei MatePad Air (2026), published October 30, 2026, found a tablet that looks weak on paper but plays well in practice. Huawei's in-house Kirin T93C managed only 13fps in GFXBench's 4K test, yet Genshin Impact ran at 60fps on maximum settings and PUBG Mobile held a steady 40fps at high detail.
That gap between synthetic scores and real games is the point of reviewer Marcus Herbrich's write-up. The MatePad Air is pitched as a slim productivity and creative tablet, just 5.3mm thick, rather than a gaming device. In actual play, though, the Kirin chip and its 12GB of RAM kept popular titles smooth. Older games such as Dead Trigger 2 ran without trouble, as expected, and the two heavyweight mobile titles above stayed playable at settings many midrange tablets struggle with.
Screen and sound carry the experience
The 12-inch PaperMatte OLED display runs at up to 144Hz, and Notebookcheck rated the viewing experience as excellent. The bigger surprise was audio. Huawei fits six speakers, and Notebookcheck said they were loud and precise enough to pick out enemy footsteps, a real advantage in shooters when you are not wearing headphones.
Battery is a 10,100mAh cell, large for a tablet this thin, with 66W fast charging to top it back up quickly.
The limit
The main drawback is that the MatePad Air cannot do true high-frame-rate gaming. The 144Hz panel is there, but games topped out around 60fps in Notebookcheck's testing, so competitive players who want 90 or 120fps modes will not get full use out of the screen.
What it means for players
For casual and mid-core players, especially those whose library is built around Genshin Impact and battle royales, the review frames the MatePad Air as a credible iPad Air alternative with a better speaker setup. Synthetic benchmarks undersell it. Notebookcheck's review does not cover regional pricing, so check local Huawei listings before comparing it with Samsung and Apple rivals.
Source: Notebookcheck.
