Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue review: Budget extravagance

Introduction

A bit odd actually that no one thought of it so far. We mean, the ultras come by the dozens, and so do the pluses, ones, plays and, obviously, droids. The question is though, do we need to be wary of anything called Vogue and coming from China.

Oh well, the MediaPad 7 Vogue isn't front-page stuff obviously - not the cover of the namesake magazine anyway which, apropos, has had a Chinese edition for nearly ten years now. But that's not the point, far from it. It's a tablet signed by Huawei, whose devices have been consistently delivering good bang for your buck.

Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue official photos

While Huawei have been raising its own bar slowly but determinedly, the MediaPad 7 Vogue isn't actually an upgrade. The 7" tablet lineup is being built top to bottom obviously. The original MediaPad, which we quite liked more than a year and a half ago, was followed by a trimmed down MediaPad 7 Lite. In 2013, the MediaPad 7 Vogue joins the ranks alongside the MediaPad 7 Youth.

All those sequels are focusing on affordability - the screen resolution is down from WXGA (800 x 1280) to WSVGA (600 x 1024). On the other hand they're a tad more compact and lighter than the original, and powered by quad-core chipsets.

Here's what the Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue has to offer and what didn't make the cut.

Key features

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE; dual-band 3G with HSPA
• 7" IPS+ LCD capacitive touchscreen, 600 x 1024
• Android OS v4.1.2 Jelly Bean with Emotion UI 1.5
• SIM card slot with data and telephony support
• Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9, 16-core GPU; Huawei K3V2 chipset
• 1GB of RAM
• 3.15MP fixed focus camera, 720p video recording; VGA front-facing camera
• Dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA
• GPS with A-GPS
• 8GB of built-in storage
• microSD card slot, side-mounted, hot-swappable
• microUSB port with USB host and MHL 2.0
• Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP, EDR
• FM radio
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor
• Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
• Plenty of juice in the ample 4100 mAh battery

Main disadvantages

• Lowest resolution to have on a tablet
• Reflective screen with poor sunlight legibility
• Screen lacks any sort of additional scratch protection
• No microHDMI port

It's the second generation of seven-inch MediaPads, but building on the predecessor in every way possible wasn't an option for Huawei. To get some breathing space in such a busy market, the MediaPad 7 Vogue had to strike a fine balance between its level of equipment and affordability.

Two generations of the Nexus 7 are tough competition even for reputable manufacturers like Samsung and Acer, but Huawei might as well have found a way to make their offerings relevant. It may look like they threw in the towel by settling for the lowest tablet resolution, but the MediaPad 7 Vogue isn't entirely clueless about what users want.

The full telephony capabilities, a side-mounted microSD card slot and solid battery life sound like the right things to put forward. Good thing the Vogue has kept the unibody design of the original MediaPad - who would say no to the good looks and solid build, entry level tablet or not.

Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue live photos

Anyway, the build and finish are next on the menu, followed by the user interface and features. Shall we?