Huawei announces MediaPad M3 at IFA 2016

At IFA 2016 in Berlin, Huawei unveiled two new smartphones – the Nova and Nova Plus – as well as a new generation of its MediaPad M tablet line.

The MediaPad M3 is an 8.4 inch tablet with a WQHD+ display, fingerprint reader and a dual 1-watt speaker system co-engineered with Harman Kardon. On the inside the MediaPad M3 uses Huawei's own Kirin 950 processor together with 4GB RAM and either 32GB or 64GB storage. There is also a microSD card slot which allows the storage to be expanded by another 128GB. The Kirin 950, with its Cortex-A72 cores and Cortex-A53 cores, has proven to be fast and efficient, so the performance of the M3 should be excellent. As for graphics the Kirin 950 uses the ARM Mali-T880 GPU, the same GPU as found in phones like the Huawei Mate 8 and the Huawei P9.

Filling up the space behind the 8.4 inch screen is a 5100 mAh battery, which should yield at least two days' worth of battery life. The M3 comes with two cameras, a rear facing camera and a front facing camera. Both have 8MP sensors. Tablets aren't normally used for taking photos while on holiday, and they are best used for video chats etc.

The Huawei MediaPad M3 runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow but with Huawei's EMUI 4.1 on top. This is basically the same setup as found on other Huawei devices like the Honor 8 and Huawei P9 Plus. While EMUI looks nice and responds well, it doesn't have an app drawer, which some people won't like.

The M3 also has 4G connectivity which means it comes with a SIM card slot. A phone app is also included but the tablet doesn't include an earpiece, so you will need to use the speakerphone or a Bluetooth headset. However the main advantage of the 4G connectivity is that you can get online while out and about with the tablet.

We don't have any pricing or availability info yet, but as soon as it comes we will update this article. Having said that our team at IFA has managed to spend some time with the MediaPad M3, so expect a review shortly!

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