By now, you are probably well aware that Chinese electronics giant Huawei is making great strides in the global phone market. Thanks to its collaboration with Google to produce the Nexus 6P, the recently released P9, and the success of its budget brand Honor, Huawei is fast becoming a brand to be reckoned with. Huawei also manufactures Android tablets, with its latest model being the MediaPad M2 10.0 featuring four speakers.
Hit the break for our review.
Design
Huawei has given the tablet the MediaPad M2 10.0 moniker, which somehow doesn't relate to the size of its display, which is actually 10.1 inches, not an even 10 inches. It's a tad confusing, and for a company that has done so much right in recent times, it doesn't quite feel like the MediaPad M2 10.0 received the amount of attention it maybe should have from the marketing department. With that first niggle out-of-the-way, we can concentrate on the actual design of the tablet.
At first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking that the MediaPad M2 (as it shall now be called for the rest of the review) is actually a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. It isn't though, because as generic as the tablet may appear, it is extremely well made. It's 172.75 x 239.8 x 7.35mm thin. It isn't the absolute thinnest tablet out there, but it's still pretty thin.
The MediaPad M2 is a big tablet, it weighs 490 grams and it feels more than a little hefty when compared to my dainty Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact. But, there is a positive side to it. Its heft and solidity give you the impression that the tablet is well-made. At no point do you wonder if the tablet will flex or warp, which isn't something you can say for every tablet.
The front of the tablet is a shiny white plastic, and as you may have noticed, the bezels aren't the thinnest you've ever seen on a tablet. On a positive note, it does mean your hands have somewhere to grip without interfering with what's happening on the display. The power and volume buttons reside on the right-hand side of the-the faux-metal trim that runs all around the edge of the tablet. The home button that you think you see on the bottom bezel is actually just the fingerprint reader.
The positioning of the fingerprint scanner could have been a little better thought out. Being centered on the bezel below the display, it's a little like playing Twister with your fingers when you need to use it if you are holding the tablet in landscape. In the end, I just disabled the feature and just typed in my security pin when faced with the lock screen. Finger gymnastics aside, the fingerprint scanner seemed on par with the one found on the P9 handset, which means it's slick and very accurate. Besides being used for security, you can also use the scanner to perform actions such as going back or accessing recent apps, depending which way you swipe your finger.
On the left and right corners on the top and bottom edges lie four grills masking the 4 Harmon Cardon certified speakers. The grills are ascetically pleasing to look and add a little character to an otherwise generic design. The rear panel is mostly metal, with a plastic strip at the top that houses the camera and allows the WiFi signal reach the antennas.
Hardware
The Huawei MediaPad M2 10.0 features a 10.1-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS LCD display, a HiSilicon Kirin 930 octa-core processor, Mali-T628 MP4 GPU, 2GB / 3GB of RAM, 32GB / 64GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, a 13MP rear camera, a 5MP front camera, a 6600mAh battery, a fingerprint scanner, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, and Bluetooth 4.0.
Performance
With Full HD and 224 pixels per inch, the display doesn't have the highest resolution or the most pixels you'll ever see on a device. Is it good enough? For its intended purpose of viewing media, the MediaPad's display is plenty bright enough and provides a good level of contrast. Colors are vibrant enough without being over-saturated. Still, for its price, I would have liked the MediaPad M2 to sport a higher resolution display.
The octa-core Kirin 930 processor isn't the newest or sprightliest chip around, but it is powerful enough to do the job, just about. That said, there is the occasional slowdown. The Premium Edition of the MediaPad M2 ships with 3GB of RAM (the standard makes do with 2GB), which aids switching between apps. But whether it's the burden of powering the EMUI skin or simply the older processor to blame, slowdowns do occur, not every time you switch or open apps, but often enough to notice. Perhaps the choice to limit the MediaPad M2 to a Full HD display was somewhat influenced by the choice of processor.
Streaming apps such as Netflix and SkyGo work fluently enough on the tablet, and you can play games such as Plants vs Zombies 2 and Asphalt 8 well enough, but the Kirin 930 certainly doesn't set any benchmarking records.
The MediaPad M2 is currently only running Android 5.1.1 Lollipop with EMUI 3.1, which is a little surprising for a device being released in 2016. Perhaps being updated to Android 6.0 Marshmallow will iron out those little wrinkles in performance. For the moment, though, those slowdowns are here to stay.
The MediaPad M2 boasts four speakers that are certified by Harmon Kardon, and for what it's worth, the sound is pretty good. So long as you don't go louder than say 50-60%, the sound is surprisingly good for a tablet. Once you move towards the 80% mark, though, the level of distortion increases. Bass levels are ok, again, until you get to the 75% mark. Two of the speakers are tuned with a bias towards bass and the other pair tuned for treble. The speakers get pretty loud, and so long as you refrain from switching on the SWS 2.0 in settings, you'll be pretty happy with the resulting sound.
