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.”

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.

Tagged with Huawei MediaPad M5