Huawei Brings the MediaPad M5 Tablets to the U.S.

Huawei announced today that it is selling three MediaPad M5 tablets in the U.S. Fortuitously, I’ve been testing them for weeks.

“The Huawei MediaPad M5 Series combines the world’s first 2.5D curved glass screen on tablets and Harman Kardon tuned speakers for a binge-worthy entertainment experience,” the announcement notes, “and an updated Android OS with Desktop View for maximum productivity while on the go.”

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The timing of this announcement is interesting: Just last week, blogs were reporting that Google had silently removed the tablets page from its Android website, leading to speculation about the future of the platform on this form factor. But the removal was just human error, as I had suspected. And it’s back online now.

Which is good, because the Android website now has three new Huawei tablets to promote, too: Huawei’s MediaPad M5 tablets, in 8.4- and 10.8-inch versions, and the 10.8-inch MediaPad M5 Pro, are now available. I’m testing the non-Pro versions, in both 8.4- and 10.8-inch form.

The tablets are basically identical, aside from the display size and price, with the smaller tablet priced at $319 and the larger at $359. (The MediaPad M5 Pro costs $449.) They are viable alternatives for anyone looking for a media tablet that isn’t named iPad.

The specs are solid: The non-Pro tablets all ship with an octa-core Huawei Kirin 960 processor, a 2560 x 1600 IPS display, 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage with microSD expansion to 256 GB, 801.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, and dual cameras. (The Pro tablet utilizes a Huawei Kirin 960S processor, the firm tells me.) The 8.4-inch tablets provide stereo speakers, while the larger tablets provide four speakers.

All of the MediaPad M5 tablets run Huawei’s clean EMUI 8.0 user interface, which builds on Android 8.0 and has worked well in my testing.

Speaking of which, my review will be posted this week. Short version: These are excellent Android tablets and well worth the asking price. You can purchase the MediaPad M5 tablets starting today at Amazon.com and NewEgg.

 

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Conversation 10 comments

  • Chris_Kez

    Premium Member
    12 June, 2018 - 9:52 am

    <p>Tablet sales have declined for 14 straight quarters (per IDC), but Huawei is actually up roughly 12% the last two quarters (though they're still barely 10% of shipments). I wonder if they're nibbling away a little bit at Samsung, who <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">has declined double digits over the same period and is now at 15% of shipments. Probably hard to say given the long replenish cycle on these devices and their seemingly irregular update cadence. </span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">It seems like there are three tablet segments: the iPad market; the Amazon holiday market; then everything else. I wonder if Google and Microsoft might breathe a little more life into this market through detachables based on Chrome and Windows on ARM, respectively. </span></p>

  • GeekWithKids

    Premium Member
    12 June, 2018 - 10:34 am

    <p>The 8.4-inch was being offered as a extra when you got the <span style="background-color: rgb(240, 242, 245); color: rgb(65, 64, 66);">HUAWEI P20 or HUAWEI P20 Pro from Rogers in Canada a few weeks ago. Was a very tempting deal, might have got it I wasn't under contract and if Rogers didn't suck so much.</span></p>

  • Eric Rasmussen

    Premium Member
    12 June, 2018 - 10:56 am

    <p>I love Huawei products. I have the Mate 9 phone and it has the best low light camera I've ever seen, phone or otherwise. The daytime photos are also excellent, but I think that's true of all the flagship devices these days.</p><p><br></p><p>I know the U.S. government is suspicious of Huawei and their ties to the Chinese government, but I think there is more going on there than we're being told. Almost all devices these days are made by Foxconn or one of its Chinese subsidiaries, so simply being manufactured by a Chinese company with ties to the Chinese government cannot be the real concern. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if Huawei said no to the NSA's request for planting an NSA back-door in the firmware, and suffered political retaliation as a result.</p>

  • MikeCerm

    12 June, 2018 - 11:03 am

    <p>This hardware looks nice, but <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I can't imagine why anyone would pay higher-than-iPad prices for tablets like these. Android</span> is dead a a tablet OS. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Android updates are almost never pushed to tablets, though it wouldn't matter much anyway since Google is shifting all their efforts away from Android as a tablet OS anyway. Chrome</span> OS tablets (with a real browser, and full-on Linux support for the nerds) are right around the corner. Unlike Android, Chrome OS updates are provided by Google for a number of years — as long as you're likely to have the device. If you want a tablet but really hate Apple, you do better too wait a few months for Chrome OS tablets to appear.</p>

    • Xatom

      12 June, 2018 - 2:19 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#283309"><em>In reply to MikeCerm:</em></a></blockquote><p>Not true. Depends on use case. I travel with 6 tb of personal media. Plug the hard drive into Samsung and Huwai tablets and off we go. I use iPad and it has it’s place but you can’t beat the ability to plug in a lightweight drive OTG.</p>

    • My Hell baby speaking

      13 June, 2018 - 1:55 am

      <blockquote><a href="#283309"><em>In reply to MikeCerm:</em></a></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><p>Security on a no longer supported Android device isn't that bad as long as you stick to the Play Store. Android is quite modern concerning security with lots of barriers. It seems the number of actually infected and exploited devices is very low. </p><p>For most exploits to be successful from the beginning to the end a complete chain of unfixed and interlocking security issues is necessary. </p>

    • aretzios

      13 June, 2018 - 7:11 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#283309"><em>In reply to MikeCerm: I think that comments such as "Android is dead as a Tablet OS" only portray ignorance of the issues. There are excellent Android Tablets from Samsung (such as the Galaxy Tab S3), from Asus, from Lenovo, Dell and others, not just Huawei. Amazon's tablets are using an Android-based OS.. It is quite likely that Google may progressively transition these devices to a hybrid OS that would be able to run Chrome OS, Android and Linux applications while having pen input as well, but we are not there 100%. Only a couple of devices presently achieve this. However, there are quite a number of 2:1 Chromebooks that run Android applications quite well. This is a much more "active" area than you have assumed. </em></a></blockquote><p><br></p>

  • IanYates82

    Premium Member
    12 June, 2018 - 6:00 pm

    <p>Do they support a stylus of any kind? (not the fake finger ones, but real active ones like an s pen) </p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      13 June, 2018 - 6:39 am

      <blockquote><a href="#283522"><em>In reply to IanYates82:</em></a></blockquote><p>The Pro version uses a real stylus.</p><p>1&amp;1 are offering it for 0,-€ in Germany on a Tablet contract (24,99€ / month with 5GB data, 100GB cloud storage, free keyboard case, EU roaming flatrate (they have to, it is now required in the EU)).</p>

  • Dandyv

    13 June, 2018 - 2:19 am

    <p>It’s so easy to make $5000 for every day trading, if you want to understand how it is Google Emini S&amp;P Trading Secret.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p><br></p>

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