Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite Review

It’s been out for quite a while now, and we’re here to give you an insight of what it beholds. The Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite comes with 1GB RAM, a 1.2GHz CPU and all the other things you would expect with a tablet of this class – a tuned down version of the original MediaPad. Read on our full review after the break.

Design & Construction

The MediaPad 7 Lite is basically sized like any other 7-inch tablet. It’s quite heavy compared to some competitors out there, but we like it since it adds a premium feeling to the device. The back is made out of plastic and aluminum, and it really feels high-end all-in-all. The aluminum part attracts dirt however, so you’re going to need to clean up frequently.

The top side and the left side are free from any buttons, but on the left side, you’ll find the power button, the volume rocker and the slots for the micro SD card and the SIM card. On the bottom, you’ll find the micro USB port and the place for the 3.5mm audio jack. The volume buttons are set to work properly on landscape mode. Pressing the right side button will turn the volume up while the left will turn the volume down. However, on portrait, the functions do not change (pressing up will turn the volume down) so it might lead to some confusion.

The back part hosts the 3.15 megapixel camera and the speakers. The tablet is one solidly designed tablet, and we have no other complaints about it except the dirt-attracting back casing and the confusing volume rocker.

Display

The 7-inch IPS LCD display shows off a resolution of 600 x 1024, and creates quite some obvious pixelation up to a certain distance. On the other hand, viewing angles are great on the Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite thanks to the IPS treatment.

The same can be said about color reproduction. It gave out vibrant colors and there was a good amount of fidelity. The screen was fairly responsive with occasional lags which are probably brought upon by the hardware, but more on that below.

OS, Apps & UI

The device runs on Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich which is good compared to the Honeycomb-powered Mediapad of last year. Huawei has done very few customization with the tablet, and it’s quite a good thing. The software buttons below could disappear if you want them to, but that isn’t very useful in itself.

The Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite has a few apps pre-installed like Kingsoft office and Foxit Reader, including a messaging app and a phone app. Most of the manufacturer tweaks involve visual elements only, and we had no problems with the interface since it’s pretty much vanilla Android from top to bottom.

Camera & Multimedia

The tablet has a 3.15 megapixel camera on the back which captures vibrant shots and great photos in proper lighting, but just like any other tablet camera, it’s nothing special. The same can be said about video capture – fair and mediocre.

The MediaPad Lite’s 7-inch display will suffice for watching videos and reading ebooks. Speakers work well; it’s fairly loud and clear, but only just enough for most user’s needs.

Performance & Battery

Performance is the deal-breaker for us here. The benchmarks gave us results that are lower than the first Galaxy S, and that is evident with real-world performance – even with the 1GB RAM.

The tablet managed to get 1,297 on Quadrant, 2,993 on Antutu & 20.8 on Nenamark 2. We expected more from the tablet, but sadly it isn’t enough to keep us going with all the lags and dropped frames. Moreover, first we thought it was the display, but all throughout the interface, it wasn’t responsive.

On the bright side of things, battery life did good as it managed to get us a day’s use and a lot more than that if it was on standby. The tablet is 3G capable, so expect the battery to drain faster if you’re heavy on mobile data.

Conclusion

The Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite is quite hard to consider for us, especially at a price tag of around Php10,700USD 182INR 15,457EUR 174CNY 1,328. It packs decent hardware and software for the most part, except for one major flaw – the CPU. It’s not enough to push everything to its full potential with hiccups here and there. However, if you’re after an affordable 3G tablet, you may want to check this out.

Huawei MediaPad 7 Lite specs:
7-inch IPS LCD display (600 x 1024, 170ppi)
1.2GHz Cortex A8 CPU
1GB RAM
8GB internal memory
micro SD support up to 32GB
3.15MP camera, 720p HD Video
Front-facing camera
3G
Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich
4,100mAh battery
193 x 120 x 11 mm (dimensions)
370 g (weight)

What we liked about it:

• Clean user interface
• Vibrant display
• Premium construction
• Affordable for 3G capabilites

What we didn’t like about it:

• Very slow and laggy performance