CommunicAsia 2011 - Huawei
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Huawei MediaPad - The Show Stopper
Huawei's Showtime
While Huawei has traditionally kept its presence contained within the showfloors of CommunicAsia, the Chinese company took a different approach in 2011 with a global press conference held a day before CommunicAsia 2011 goes into full gear. Huawei definitely did not surprise us with its new 7-inch tablet, the MediaPad. But it did shed some light on its features, some of which includes an as-yet unseen Android 3.2 Honeycomb OS and a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. So what makes Huawei MediaPad so special? Check out our hands-on coverage below:
Huawei MediaPad
The MediaPad achieves three milestones for Huawei. One, it is the world's first 7-inch Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet. According to Huawei, the current Android 3.0/3.1 OS is only optimized for 10-inch screens. The company also believes that the 7-inch screen size strikes the balance between design, functionality and performance. Hence, Huawei collaborated with Google Android to develop the Android 3.2 OS to enhance the full potential of the tablet-centric OS on a 7-inch screen. With Android 3.2, users can see a better optimized user interface with improvements in Google Maps and graphics performance.
Two, most tablets today run on 1GHz dual-core processors, hence the MediaPad trumps the rest of the tablets in the market by being the first to ship with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. While we did not have the luxury of time to properly test the tablet at the event, the overall user experience was snappy. Page scrolling was smooth and fluid.
Three, it is Huawei's slimmest and lightest tablet so far, measuring just 10.5mm thick and weighing approximately 390g. Despite being slim and light, the MediaPad actually feels quite solid in the hands, thanks to the uni-body aluminum alloy construction.
The other key highlight of the MediaPad is its high resolution display. It has a slightly higher pixel density compared to its competitors.
The MediaPad is also supported by Huawei Device's Hi-Space cloud solution, which aims to bring together localized content and apps for easy access to its users. Huawei also calmed our concerns about Hi-Space competing with Android Market by stating that its cloud app store will coexist with the latter. The company will also screen through any apps before putting them on Hi-Space.
Huawei has announced that the MediaPad will see a Q3 2011 availability. The company also mentioned that there will be a Wi-Fi and 3G variant for the MediaPad. Depending on the market viability, we might see just only one or both variants selling side-by-side. Huawei wasn't able to provide an estimated price range of the MediaPad, though they did mention that it is a different market segment from the affordable IDEOS lineup that was launched recently. This could place the MediaPad beyond the usual competitive prices adopted by Huawei. For now, we'll be keeping a close watch on more upcoming news from the MediaPad and its Android 3.2 OS.
Key highlights of the Huawei MediaPad
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