PERFECT FORM
HIGH TECH

Stylish, slim, with rounded edges, the HUAWEI MediaPad M3 meets all the demands of modern design. Aerospace aluminum all-metal body, lightweight yet durable. Slim tablet fits comfortably in the hand. The HUAWEI MediaPad M3 is a great example of ergonomic design.

HARMONY OF SENSES

The HUAWEI MediaPad M3 features acoustic technologies from Harman / Kardon and AKG to deliver high quality sound and excellent audio and video effects.

HIGH PERFORMANCE
UNLIMITED POSSIBILITIES

Huawei's powerful Kirin 950 processor clocked at 2.3GHz with 16nm FinFET + technology delivers lightning-fast solutions to your toughest challenges, throughput memory, optimizes power consumption, taking the HUAWEI MediaPad M3 to new heights and making it one of the most powerful tablets in its class.

THE BEST MOMENTS OF YOUR LIFE
YOU WON'T MISS ANYTHING IMPORTANT

Capture the magical moments of your life. Whether it's breathtaking landscapes or priceless selfies, your memories will always be with you. HUAWEI MediaPad M3's two 8MP cameras - front and rear - capture crisp, professional-quality photos.

GREAT SOUND
CONCERT HALL IN POCKET

Immerse yourself in the world of sounds! HUAWEI's SWS 3.0 technology delivers high quality sound. Two side stereo speakers create the effect of being in a concert hall. Co-developed with electronics expert Harman / Kardon, the audio system of the HUAWEI MediaPad M3 accurately reproduces all sounds. HUAWEI's SmartPA system captures all the nuances and nuances.

INCREDIBLE SOUND
TRUE PLEASURE

A high-performance audio processing and conversion processor is responsible for the accurate reproduction of sounds, providing analog sound. The AK4376 D / A Converter from Asahi Kasei Microdevices delivers high sound quality far superior to conventional CDs. The HUAWEI MediaPad M3 is the hi-fi system in your pocket.

BRIGHT PICTURE
NATURAL COLORS

The whole world at a glance. The best-in-class 8.4 "HD 2560´1600 IPS screen delivers crisp images, vivid, true-to-life colors and is easy to use for both work and movie viewing.

DYNAMIC BRIGHTNESS
EYE PROTECTION

Advanced dynamic brightness control technology adjusts the screen backlight for optimal lighting and reduces eye fatigue. You will not feel visual discomfort when surfing the Internet for hours or reading books.

CRYSTAL CLEAR IMAGE HIGH CLEARANCE

ClariVu 3.0 technology expands the color range of the screen, delivering high color resolution and superior image quality.

It's sad, but true: tablets are less and less the heroes of our reviews, and not because we are lazy to test them - there are just fewer and fewer “tablets” worth paying attention to. Smartphones with large screens are replacing them, and every year more and more actively.

Nevertheless, tablets are still being born, which are very difficult to pass by. Moreover, we take the word "pass" literally in this context - the MediaPad M3 looks very attractive, and when you see it on the shop window, you will most likely want to touch and twirl the tablet in your hands. Below we will tell you what is behind the pretty appearance.

⇡ Specifications

⇡ Appearance, ergonomics, fingerprint scanner

Remember what Huawei was doing a couple of years ago? Like many Chinese manufacturers, it created low-cost devices that outperform the A-brand gadgets in their price range. As time went on, Huawei itself became an A-brand in the world of tablets and smartphones. Now the company is betting not only on devices with an interesting price-performance ratio, but also on the image.

The main body material of the MediaPad M3 is metal. Due to the thin frames around the screen, the gadget turned out to be quite compact, it is convenient to hold it in the palm of your hand, controlling it with your other hand. The tablet weighs 310 grams, and the thickness of the case is 7.3 millimeters.

The Huawei MediaPad M3 is pretty solid and looks cute, but not original - it looks a lot like any other metal tablet from the company.

The device is most similar to its predecessor, the Huawei MediaPad M2, although there are a few differences. So, the black frame around the display disappeared from the front panel, and the camera peephole moved closer to the center of the case. Under the screen now flaunts a fingerprint scanner, which at first everyone perceives as the "Home" key, but they are not combined together and work in different ways, which is even confusing at first. In fact, all the function buttons are on the display itself, not below it.

The rear panel also underwent minor changes - the lens peephole was moved a little further from the edge of the body (apparently, so that fingers would not get into the frame), but the flash disappeared somewhere, which is clearly not a plus for the device's camera. In general, the tablet is quite attractive, especially if we discard thoughts of similarity with some iPad Mini 3 or iPhone 6. Still, most modern tablets look similar - they use approximately the same colors, plastic or metal, thin frames and rounded shapes. But due to the materials and workmanship, the MediaPad M3 feels premium and reliable.

With a diagonal of 8.4 inches, the tablet is unrealistic to operate with one hand, although it fits in width in a large palm. The build quality of the Huawei MediaPad M3 turned out to be at a high level. In our opinion, the metal justifies its use - the model is pleasant to the touch, durable and hardly bends if you press it in your hands. I would like to see some more safety glass like Gorilla Glass, which Huawei did not spare on the Huawei Matebook Windows tablet.

The Huawei MediaPad M3 is available in gold and silver.

Dimensions and weight - 4.9

Huawei MediaPad M3 can hardly be called the lightest and most compact, but it comes on the heels of the champions in this parameter. The device will not become a heavy burden on the road and will not take up much space in your bag.

The MediaPad M3 tablet weighs 320 grams (the manufacturer indicates 310), its dimensions are 215 × 124 × 7.7 mm (Huawei promises a thickness of 7.3 mm). Due to the specific diagonal of the screen (8.4 inches), there is not much to compare the device with, except for the already old Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4, which, by the way, is noticeably lighter and thinner. If you take the 7.9-inch iPad Mini 4 or the 8-inch Asus ZenPad S 8.0, they are both lighter and slightly thinner. It would seem that this is not in favor of the MediaPad 3, but in practice the difference of 10-15 grams is not felt.

Ports and interfaces - 4.7

The tablet received a top-end set of ports and interfaces, up to the maximum level it lacks chips like NFC or IrDA, as well as support for advanced technologies such as MHL or Display Port (video transmission via Micro-USB connector). But the device has an OTG function, with which you can connect various peripherals in the form of mice, USB keyboards and external hard drives.

MediaPad M3 supports telephony function - you can make calls from it, no matter how strange it looks. If you pull out the SIM-card tray, then at first you might think that the second slot is combined and the tablet supports two SIM-cards of the nano format at once, but this is not so. It is intended solely for a memory card. The MediaPad M3 supports LTE, Bluetooth, dual band Wi-Fi and A-GPS with GLONASS support. We expected to see a new USB Type C connector, but a Micro-USB 2.0 connector is used for charging and connecting to a PC.

The locations of the connectors and buttons are as follows:

• on the right side there is a power key and a volume rocker
• on the upper edge - headphone jack and speaker
• at the bottom - a microphone, a Micro-USB 2.0 connector, a speaker, slots for SIM and MicroSD cards
• there is nothing on the left side.

Performance - 4.6

Thanks to the powerful stuffing, Huawei MediaPad M3 can be called a productive tablet - it is enough to solve several tasks at once. True, in some heavy games the tablet still slows down, but only at the maximum graphics settings.

The tablet received a proprietary HiSilicon Kirin 950 chipset - four 1.8 GHz cores (for simpler actions) plus four cores operating at frequencies up to 2.3 GHz (for demanding tasks). The same was used, for example, in the Huawei Honor 8. MediaPad M3 is equipped with 4 GB at once random access memory- typical volume for top-end tablets in 2016, or for budget laptops.

In synthetic performance tests, the tablet scored relatively high:

• Epic Citadel (graphics test) - 33.0 fps at high settings, the result is not the highest, but the reason is the resolution of 2440 × 1600 pixels;
• Sunspider (browser speed test) - 496.5 ms, faster than Asus MeMoPad FHD 8 and second only to iPads;
• GeekBench 4 (CPU test) - 5424 points (comparable to Samsung Galaxy S7);
• AnTuTu 6 (combined test) - 85,977, slightly inferior flagship smartphone Huawei P9;
• 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited (graphics test) - 20,100, almost double the MediaPad X2.

Benchmark results are on par with last year's Android flagships, which is good. Yes, in some tests the tablet "sags", but the blame for the super-sharp screen of the device. If we talk about daily use, then everything works fine: applications, video, browser, and all at once, without leaving the RAM. The only exceptions are some games on the maximum graphics. For example, "Asphalt Extreme" or World of Tanks Blitz are playable at high settings, but at times the fps (frame rate) drops noticeably. In the case of a smartphone, we would call this a disadvantage, but for an Android tablet, this is quite a typical story, even Samsung in its top-end Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 used a mid-level chipset, which also does not cope with heavy games so successfully.

Display - 4.9

The display of the Huawei MediaPad M3 is in no way inferior to any of the competitors. It is very clear, moderately bright and contrasting. The only drawback is that the screen has no special protection, most likely it's just tempered glass.

Tablet screen type - IPS, resolution - 2560 × 1600 pixels. In our opinion, this is even overkill for the 8.4-inch diagonal, but this resolution guarantees a clear image at 359 pixels per inch, which is slightly higher than the iPad Pro or iPad mini 3.

The screen can be praised for its excellent oleophobic coating - it almost always stays clean, and even if it gets dirty, it instantly wipes off. Due to the absence of an air gap between the screen and the glass, it seems that the image is set "high" and is visually closer to the viewer. The range of brightness we measured is from 7 to 423 cd / m2, better than most tablets. In the dark, such a screen is comfortable for the eyes, and in the sun it is readable only with slight difficulties. The brightness distribution is surprisingly even at 96%, and the contrast is high at 1110, an excellent result comparable to the Mediapad X2. The color gamut is slightly expanded, covering 100% of standard sRGB and 86% of Adobe RGB. The color accuracy also did not disappoint - not the best on the market, but with the naked eye, you can hardly see the deviations in colors. A standard drawback for the company's devices is the increased color temperature, which makes the image slightly blue. But this can be easily corrected manually in the tablet settings. Of the curious details, we note the glove mode, which really works, as well as the reading mode, which dramatically changes the color temperature of the image, which makes everything yellowish - somewhat reminiscent of the chip with automatic temperature control on the iPad Pro 9.7.

Battery - 3.5

Huawei MediaPad M3 showed average results in battery tests. He failed to get more points due to inconclusive video marathon time.

Capacity battery tablet - 5100 mAh, this is more likely the norm for its size. So, in games at maximum brightness, the tablet lasted almost 5 hours - only frankly weak tablets like Huawei MediaPad T1 8.0 or devices with a huge battery, for example, Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 10, worked longer. When viewing HD video at a brightness of 150 cd / m2, the MediaPad M3 showed already a weak result, being discharged in 6 hours and 20 minutes, which is rather weak against the background of competitors with a spread of 9-11 hours. Even the Asus Zenpad S 8.0 lasted 40 minutes longer in this mode, and the old Sony Xperia Tablet Z3 Compact lasted more than 12 hours. This is probably due to the extremely clear display. But in the minimum load mode (reading mode at minimum brightness) the tablet lasted 19.5 hours, which is a lot. For an hour and a half of browsing with Wi-Fi connected (at a moderate brightness of 150 cd / m2), the MediaPad M3 lost 14% of its charge, which means that it can still last for 9-10 hours of Internet use.

Cameras - 5.0

Huawei MediaPad M3 received two 8 MP cameras, high-quality by the standards of tablets, but noticeably inferior to smartphones. The MediaPad M3 is capable of taking good selfies, but is unlikely to replace your camera.

If you have a smartphone and Mediapad M3 with you, it is preferable and more convenient to shoot with your phone. The tablet's camera is noticeably inferior in detail and quality, it copes well only with simple scenarios such as capturing text or something small. Formally, the camera has quite a few functions - shooting panoramas, photos in HDR and even a manual mode with fairly wide customization options is available, but there is not even a flash. In addition, frames often lack sharpness, I would like a wider dynamic range, and focusing works much worse than in the company's smartphones. The main camera can shoot Full HD video (1920 × 1080 pixels) at 30 frames per second.

The 8MP front camera does a great job with selfies, can use filters for decoration, but only records video in HD resolution (1280 × 720 pixels).

Photo from the camera Huawei MediaPad M3 - 5.0

Photo from the front camera Huawei MediaPad M3 - 5.0

Temperature - 3.6

Despite its compactness and high performance, the Huawei MediaPad M3 proved to be a rather cool tablet during the tests, which practically does not heat up during use.

At rest, the case temperature did not exceed 31.9 degrees on the back and 32.3 degrees on the bottom of the display, average figures. After a half-hour load, the tablet warmed up to only 37.7 degrees on the back panel, approximately under the camera lens. Such a temperature is comfortable for use, it will definitely not be possible to burn yourself with such a device.

Memory - 5.0

The internal memory of the Huawei MediaPad M3 is either 32 or 64 GB. We received a 64 GB modification for tests, of which approximately 54 GB was available. This volume is quite enough for a tablet, and even if not, the device has a slot for a memory card with a capacity of up to 128 GB, with the possibility of "hot swapping" (without a mandatory reboot). The default microSD card can be selected as the save location various programs, but the interface does not have the ability to transfer applications from the device's memory to a card.

Features of the

Huawei MediaPad M3 is running operating system Android 6.0 Marshmallow and a proprietary user-friendly Emotion UI 4.1 shell. Initially, a lot of applications are preinstalled on the tablet, but many of them can be removed (Sberbank, Odnoklassniki, Facebook, and the like). The MediaPad M3 has a lot of features, for example, a proprietary keyboard, color temperature adjustments, glove mode, movement control (tilting, turning, and so on) and through a fingerprint scanner.

TFT IPS- High quality liquid crystal matrix. Has wide viewing angles, one of the best indicators of color and contrast quality among all that are used in the production of displays for portable equipment.
Super AMOLED- if a conventional AMOLED screen uses several layers, between which there is an air gap, then in Super AMOLED there is only one such touch layer without air gaps. This allows you to achieve a brighter screen for the same power consumption.
Super AMOLED HD- differs from Super AMOLED in high resolution, thanks to which it is possible to achieve a size of 1280x720 pixels on the screen of a mobile phone.
Super AMOLED plus- This is a new generation of Super AMOLED displays, which differs from the previous one by using more subpixels in a conventional RGB matrix. The new displays are 18% thinner and brighter than the older PenTile technology.
AMOLED- an improved version of OLED technology. The main advantages of the technology are significantly reduced power consumption, the ability to display a wider color gamut, a smaller thickness and the ability of the display to bend slightly, without the risk of breaking.
Retina-display with high pixel density, designed specifically for Apple technology. The pixel density on Retina displays is such that individual pixels are invisible to the eye at a normal distance from the screen. This provides the highest picture detail and dramatically improves the overall viewing experience.
Super Retina HD- the display is made using OLED technology. The pixel density is 458 PPI, the contrast ratio reaches 1,000,000: 1. The display has a wide color gamut and unrivaled color accuracy. Pixels in the corners of the display are anti-aliased at the sub-pixel level, so the edges are smooth and look smooth. 50% thicker Super Retina HD gain layer. It will be harder to break the screen.
Super LCD is the next generation of LCD technology and features improved performance over earlier LCD displays. The screens have not only wide viewing angles and better color reproduction, but also lower power consumption.
TFT- A common type of liquid crystal displays. With an active matrix controlled by TFTs, display performance is significantly improved, as well as contrast and image clarity.
OLED- organic electroluminescent display. Consists of a special thin-film polymer that emits light under the action of an electric field. This type of display has a large margin of brightness and consumes very little power.

Complete (in older configurations) AKG headphones are miniature in appearance, but they hold firmly in the ears. The sound is given out, I would say, "tightly knocked down" - that is, not as loose as in complete "vacuum cleaners" at Sony Xperia, and not as voluminous as in the Xiaomi Piston 3. But the clarity is higher, and the bass and treble are clearly defined. They play clearly and boldly, in general.

As for the speakers, there are two of them, each with 1W of power, tuned together with Harman / Kardon. The volume headroom is huge, and it's also quite surprising that the speakers play differently, depending on how you hold the tablet.

In portrait (vertical) orientation, the bottom speaker tries to work out low frequencies, and the top one is high. In landscape mode, both speakers work on as large a stereo base as possible. In a standard audio player, this feature works flawlessly, in other applications - only with the above-mentioned SWS, which in this particular case comes in handy. In short, the sound in the speakers is spacious, clean, with a bit of low and abundance in other frequencies. But it is so only if the volume level does not exceed 60% of the maximum (even in this mode, the tablet is louder than all competitors with one speaker). If you are zealous with the volume level further - you will get a "squeak", so be afraid of the god of warm tube sound and do not do that.

Iron

As luck would have it, the Huawei MediaPad M3 has become not only the most musical, but also the most powerful Android tablet of our time. Simply because since 2015 there have been no really fast competitors, and the Kirin 950 processor came out exactly at the turn of 2015-2016. and then he was pretty cool. More precisely, before the Exynos 8890 ( Samsung Galaxy S7) and Snapdragon 820 (the darkness is the darkest of flagships), this Kirin was the fastest smartphone chip ever. Today it has ceased to be a luxury or a record holder, but it is still good and capable of claiming sub-flagship (that is, much better than the middle class) laurels even in mobile phones.