Huawei Honor Pad 2 — specifications

Design

Although Huawei Mediapad X2 is very similar to its predecessor, they are easy to distinguish at first glance. The new tablet has a black frame around the screen, which creates the illusion of no margins.

In fact, the Mediapad’s margin size remained the same, this is clearly visible in the photo below:

There are no more differences from the Mediapad X1 in the design of the front panel. There is a speaker above the screen, and a little to the side is the camera lens. The charging indicator is also located here. It can also be used to receive notifications if you enable this option in the screen settings.

The back panel, as before, is formed by a rectangular metal panel and plastic inserts framing it on both sides. But in Mediapad X2, all these parts have the same color. We also found references online to a gold modification of the tablet. In the photo at the beginning of the article you can see that it is completely designed in this color, only the display contrasts.

The Honor logo is printed on the back wall. In some countries, the device is actually released under this brand. But in Russia, the manufacturer will still promote it as Huawei Mediapad, and in official deliveries, as before, we will see a small “Huawei” inscription with branded “petals” on the back panel.

The silver ring around the camera is aligned in height with the surface, and the lens itself is a fraction of a millimeter lower, as is the flash located nearby.

The multimedia speaker is brought out through small slots in the corner. The sound quality by tablet standards is very good, as is the volume reserve. Unlike the Mediapad X1, for some reason the sound here is greatly muffled if the tablet is placed on a table. However, even in this case, the device is louder than many competitors.

Huawei has swapped the mechanical buttons, so now when you lift the tablet from the table, you will accidentally change the volume instead of turning off/on the display. Otherwise, the buttons are easy to use and fit exactly under the thumb of the right hand.

On top, in the old place, there is a 3.5 mm jack for connecting a headset, and next to it is a second microphone.

The Micro-USB connector and the main microphone have been rearranged. This did not entail any consequences for use; this step was probably dictated by changes in the internal architecture.

The card trays are on the same side as the mechanical buttons. From the outside, the retractable parts are indistinguishable, and only part of the packaging — the protective film — makes it clear that the lower slot is intended for Micro-SIM, and either a memory card or Nano-SIM can be inserted into the upper one. There is also a hint in the OS itself.

Through the settings, the user can choose which of the two SIM slots will work in 2G/3G/4G mode. For others, only second generation networks will be available. On the opposite side, on the left side, there are no interactive elements.

Compared to the first generation, the Huawei Mediapad X2 has made more changes than it might seem at first glance. However, the practical result is noticeable only from the change in the color of the fields. With a completely black core, the device looks more impressive, especially its gold modification. Huawei should have some way of designing clues on the connectors so that they can be distinguished without having to be removed.

The Chinese manufacturer maintains very high build quality in the Mediapad X line. No matter how we tried to bend the tablet, it stoically endured everything without making a single squeak.

Operating system

Huawei Mediapad X2 comes with the fifth version of Google Android and the proprietary EmotionUI 3.0.5 shell (version GEM-701LV100R001C001B008T01-log). We recently tested another Huawei tablet, Mediapad T1 7.0, with almost the same version of the shell, but an older version of Android, 4.4.2. After comparing the appearance of the OS on two tablets, it becomes clear that the version of the Android OS itself in devices from major manufacturers is much less important than the version of the proprietary interface. Of the 16 GB of internal memory, only 10.35 GB is available to the user.

All applications are collected on desktops. By default, the “golden” theme is installed (for the golden modification of the tablet), but it can easily be changed to a more colorful one. All applications are collected on desktops. The notification and toggles menus are separated. Both of these OS elements are highly customizable.

By sliding from the bottom of the lock screen, the user is taken to a menu where you can quickly launch some applications and control the media player. In addition, by default, Mediapad puts new covers on the lock screen every time, many of which are really beautiful. They can be sent immediately as images, directly from the slide-out menu. There are collections of covers on different topics, which are updated online.

The most useful tool of EmotionUI is the functional phone manager, with which you can easily clear memory, track energy consumption, filter out unwanted calls, messages and notifications.

Through the tablet settings, we learned about such an interesting Huawei accessory as a smart film (purchased separately). It allows you to move the three required Android keys outside the display and thereby increase its active area. In addition, it creates two active zones in the upper corners above the screen. By double-tapping each of them, you can assign one of five actions, including such useful ones as RAM optimization.

