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Chinese electronics giant, Huawei, is bringing out the big guns and their latest pièce de résistance, the most-raved about 7” MediaPad Android slate, is flaunting a high resolution display and a well-designed aluminum unibody ready to take on some heavyweight contenders.

Finally, Huawei has come up with a smart and inexpensive offering for the tablet consumers hungry for some quality gadget that doesn’t really hurt the pockets. The MediaPad is far more reasonable as compared to the likes of iPad or Samsung tablets but has the flexibility and productivity of the Android computing system. While the MediaPad runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb, this isn’t something that should bother you because Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) is readily available.

Productivity on the go

Huawei MediaPad comes pre-installed with Huawei Office, a productivity suite that is compatible with Microsoft’s word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications. Aside from the usual Angry Birds already on board (I hear you), Android Market (now called Google Play) might just save the day, filling you in with the rest of the apps that you need.

Working around the tablet is made unbelievable easy mostly by tapping or sliding on one of the many Android virtual keyboards available. In certain occasions when you need to use a physical keyboard, pairing the tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard is as easy as one, two, three.

Dressed to impress

We have some shameless bias towards 7 inchers because for us, they’re the closest definition of portability (if this is what’s you’re gunning for). 7 inch slates fit just right on our hands. Huawei’s MediaPad 7 is comfortably small you can stick it inside most jacket pockets and is ultimately lighter than the latest iPad or Motorola Brick. Now that’s what we call portable.

MediaPad has an excellent build quality. Its aluminum unibody is tight and solid. It gives us easy access to the SD cards and SIM where the slots are masked by one of the black panels at the back. MediaPad has two speakers at the top edge (when in portrait mode) that delivers surprisingly stereo quality.

Under the metal hood, there lies all the good stuff — a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of built-in storage. These specs allow plenty of power for your usual tableting interests such as web browsing, playing 3D games or watching videos with HD quality. Android’s multi-tasking capabilities surely did not disappoint.

In an attempt to impress (we already are!), Huawei throws in front and rear shooters with 1.3MP and 5MP autofocus respectively, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, voice calls, MMS and SMS capabilities among others.

Display of affection

The Huawei MediaPad goes all out on almost every inch and bit of the slate. Its display screen has WXGA resolution and 216ppi pixel density – giving it more pixels than the majority of the other 7-inch tablets out there. The IPS display practically means that there’s no color or contract loss at any angle and gives you a decent view even under the sunlight.

Verdict

Here at Merimobiles, the Huawei MediaPad scores 4 stars (out of 5). We very satisfied with the excellent workmanship, price and its decent and stable performance. We wish it could have come out with Ice Cream Sandwich (but no biggie) and more pre-installed apps. Nevertheless, MediaPad proved to be a worthy and convincing challenger.

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