Huawei MediaPad M3 Lite 10 Review - Review 2022

A 10-inch tablet is likely used for streaming media, and for that, the $249.99 Huawei MediaPad M3 Lite 10 gets a large thumbs upward. It has a sharp x-inch screen and loud stereo speakers, perfect for watching Netflix while you're on the go. It too offers a fingerprint sensor and admission to the Google Play store, two things yous won't observe on any of Amazon's tablets. That said, the $149.99 Amazon Fire HD 10 offers like specs and operation, better parental controls, and Alexa vox integration at well-nigh half the price. The Lite 10 is a good alternative if you refuse to alive in Amazon's ecosystem, but if you're merely looking for a good, affordable slate, the Burn down HD ten is the best value for your dollar.

Design, Display, and Network

The MediaPad M3 Light ten ($359.00 at Amazon) is a white plastic tablet framed past a strip of metal around the sides. Combined with silver accents around the buttons and camera sensor, information technology lends the slate a more than premium appearance than your standard polycarbonate slab.

At 9.5 by 6.viii by 0.iii inches (HWD) and 15.2 ounces, information technology's a bit smaller than the Amazon Fire HD ten all around (10.3 by six.3 by 0.4 inches, 17.four ounces). The slim and lightweight blueprint helps reduce strain on your forearm when belongings information technology upright for prolonged streaming sessions.

You lot'll detect the standard array of ports and buttons. A clicky power button and book rocker are on the right, a three.5mm audio jack is up acme, and the left side houses a microSD menu slot that worked fine with a 256GB card to provide additional storage. At that place's as well a micro USB charging port. The front has a fingerprint sensor on the bezel below the display, which is a dainty feature you don't typically discover in this price range.

A powerful set of speakers (2 on top, two on bottom) can exist tuned to your liking via Harman Kardon software. It gets pretty loud at maximum volume, and the software tweaks tin add a bit more depth, just some tinniness is unavoidable.

The front is habitation to a 10.1-inch, 1,920-by-1,200 display. Information technology has 224 pixels per inch, the aforementioned every bit the Burn down HD 10. Text and video appear sharp, with no blurriness or pixelation unless you wait very closely. Information technology's skillful for watching video and provides solid viewing angles. It also gets quite vivid, though it can exist a bit cogitating in direct sunlight.

Dual-band Wi-Fi provides connectivity on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Wireless performance in PC Labs was solid, with stiff connectivity and good range. Yous also have Bluetooth 4.0 for wireless sound.

Processor, Battery, and Photographic camera

The MediaPad is powered past a Qualcomm Snapdragon Snapdragon 435 processor. On the AnTuTu benchmark (which measures overall system performance), information technology turned in a respectable score of 40,810, which is higher than the Lenovo Tab four 10 (36,730), though in terms of average use you're looking at a similar level of performance.

That said, the Light 10 has 3GB of RAM, giving it an reward over the Fire HD ten (which has 2GB) in terms of multitasking. You'll be able to run more apps in the background without hitting the RAM usage limit or experiencing crashes. Unfortunately, Huawei's heavy UI layer bogs affair downwardly a chip. Switching between apps results in visible stuttering, and there's several seconds of filibuster when launching new apps. More than demanding games like GTA: San Andreas aren't playable due to control latency, but less graphics-hungry titles don't present a problem.

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Battery life is solid, with the tablet clocking half dozen hours, 27 minutes of full-screen video streaming over Wi-Fi at maximum brightness. That'southward just a scrap amend than the Fire Hard disk 10 (6 hours, fourteen minutes), though neither last as long equally the Tab four 10 (8 hours, 11 minutes). Withal, this is plenty of juice to go along you lot entertained during a long car ride, and at that place are a slew of bombardment saving modes to assistance keep y'all going for longer. There's no fast charging, and then a battery pack may come in handy for very long journeys.

There are 8-megapixel cameras on the front end and back of the tablet. The rear sensor has autofocus and takes passable, reasonably detailed shots in good lighting. In more challenging conditions quality quickly drops, with low-light shots becoming quite dingy. It'due south capable of recording 1080p video at 30fps, merely it's fairly jittery when panning and tends to drib frames. The front sensor takes clear selfies, and while video can be grainy, information technology's fine for video chat.

Software

The tablet runs the aging Android 7.0 Lollipop with Huawei'south hefty EMUI 5.i software on tiptop. EMUI alters app icons, the lock screen, notification shade, and settings menu. By default, apps are splashed across the abode screens and there's no app drawer, but that'due south easy to alter in the settings. The bigger trouble is the aforementioned slowdown when switching between apps and scrolling through menus.

The plus side to EMUI is that you go a number of customization options. For the brandish, y'all tin enable a blue light filter to reduce eye strain at nighttime, adjust screen colour temperature, add together a floating navigation dock for easier reachability, remap navigation keys, and lock individual apps and files. There's also a built-in storage cleaner to remove devious files.

Bloatware comes preinstalled in the form of Excel, Facebook, Instagram, Kids Corner, Lyft, Messenger, Outlook, PowerPoint, SwiftKey Keyboard, and Word. You lot might detect some of it useful. Kids Corner, for instance, is the simply style to enable parental controls, though it'due south quite limited compared with what Amazon offers. On the other hand, you get unfettered access to the Google Play store, which you don't get on Amazon'south tablets.

The hefty software and bloatware load means y'all just have 6.23GB of internal storage free out of 16GB. A microSD carte du jour slot tin can help, simply in that location's no Adoptable Storage then you can't move apps over.

Conclusions

For $250, the Huawei MediaPad Light 10 is a sleek tablet with a big, crisp screen and booming speakers at a reasonable cost. Unfortunately, information technology's but non reasonable plenty to compete with the Amazon Fire HD 10, which is available for $100 less and offers the same performance. Information technology'due south also uncomfortably close in price to the $329 Apple iPad, which offers a faster processor, a sharper screen, and admission to Apple's App Store, which still has an advantage over Android when it comes to quality tablet apps. So unless you absolutely need access to Google Play, you're improve off paying a lot less for the Fire Hard disk drive x or a bit more for the iPad.

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