Huawei MediaPad M5 Tablet with 8.4" 2.5D Display, Octa Core, Quick Charge, Dual Harman Kardon-Tuned Speakers, WiFi Only, 4Gb+64Gb, Space Gray (US Warranty)

The tablet is super thin, shiny metal lining the edges of the front of the device. Holding the device upright, the power and volume buttons are on the right side of the device, but more to the back. A little strange that it's positioned that way, but not an issue. I love the feel of the tablet, it's got a little weight to it and doesn't feel cheap. The screen size is perfect at 8.4", and the size is just big though to hold with one hand. It has an amazing screen quality, I think it's more vibrant than my iPad 3 when you adjust the display settings. The back camera sticks out quite a bit, not flush like most devices I've used.Out of the box: The tablet is half charged, running on Huawei's custom version of Android 8.0 Oreo called "EMUI" (means there's pre-installed apps and other features created by the manufacturer). It comes with a lot of pre-installed apps, most of them people use, like Facebook, Instagram. It also comes with Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook) as well as Huawei's Customer Service app called "HiCare". No pre-installed screen protector. Also comes with a 3.4"-long USB-C cable and a 5V or 9V/2A wall charger, as well as a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter.Display: Beautiful screen quality. At 2560 x 1600, everything looks so vibrant, more so than my iPad 3. They have a feature called "Eye Comfort", which adjusts the blue light so it's not so hard on your eyes. You can also set a schedule for the blue light, as well as set the color temperature. Their "Smart Resolution" feature, which is turned on by default, automatically lowers the screen resolution to help save power. The tablet can be rotated in 3 positions. Upright position is when the fingerprint scanner is located at the bottom. You can rotate the screen to landscape mode with fingerprint scanner on either left or right sides. The only position the tablet won't work in is upside down (with fingerprint scanner at the top). The View Mode feature allows you to adjust the size of the screen so everything is larger or smaller. Text Size feature adjusts the size of the text without making anything else bigger or smaller.Sound: The speakers are located on the top and bottom sides of the device. Sound is great, pretty full sounding for such tiny speakers. With headphones on, it sounds amazing.Bluetooth: Unlike some of the reviews I've read, I didn't have any issues using my bluetooth headphones while playing a youtube video or an online video game. It works seemlessly with no signal loss at all. Both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands work as they should, no slowdowns in connection speed.Video: As with playing games, I have not experienced any glitches, jittering, or delays. In fact, while using my bluetooth headphones and WiFi connected to either 2.4GHz or 5GHz, I am able to take advantage of the Picture-In-Picture feature of Android 8.0 and play a game while I watch and listen to a streaming show. Absolutely no lagging with the video or audio.Touch Screen: works perfectly, no delays, no unresponsiveness whatsoever.Camera: The picture quality is pretty decent. You can adjust the resolutions from 3264x1840 up to 4160x3120, add a GPS tag to the pictures, choose to save to SD card or internal storage, apply an assistive grid (which includes a Fibonacci spiral?, not sure what you'd use that for but neat), add a timer to the picture taking, to name a few. When deleting photos or videos, there's a recycle bin feature called "Recently Deleted" where your files get moved to in case you accidentally deleted a file, you can go to the Photos app to recover them. Files are automatically deleted from the recycle bin after 30 days.Speed: with 4GB of RAM, it's super fast. Certain games that take up a lot of ram load amazingly fast, game play is seamless. No jittering or delays. When closing out apps, the tablet automatically optimizes and frees up memory.Wireless: The tablet is capable of connecting at 2GHz or 5GHz bands. It also has an enhanced Wi-Fi+ mode, which automatically switches to the best network connection, so you will always be on the fastest connection speed possible. Great for home networks that use range extenders.Battery: With constant game play that uses heavy graphics, the tablet lasts about 8 hours. The battery mode includes a power saving mode, smart resolution (it lowers the screen resolution to help save power), app launch control (toggle apps to launch automatically or manually), optimization feature (sets screen brightness, screen timeout, auto-sync, and