Huawei unveils the MediaPad M2 7.0: full-HD tablet with fingerprint sensor, octa-core SoC & more
Huawei has maintained its recent cycle of new hardware releases with the announcement in China of the MediaPad M2 7.0. Essentially, it's a fairly well-spec'd tablet similar to last year's Huawei MediaPad M2 (8-inch), with an apparently slight down-sizing in footprint.
The 8-inch version launched back in July 2015 with an octa-core Kirin 930 SoC, 3 gigs of RAM and 32 GB of storage. The new model matches the 1920 x 1200 resolution of last year, though instead opts for Qualcomm's Snapdragon 615 chipset with 3 GB RAM. The slate also offers an optional 4G LTE version with dual-SIM slots, and this cellular model gets a choice of 16 or 32 GB of expandable storage—the Wi-Fi version is 16 gigs only.
With a sharp display and solid processor, it definitely a strong tablet, and should run for a substantial length of time courtesy of its 4360 mAh battery. Elsewhere, the device packs a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 5-megapixel shooter for selfies, and is the very first Huawei tablet with to include a fingerprint sensor.
It would appear that this new 7-inch model is a one-up on the aforementioned MediaPad M2 (8-inch), though it may also be that Huawei will retain a 7, 8 and a 10-inch tablet to keep things nicely diverse. As you might expect from the Chinese firm, the MediaPad M2 7.0 runs on the Emotion UI 3.1 overlay, which is Huawei's own answer to the likes of Samsung TouchWiz and HTC Sense. Unfortunately in this case, EMUI 3.1 is baked atop Android 5.1 Lollipop, which is disappointing given the length of time for which Android 6 Marshmallow has graced us.
The Wi-Fi version will cost the equivalent of $230, while the 16 and 32 GB LTE models will cost roughly $292 and $323 respectively. There's no word on when or if it will launch outside of China, but we will, of course, keep you in the loop.
FCC OKs Cingular\'s purchase of AT&T Wireless
Things that are NOT allowed: