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Huawei MediaPad T5 10 Review: Affordable & Great Gaming Performance

The Huawei MediaPad T5 10 is an entry-level tablet with a full HD display and very powerful hardware. But is it worth it? Read my review to find out how good it really is.

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Huawei MediaPad T5 10 Review

The Huawei MediaPad T5 10 is a new entry-level tablet which offers quite nice features like a full HD resolution, a fast octa-core processor and a metal back. In addition to that, it is running Android 8.0 Oreo. Starting at just 199 Euros and probably the equivalent in US dollars, it is relatively inexpensive. But is it a good tablet? I’m Andrzej for MyNextTablet.com and this is my Huawei MediaPad T5 10 review.

Huawei MediaPad T5 10 on* Amazon

By the way, the MediaPad T5 10 is the successor to the Huawei MediaPad T3 10 (review) from last year. Compared to the previous version a lot has improved including better internals and a better display. Alright, let’s start this review.

Design & Build Quality

 Huawei MediaPad T5 10 design

The design of the Huawei MediaPad T5 10 is very similar to the one of its predecessor. As with the T3 10, we are getting a metal back. However, there is a plastic bar at the top for the antennas and the frame is made of half metal and half plastic. Huawei is offering this tablet in two colors called black and champagne gold.

While it is not the thinnest at 7.8-millimeters, it is still thin enough at this price point. That goes for the weight of 460 grams as well. Because of the metal back, it does not feel cheap but is not as premium-feeling as an iPad either. Well, it seems to be well built.

It is charged using a micro USB port, so there is no Type C connector. Using an adapter you can connect accessories like external hard-drives. Additionally, the MediaPad T5 10 features a headphone jack and a microSD card slot. On the right side, there are the volume controls and a power button.

Huawei MediaPad T5 10 ports

Speakers & Cameras

There are two speakers on the bottom. That’s not an ideal position because you can cover them easily while laying on a bed or sofa and having the tablet on your belly. But, actually, you can just rotate it and then its fine. Anyways, the sound quality is certainly good enough. It’s fine for watching YouTube and listening to music. Yes, they are not the best speakers, but for better ones, you usually have to invest a bit more.

While the main camera on the back has a resolution of 5 megapixels, we get a 2-megapixel front-facing camera only. I would not call any of those cameras good. Pictures and videos look kind of unsharp. But I guess its good enough for video chats. Again, I would not call them great though.

Display

Huawei MediaPad T5 10 Test

Compared to the MediaPad T3 10, Huawei has improved the screen a lot. The Huawei MediaPad T5 10 has a 10.1-inch display with a full HD resolution of 1920 x 1200. Even though the pixel density is not as high as on premium-tablets, I think full HD on 10 inches is high enough. Yes, if you’re looking very closely you might see pixels. But if you’re holding the tablet at a normal distance in front of you, text and icons do look sharp.

It is an IPS panel with good viewing angles and the screen is laminated. That means there is no noticeable gap between the touchscreen and the IPS layer. It is bright enough as well but certainly not the brightest. You can use it outside but in direct sunlight, it’s a bit dark. The contrast is very good though and colors look nice.

So, overall, I think the display of the MediaPad T5 10 is pretty good. The resolution is high enough and other aspects are good too. Sure, you can get better ones, but these are much pricier. By the way, it does not support an active pen.

Hardware & Performance

Huawei MediaPad T5 10 Benchmarks

The Huawei MediaPad T5 10 is powered by a HiSilicon Kirin 659 octa-core processor which is developed by Huawei itself. It is an octa-core chip with eight Cortex-A53 cores which are clocked at 1.7 to 2.36GHz. Depending on the market, you can get it with 2GB of RAM and a 16GB internal storage or 3GB of RAM and a 32GB internal storage. I’ve got the later one because only that one is available in Germany.

With the 32GB version around 22GB are free to use by the user out of the box. The rest is taken up by the system.

The performance of the Kirin 659 with the 3GB of RAM is good enough for almost everything. And that is what my benchmark tests show as well. In Geekbench 4 the MediaPad T5 10 gets around 960 and 3700 points. In AnTuTu, it gets a result of over 86.000. With these scores, it is much faster than tablets from last year that cost between 200 and 300 US dollars. And it is faster than the new and much pricier Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.5.

For my everyday use, the performance was good enough too. Chrome, YouTube and similar apps run without any problems. That includes Microsoft Word and the split screen view. You can open and use two apps side by side without any issues.

MediaPad T5 10 Gaming Test

The MediaPad T5 10 gets good results in my gaming test as well, especially when considering the price. Sure, it is not a perfect gaming tablet. If you are looking for a high-end performance you have to spend at least 100 dollars more. But most games run very nicely. Among those are Asphalt 8 and Modern Combat 5. The later one did not run smoothly on the predecessor.

Games like Into The Dead 2 run smoothly as well. But with that one, I had to turn the graphics to medium. It stutters too much at highest settings. Players Unknown Battlegrounds Mobile runs very nicely too. In fact, it is playable at lowest and even medium settings. You cannot choose the HD graphics settings though.

Android 8.0 Oreo & EMUI 8.0

Huawei MediaPad T5 10 Android 8.0 Oreo

The Huawei MediaPad T5 10 is shipped with Android 8.0 Oreo. And I’m afraid to say that it probably will never get an update to Android 9.0. Obviously, I can’t predict the future. However, in the past, Huawei has been very disappointing with updates. Especially for their cheaper tablets. Sadly, that is the case with most competitors as well.

On top of Android 8.0 Oreo, we get the EMUI in version 8.0. That is the same custom interface from Huawei that you might know already from their smartphones and previous tablets. With this Emotion UI, the interface is customized quite heavily. And you can customize it even more by yourself.

The EMUI is one of the view things that can be a bit annoying with tablets from Huawei. However, I’m often using their phones and then I get used to it and it’s not too bad. If you get it, you should go through most of the settings to see what you might want to change. For example, I’m not a big fan of the SwiftKey keyboard. But its Android so you can always change it.

Read: The Best Android Tablets Of The Year

One setting is missing on the MediaPad T5 10. With tablets from Huawei, texts and icons often look way to big out of the box. However, usually, there is a display setting called view mode. With that one, you can scale it down so that the content does not look as zoomed in. For some reason, that setting is missing. Hopefully, it’ll come back with an update.

Besides that, there are also a lot of apps pre-installed. And there really are a lot. You can uninstall about half of them but not all. Well, I’ve mentioned that everything is heavily customized. And again, usually I can live with it but it is not ideal. Personally, I prefer vanilla Android or the UI from Samsung. But well, at least you get a lot of features.

Battery Life

Huawei MediaPad T5 10 Battery Life

Inside the Huawei MediaPad T5 10 sits a battery with a capacity of 5100mAh. In my standard battery test, that is enough for a runtime of 10.5 hours. As usual, I’m looping an HD video at 50 percent brightness and activated WiFi.

As you can see in my battery comparison, the result of 10.5 hours is not really good but not really bad either. It’s kind of what you expect at this price point. It should last you a whole day during normal use. Actually, if you don’t use it constantly, it’ll probably last you two days. However, if you’re playing games it’ll drain the battery faster. In standby, it almost does not lose any energy at all.

Huawei MediaPad T5 10 Review: Final Verdict

Huawei MediaPad T5 10 Review

Alright, so how good is the Huawei MediaPad T5 10? Compared to the T3 10, it is much much better. The performance is much better, we get a much nicer full HD display and Android 8.0 Oreo. However, it is not outstanding in any way. Instead, it is a nice lower-middle-class tablet. And that is exactly how it is priced.

I’ve had a lot of good things to say about it and some negative points too. The battery life could be better. And I wish Huawei would update their tablets regularly. But overall, I think the Huawei MediaPad T5 10 is a good value for its price. At the same time, it is priced competitively and right now, you can’t get a better tablet for the same price.

Huawei MediaPad T5 10 Back

However, obviously it always depends what you are looking for exactly and there are some interesting alternatives. One of the first ones is the Huawei MediaPad M5 Lite 10. It features the same display and the same internal hardware. While it costs around 70 Euros more, it offers a full metal body and premium-features like a fingerprint scanner, four speakers and an active pen option.

Another alternative is the MediaPad M3 Lite 10 (review) from last year. Right now, it costs about the same. The performance is not as good and it is still running Nougat. However, it does offer those premium features like a fingerprint sensor and four speakers that the T5 10 does not have.

If you want to spend a bit less, you should check out the Amazon Fire HD 10 (review). It is not as fast and it looks and feels cheaper. But it does have a full HD display too and it is a lot cheaper with a great overall value.


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Huawei MediaPad T5 10
Huawei MediaPad T5 10 Review: The Huawei MediaPad T5 10 is a very good entry-level tablet. Even though it is quite affordable, it offers a good 10.1-inch full HD screen, Android 8.0 Oreo and, considering the price, a great performance. Premium features like a fingerprint scanner are missing. But overall it is a great value.
Positive
  • Good full HD display
  • Powerful CPU
  • Metal back
  • Android 8.0 Oreo
  • Inexpensive
Negative
  • Bad cameras
  • Updates unlikely
  • No premium features
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6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Jentle George

    July 13, 2019 at 6:08 am

    Can we use wired mouse and keyboard for huwai MediaPad t5

    • Andrzej

      July 15, 2019 at 12:00 pm

      Yes you can

  2. saurabh khobba

    July 14, 2019 at 11:19 am

    Hi, iam from India and please help me to choose between
    1)Huawei MediaPad T5 10 and 3gb ram 32 gb for 244 US dollar
    2)Samsung galaxy tab a 10.1 LTE plus wifi model 2gb ram 32 gb for 288 US dollar
    Thank you

    • Andrzej

      July 15, 2019 at 12:01 pm

      If you don’t care about the price difference, I would get the Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 because of its faster processor, USB C port and because it’ll probably get much longer updates.

  3. Lucas Delaney

    October 18, 2019 at 11:26 pm

    Can you use a stylus pen with it and use it for artist programs like you would with an ipad Pro for example?

  4. Pingback: Huawei MediaPad T5 10 Review: Affordable & Great Gaming Performance » System24TechReviews Huawei MediaPad T5 10 Review: Affordable & Great Gaming Performance

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