auto-rotate to optimum levels).Storage: Internal storage is 64GB. It is able to accept at least a 64GB Micro SD card, I haven't tried anything larger. You can set the default location of app installs and saves to either internal or Micro SD card. There's also a Storage Cleaner feature that checks for unused files including videos, photos, music, apps in both internal storage and Micro SD card.Security: Fingerprint scanner works well for unlocking the tablet. It also acts as a home button, which can be disabled using the pre-installed Game Suite app, so you don't press the home button by accident and exit the app while gaming. This feature works with other apps, not just games. The tablet also includes a Find My Device feature to locate your device. Additional security includes a standard screen lock using a pattern, 4-digit pin, custom pin, or password. If you decide to use the fingerprint scanner to unlock the tablet, every 3 days, it will ask you to unlock the tablet using one of the other methods, just for added security.Smart Cover: This tablet includes a smart cover feature, which you use along with a tablet case that you purchase separately. When the case cover is closed, the screen automatically shuts off. When the case cover is opened, the screen automatically turns on.Cons: There's no headphone jack. It comes with a special 3.5"-long adapter that converts the USB C port to 3.5mm jack. Not a huge concern if you have bluetooth headphones, which is what I think their thought process was when excluding the headphone jack.I have to say this is the best tablet I've ever used. Although the purchase price was a bit out of my comfort zone, it was completely worth every penny spent. No lags, no glitches, perfect size for my purse and on the go, the pre-installed apps from the manufacturer are useful and not just bloatware. I have only good things to say about it.

I did my research before purchasing this tablet so I was well aware of the Bluetooth/WiFi issue.Just to reiterate: There is only one antenna in this tablet that is used for both Bluetooth and WiFi. This is only a problem if you try to use both technologies simultaneously, such as using a Bluetooth headset while watching Netflix or other streaming source. It will work, but the WiFi data rate drops significantly and causes buffering, lower quality, or both. Netflix, for example, will lower the quality to eye-cancerous levels to match the low download rate and avoid pauses while the show buffers.The headset issue is compounded by the fact that there isn't any 3.5mm headset jack. Huawei included a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter so you can still use your favorite ear buds. That's great but you can't charge the battery while using the adapter, meaning you're kind of forced to use Bluetooth headsets if you want to remain plugged in. I'm sure there's a USB-C splitter that could be used to charge and use a wired headset at the same time but you have to purchase one separately.Since I neither stream media a lot with a tablet nor use Bluetooth headsets it isn't a critical problem for me. It is an issue, however, so be aware of that before purchasing.This Tablet replaces my 4 year old LG G Tab 8.3. It is similar in size and shape and will be used pretty much the same way - email, reading, light gaming, and other casual use. This isn't for business use.The screen is excellent and boasts 359 PPI, compared to the 273 of the old tablet. I could never go back to sub 200 PPI. That just makes looking at the screen that much better.The touchscreen is responsive - almost too responsive compared to the aging G Tab but I'm quickly getting used to it. One thing I miss about LG is the Knock-On feature to double-tap on the screen to wake it up. The M5 has a fingerprint reading Home button that also instantly unlocks the tablet so that's a reasonable replacement.Out of the box Android 8.0 is installed. There is an over-the-air update available with security updates.The casual games I play (Riptide 2, for example) work well. Video playback with the built in player works and VLC could always be installed, if desired.The quad edge speakers are quite good and are far better than backward facing speakers. Build quality is good - no flexing or creaking.There's never enough life in any battery but this one qualifies as "good enough." Fortunately, the included wall charger does offer "fast charge" - of a sorts. This isn't the same as Qualcomm's Quick Charge so third party chargers may not charge the M5 as fast. Some do support Huawei's FCP protocol so your mileage may vary.If you are in the market for an 8 inch tablet then this would be a great option - if you can live with the limitations.