Battery
As you might expect with a device carrying a 6600mAh battery, battery life was pretty good, achieving around 10 hours of video playback which is almost enough to get you through a long-haul flight. Gaming accounted for roughly 20% per hour, which means the tablet should get around 5 hours worth of gaming before the battery finally surrenders. Standby was good but would obviously improve if the MediaPad M2 was running Marshmallow instead of Lollipop.
Software
This is where Huawei devices traditionally trip up, and the MediaPad M2 is no different. The combination of Android 5.1.1 and Huawei's EMotion UI skin really don't do the MediaPad M2 any favors. To be honest, it isn't really forgivable that a premium device should launch in 2016 running Lollipop firmware. It's quite noticeable that EMUI 3.1 isn't really suited to being used on tablets. From when you first power-up the device, the tablet refers to itself as a phone.
Let's deal with the inevitable fly in the ointment when it comes to Huawei and Honor devices; there is no app drawer. This means that the app icons are spread throughout the home screen in no particular order, and with no way to do so. I find it particularly frustrating as I prefer to have a clean, minimalist home screen, with my apps arranged alphabetically and accessible via the app drawer. Again, it's a personal preference. If it bugs you enough, you can always download an app drawer from the Play Store, or even just install a third-party launcher, as shown in the video below.
Despite being a tablet, EMUI doesn't offer much to make the most of the real estate. There's a lot of unused space when using the pre-installed Calendar and Tablet Manager apps, giving the appearance that they are just blown-up phone apps. There is dual windows functionality, but it's limited to mostly Huawei apps with a few of Google's thrown in for good measure.
One of the positive things about Huawei's EMUI skin that there's a whole load of options for you to fiddle with. Whether you want to change how the on-screen navigation buttons line up or maybe having them slide to one side or another, you can do it. As with other Huawei devices, you can customize the appearance of the tablet by downloading and applying one of the many themes available via the Themes app. This is something you may have to do if the app icons bug you, which it probably will because Huawei seems to bake-in the app icons for many popular applications. Who knows why, but it results in obsolete (pre-Material Design) app icons being shown on the home screen.
Camera
A 13MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture and flash isn't something you would normally expect to find on a tablet, but it is a nice addition. The main camera is capable of taking excellent images in ideal conditions. It isn't quite as capable in low-light conditions, but you'll still come out with an image that will do in a pinch, especially considering it's a tablet we are speaking about. As good as the camera is, though, you'll still be made fun of for using a 10-inch tablet to take a photo. The front camera has a 5MP sensor, which is great for Skyping or taking a cheeky selfie picture.
The camera app has a wide array of options and features, and while focusing and the actual taking of pictures in HDR mode isn't as snappy as it is on the P9, it's pretty quick for a tablet. The resulting images are pretty good for a tablet and would put some handsets to shame in comparison. You can see the theme here. You can check out the gallery of sample images below.
Bundled Accessories
The Premium version of the MediaPad M2 comes bundled with the M Pen, which is a stylus. It's powered by a AAA battery and offers up to 2,048 levels of sensitivity when pressing the nib on the display. There's palm rejection, it's comfortable to grip, but there is a shortage of apps to use it with apart from the pre-installed Bamboo Paper app. The M Pen has two buttons which you can use to access shortcuts to Huawei's Email and Note apps.
A flip case is also included in the Premium bundle, made of white leather with Huawei's logo imprinted on the front. The MediaPad M2 simply clips into the flip case, which produces a snug fit. There's a magnetic sensor that wakes the tablet when the case is opened, and you can also get the tablet to stand at an angle which is useful when viewing content. The cover feels like a quality accessory.
Rounding off the bundle is a screen protector, although I didn't install it because I'm absolutely terrible at fitting them. Other than a MicroSD card perhaps, you shouldn't need to buy any accessories when you buy the Premium version of the MediaPad M2.
Closing
There's no denying that Huawei's MediaPad M2 10.0 is solidly built, with great sound, a typically fast and accurate fingerprint scanner, great battery life, and a surprisingly good camera for a tablet. Sadly, the tablet is held back by an aging processor, dated firmware (Android 5.1.1 Lollipop), and a buggy version of Huawei's EMUI skin. The display is adequate, but it doesn't quite offer the experience that similarly priced or cheaper competitors do. It's almost as if the MediaPad M2 was started and finished by two different teams with entirely different strategies.
The basic MediaPad M2 10.0 with just 16GB of internal storage and 2GB RAM costs £249. The Premium Edition with its 3GB RAM, 64GB internal storage, and bundled accessories, costs more at £329 but probably represents better value for money. Spending that sort of money, though, means you would also have to consider Samsung's Galaxy Tab S2 offerings, never mind the cheaper alternatives such as the NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet.
Hopefully, Huawei will soon realize that it needs to put the same sort of effort into its next tablet as it did with the P9 in order to achieve greatness in the tablet market. Until then, the MediaPad M2 scores a ‘Could do better' on the report card.
[Huawei]