Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue Pro Reviews

Throughout our tests, it was difficult to shake the feeling that the MediaPad 7 Vogue is simply a year too late to the party. Even in 2012, the display and overall performance would have been below average at best for a 7-inch model, but as a cheap surf-tablet with a 3G modem and telephone capability, it would at least have been competitive at that time. But for the home stretch of 2013, this putatively unique selling point isn't worth as much in view of the competition posed by the Asus FonePad or the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0, which offer better displays, more storage space, or simply superior performance. These aspects are also reflected in our overall score, in which the MediaPad 7 Vogue's impression became more and more negative in our sight. In particular, the pixellated display is (despite usable color reflection) not competitive. Users who can go without mobile data connection find in the current Nexus 7 or even the Kindle Fire HDX 7 devices that are similar in every department at a similar price. Also, 7-inch models with HSDPA service under the 250-Euro price boundary are no longer such a rare sight. But for those narrow cases when the choice to buy really revolves around the ability to make phone calls on the tablet, it would make sense to pick the Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue. While it stands more or less on a level with the Samsung model of the same size, in our sight the Asus FonePad performs better in head-to-head competition. In any case, the biggest plus for Huawei here is the Cortex A9-SoC, which appears slightly better in comparison with its Intel counterpart in terms of performance and app compatibility. Whether the inferior display offsets this factor is, in the end, up to the customer to decide.

There aren't a whole lot of reasons to pick up the MediaPad 7 Vogue, unless you're extremely desperate to consolidate your smartphone and tablet into a single device. And despite the ostensible appeal to that idea, it's simply not practical in execution, as it's both clumsy and ineffective to hold the Vogue against your head when talking to someone. If you don't mind making all of your calls on speaker phone, it's an option, but little more than that. Meanwhile, the downsides abound, including 3G-only data speeds, the dreadful display, and mediocre performance. There aren't a whole lot of redeeming qualities to the Vogue, and that includes the price. The fact of the matter is that at $300 for the 3G version (roughly $234 for Wi-Fi only), there are much better devices that you can get for a similar -- or lower -- price.

All in all, regardless of its shortcomings, the Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue manages to balance value and performance, looks and price. It's not as snappy as we would've liked, and its display pins it right at the bottom of the tablet food chain. Still, the full telephony is a nice, and rare, feature to have. The expandable memory and solid build check off the right boxes, too.

Unless you absolutely must have a tablet that can make phone calls, we'd advise you to pass on the Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue. Sure, it seems like a decent Android slate at first glance, but the more we use it, the more we get turned off by it. What bothers us the most is that the Vogue feels sluggish at times and its UI is way too rough around the edges. And if that's not enough, a screen with resolution as low as this just isn't acceptable at this point in time. An alternative that can make phone calls as well is the Asus Fonepad – an inexpensive Android tablet of the same build quality and overall size. But if the feature isn't required, it would be much wiser to pick the 2013 Google Nexus 7 tablet as it is superior to the Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue in almost every way imaginable. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 is another option worth considering – with a bigger, better screen, capable hardware, and a reasonable price tag.