Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite Android Tablet

Huawei, in association with Google, have released a new 7” tablet with their MediaPad 7 Lite. Can it compete against the likes of the Nexus 7 or Asus FonePad?

On the ‘good’ front, the MediaPad is certainly well built and a pleasure to hold, as its gently tapering corners and excellent construction materials, make it feel both ergonomic and substantial respectively. This, despite the fact that the tablet is a little heavier than the competition, at 370g, and at 11 mm, is a bit thick.

Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite Android Tablet

The good and the beautiful

The tablet is rather attractive though, as the black bezel surrounding the screen is framed with a touch of white, while the back is silver aluminum.

The MediaPad 7 is letdown by less than optimal performance.

The MediaPad 7 bests the Nexus 7 in one arena, as it offers a microSD card that can cater to expandable storage (up to 32 GB); notable particularly as the version we tested only had 8 GB of integrated storage. Indeed, the tablet has slots for both microSD storage and a SIM card for 3G connectivity, which places it at first place as a competitor to Asus’ FonePad as well.

Huawei MediaPad S7 Lite

Our main problem, however, came from the tablet's performance. We could not be certain whether this was due to only running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) as opposed to Android Jelly Bean, or the 1.2 GHz Cortex-A8 processor and 1 GB of RAM. Either way, we found the tablet to be less responsive than we would have liked and this translated into a slightly sluggish user experience when watching YouTube videos, browsing the web and playing games like Fruit Ninja, a pity, since the sound is quite good.

Also disappointing was the battery, which seemed to drain quite quickly, going from 85% full to half of that in a few hours, with light use. Furthermore, the battery didn't seem to hold a charge very well either.

The MediaPad 7 is a bit of a mixed bag

To the point

The MediaPad 7 is a bit of a mixed bag. While we appreciated the very good build, expandable storage and decent screen, it is let down by less than optimal performance, ultimately making it an average 7” at best. It is currently only available for R229 per month on a SmartData 2 GB Cell C deal.

Specifications §  Operating System: Android 4.0 Ice cream Sandwich §  Processor (CPU): 1.2 GHz CORTEX A8 processor §  GPU: 600Mhz GC800 §  RAM: 1GB §  Network: 2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900, §  3G: UMTS 900/2100MHz or 850/1900MHz, §  GPRS/EGDE §  Data Speed: HSDPA 3.6Mbps §  Primary Camera: 3.2MP §  Secondary Camera: 0.3MP §  Camera Features: Geo-tagging, Fixed Focus §  Internal Storage: 8GB §  Secondary Storage: Up to 32GB micro SD §  Display Size & Protection: 7 inch,1024 x 600 pixels ,16 M Colors §  Display Technology: LCD Capacitive Touchscreen ,IPS Screen, Multi-touch Support §  Audio: Supported  Audio formats MP3, WMA, WAV, APE, FLAC, AAC, OGG, §  3.5mm stereo audio jack, §  Stereo speaker + Build-in MIC §  Video: Supported  video formats: AVI, WMV, MP4, MKV, RM, RMVB, FLV, MOV, 3GP, up to 1080p30; §  Wi-Fi: 802.11b/g/n §  Bluetooth: Bluetooth v3.0 §  Sensor: Gravity Sensor §  GPS: A-GPS, Google Maps §  USB: Micro USB 2.0 §  Dimensions: 120 x 193 x 11 mm §  Weight: 370 g §  Battery: 4100mAh Li-Polymer, §  Talk Time (2G): 15 hrs, §  Talk Time (3G): 12 hrs, §  Standby Time: 200hrs §  Software’s: MS Office, PDF Viewer, §  Extras: Play Store ,Movie, Search, Mail, Talk ,Maps ,YouTube, Cloud+ ,Call+