Huawei’s MediaPad range has traditionally offered a solid value for money option for users. The newly announced M5 Lite continues that heritage, with some bonuses making it a great intro to tablets.
The team at 9to5Google got some hands on with the tablet recently. It’s listed at [USD]$299[/USD], but Huawei haven’t confirmed availability for Australia. The MediaPad M5 Lite comes with a 10.1-inch screen running 1920 x 1200 resolution, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, a Kirin 659 processor and it runs Android 8.1 (Oreo). These specifications are not bad for a budget base device. However, there are some great features as well.
There are a couple of items of note for me personally. First is the M-Pen which has a 2048-level pressure sensitivity. This would make the pen viable for some artwork, and also great to develop fine motor and handwriting skills. The other is the Kids Corner service. Parents can set up a login, secured by thumbprint, to limit kids’ access to the device. You choose which apps they can use, for how long, and so on.
While the Kids Corner functionality can be achieved by third party apps, it’s great to see Huawei has built the feature in to the tablet. Kids who are a bit more tech savvy could, theoretically, get around restrictions like this but it might be fun to use as a challenge for your kids!
Huawei’s MediaPad M5 Lite looks pretty good as a starter for kids, and we’ll check in with Huawei Australia to find out if it’s coming to Australia.
