Huawei MediaPad T3 8
A likeable low-cost Android tablet, with a compact frame that belies its exceptional capacity for entertainment
On paper, the MediaPad T3 looks like a dud. Its 1.4GHz Snapdragon 425 is not a powerful processor: in our Geekbench performance tests it scored similarly to the Amazon Fire HD 8, which costs £60 less. Android runs smoothly, but there's little headroom for heavyweight apps. And you can forget about high-end 3D gaming: in the GFXBench Manhattan benchmark, the T3 took the wooden spoon with an average frame rate of just 6fps.
The screen too is distinctly reminiscent of the eight-inch Fire tablet: it’s the same size and has the same 1,280 x 800 resolution, which translates to a sub-Retina pixel density of 189ppi. It’s not quite as
bright – we measured it at 358cd/m2 , while the Fire hit 455cd/m2 – but it does have a slightly better contrast ratio. Overall, there’s not much to choose between them.
The obvious question is why anyone would pay the extra money for the Huawei over the Amazon – and there are in fact some arguments in its favour. One is design: the Fire HD 8 is a solid bit of kit, but you’d struggle to call it attractive. The Huawei is a much more elegant object, with a sturdy metal back. It’s smaller in every dimension too – not by much, but by enough to make it feel like a superior class of tablet, with a noticeable 1.2mm thinness advantage over the Fire HD 8. The front-facing LED is also a nice touch, showing charging status and pulsing when you have an unread notification.
Then there’s battery life. Though the MediaPad T3 8’s battery is almost the smallest here – only the Fire 7 undershoots it for milliamp-hours – Huawei put every other tablet to shame in our longevity test, with an unprecedented 17hr 24mins of continuous video playback. Never mind getting you through the working day, this is a tablet that’ll keep on ticking until you drop off at night.
If you need one, a final reason you might prefer the Huawei over the Fire HD 8 is that you get Google’s own Play Store and associated apps, rather than being tied into the Amazon ecosystem. It’s not quite stock Android, but Huawei’s customisations are so modest as to be barely noticeable.
In all, despite its evident shortcomings, and a price point that’s not really in the same budgetary bracket as the Amazon Fire HD 8, it’s hard to dislike the MediaPad T3. Clearly it’s no substitute for a full-fat iPad or Google Pixel C, but if you’re after an affordable tablet to keep you entertained while travelling, its combination of style, portability and battery life is very hard to beat.