Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD Review
If it were ever time for another Android tablet
with a thin frame and a 10.1-inch display, it’s now, and it’s Huawei
who’s bringing this device into the world. Huawei makes a valiant effort
at creating a tablet with the MediaPad 10 FHD, and it does indeed bring
on an impressive package, especially for media playback. If you’re
looking for the most massively impressive tablet on the market – this
isn’t it – but if you do have this device on your radar and wonder if
it’s worth the cash, let me give you a spoiler: it’s definitely nice to
watch a movie on, but that’s just about where it ends.
The 10.1-inch display on this device has 1920 x
1200 pixels and a 16:10 aspect ratio. The tablet is 8.8mm thin and
weighs 580g – that’s just a bit heavier than it it seems like it should
be given the aesthetics of the device. This just means that the Samsung
Galaxy Note 10.1, which is 20g heavier than the MediaPad, seems light
simply because it’s got plastic on the outside, giant-looking speakers
on the front, and a pen built-in. The MediaPad 10 FHD on the other hand
does too good a job of hiding it all – but the speakers can certainly be
heard loud and clear.
The speakers on this device are nice – Dolby
Surround Sound back them up and you do indeed get some impressive blasts
when you hold the device the right way or have it propped up with a
stand or up against a wall. What I mean is that, like the rest of the
past generation of tablets out there, the speakers on this unit are
facing the back. Even though we would like them to face the front, they
still sound nicer than the vast majority of the smart devices out there –
and that includes smartphones.
Above: Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD pictured with its release buddy, the Huawei Ascend D1 quad XL
This device is available in 8, 16, or 32GB internal memory configurations – there’s no microSD slot, so choose wisely on that internal number right out of the box. The battery is 6600 mAh large, you’ll be connecting to the device for charging with a unique port at the bottom. The bottom of this tablet also shows a couple of ports that allow for the keyboard accessory which – sadly – we have not worked with at this time.
The display on this device is relatively sharp at
1920 x 1200 pixels, that placing the pixel density at 224 PPI, well
below the iPad 4th gen’s 263.92 PPI and in a different league compared
to the Google Nexus 10 which has 300 PPI. If you’ve seen neither of
these tablets up close and personal before, you’ll find the MediaTab FHD
to be rather bright and sharp.
The tablet is not unlike many, many other high-end
tablets on the market right this minute, coming rather close to the
original Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in its appearance and feel – it’s as if
Huawei has taken a dash of Apple metal-love and placed it in a mixing
pot with the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and out popped the MediaPad we’re looking
at today.
There are also some slight changes in your standard settings in how you’ll be able to work with your device, but nothing to absolutely write home about. This device is not made to be competing directly with the US market for tablet dominance, so it’s not difficult to see why Huawei wouldn’t push too hard on the features list, especially in the software. You can play movies you’ve downloaded or transferred to the tablet with the standard movie playing app, you can play some MP3s if you wish, or you can straight up rely on Google’s suite of media-playing apps, which certainly is a viable option with Google’s family as mature as it is at the moment.
Above you’re seeing the Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD
next to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and a 3rd generation iPad with
Retina display. They don’t look or feel all that different from one
another when they’ve got their displays turned off, that’s for sure. See
if you can name each tablet by their corners and edges!
This device works essentially as well as the rest
of the top-tier Android universe as far as battery life goes, with a
massive 6600mAh battery under the hood to keep you up all night. What
happens with a tablet – unless you carry it with you all day long – is
that you leave it asleep for the major part of your day. When you do
this, the machine gets a relatively unfair advantage over the smartphone
you’ve got in your pocket as far as battery life goes because it’s not
getting punched in the gut all day long with mobile data. It’s true too
with this Huawei tablet: because you’re not prone to using it all day
long, you’ll be getting several days of battery life if you use it
regularly (or 26 days if you don’t use it at all). If you’re a heavy
user, expect as short a battery life as 8 hours.
The camera is OK, certainly nothing to write home about. It’s utterly blown away by competitors such as the HTC Jetstream and the Google Nexus 10 tablet from Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1‘s
camera takes the Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD to the cleaners even though the
Note has 5 megapixels under the hood and the MediaPad has 8 – food for
thought. The video it captures, on the other hand, is fairly nice.
his device is a rather nice addition to the
Android tablet universe, and certainly offers up a unique option where
otherwise you’d be handling either a Samsung tablet or going over to
Apple for an iPad. If you’re thinking about grabbing the highest quality
Android tablet on the market today, I would still personally point you
toward the Galaxy Note 10.1 simply due to its much more well-rounded
ecosystem and matured device family. [See: "Smart Device specs are over, long live the ecosystem" column for more information.]
If on the other hand you want to take a fresh look at the Android tablet and don’t mind that your device looks strikingly similar to an original Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Huawei is here to back you up. The speaker system is strong, the display is fairly nice, and you’ll definitely be the only one on your block with this tablet, guaranteed. The cost of this device for anyone outside of China will certainly be prohibitive at $600 USD or more, on the other hand, so unless you can get this machine for next-to-nothing, you’ll be better off skipping it and waiting for Huawei to present a more complete package – and a wider release, to boot.
This device is available in 8, 16, or 32GB internal memory configurations – there’s no microSD slot, so choose wisely on that internal number right out of the box. The battery is 6600 mAh large, you’ll be connecting to the device for charging with a unique port at the bottom. The bottom of this tablet also shows a couple of ports that allow for the keyboard accessory which – sadly – we have not worked with at this time.
There are also some slight changes in your standard settings in how you’ll be able to work with your device, but nothing to absolutely write home about. This device is not made to be competing directly with the US market for tablet dominance, so it’s not difficult to see why Huawei wouldn’t push too hard on the features list, especially in the software. You can play movies you’ve downloaded or transferred to the tablet with the standard movie playing app, you can play some MP3s if you wish, or you can straight up rely on Google’s suite of media-playing apps, which certainly is a viable option with Google’s family as mature as it is at the moment.
If on the other hand you want to take a fresh look at the Android tablet and don’t mind that your device looks strikingly similar to an original Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Huawei is here to back you up. The speaker system is strong, the display is fairly nice, and you’ll definitely be the only one on your block with this tablet, guaranteed. The cost of this device for anyone outside of China will certainly be prohibitive at $600 USD or more, on the other hand, so unless you can get this machine for next-to-nothing, you’ll be better off skipping it and waiting for Huawei to present a more complete package – and a wider release, to boot.