The list of supported gestures is small and not particularly useful. We did not find the option to turn on the screen by double tap (although the Mediapad X1 had such an option). But the alternative OS interface remained in place, simple and tiled. There are several pre-installed small applications — voice recorder, FM radio, mirror, etc. — from which we will highlight the magnifying glass. It helps the visually impaired by enlarging small text and successfully focusing on it.

In addition to the lack of a standard double-tap wake-up, we were also disappointed by the lack of a button that allows you to hide the standard bottom panel of Android. Huawei tablets usually have this feature. If you need to turn off or restart the device, for some reason you need to make an extra long touch to confirm the action.

Platform and performance

Huawei Mediapad X2 is equipped with a HiSilicon Kirin 930 single-chip system. It is manufactured according to the big scheme. LITTLE and consists of two clusters, each containing four cores.

The manufacturer positions the Kirin 930 as a direct competitor to the popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, which, as we know, consists of two quad-core clusters, Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57. Huawei believes that the flagship Snapdragon SoC owes its notoriety associated with severe overheating to the second, more powerful quad of cores, which have much lower energy efficiency compared to the first.

So instead of Cortex-A57, the Kirin 930 processor uses the same Cortex-A53 in its “impact” cluster. To ensure competitive performance, Huawei overclocked them to 2.2 GHz, calling the resulting components Cortex-A53e. The second processor cluster runs the most common Cortex-A53, at a more economical one and a half gigahertz.

Judging by the characteristics of the tablet, in the Mediapad X2 the manufacturer decided not to squeeze the maximum out of the system, but to limit the maximum frequency of the Cortex-A53e to two gigahertz. To work with graphics, a quad-core Mali-T628 operating at 680 MHz is used. Different modifications of the Mediapad X2 have 2/16 or 3/32 GB of RAM and permanent memory. Knowing the inclinations of Chinese developers, we can assume that the extra gigabytes were reserved exclusively for the gold Mediapad.

Such powerful platforms are not particularly popular in devices of the Mediapad X2 form factor. If you are interested in comparing performance with the notorious Snapdragon 810, just open one of the many reviews of devices with this SoC on our website in the next tab.

We ran the Mozilla browser in Google Chrome three times from scratch and included the best result in the table, which was still lower than the first Mediapad. Then we ran the test in the tablet’s native browser and got 12141.4 ms. At the same time, Google Octane shows good results even in Chrome. There is only one conclusion: JavaScript tests can be very sensitive to browsers.

All primary concerns about performance are dispelled by Antutu. The new Kirin is approaching 50 thousand, thereby showing itself to be no worse than the Snapdragon 810 (and there is nothing to say about the filling of competitors from our table). In 64-bit Antutu mode, the new Mediapad achieves 50560 points.

In terms of single-core performance, Mediapad X2 is ahead of all Android competitors, and in total — even the latest iPad mini.

Let’s evaluate the performance in gaming benchmarks:

The performance of the Mediapad X2 allows it to take on more demanding benchmark modes. In the GFXBenchmark Manhattan HD scene on OpenGL ES 3.0, our hero scored 8.4 and 9 fps in onscreen and offscreen mode. And the Epic Citadel Ultra High Quality stage ran at 46.9 fps. For some benchmarks, the option “accelerate GPU operation” was available in the settings, but the results did not improve, but quite the opposite: the same Epic Citadel Ultra High Quality, for example, showed 44.8 fps.

Based on the results of the benchmarks, we can state a twofold improvement in the performance of the Huawei Mediapad X2 compared to the first generation. But the comparison with the Snapdragon 810 is much more interesting. If in the complex Antutu the tablet was on par with devices with similar characteristics (LG G Flex 2), then in gaming scenes we see a serious lag behind Qualcomm. The Kirin 930 clearly cannot be called a performance champion; Let’s see how things are with game compatibility.

Previously, we have already encountered the fact that Call of Duty takes a long time to load, but this time we did not have enough patience. After 20 minutes of scrolling through the splash screen after selecting a mission, we closed the application. Overall, the Mediapad X2’s gaming compatibility isn’t as good as the original Mediapad’s. Although the power of the device, judging by the settings of GTA: San Andreas, would be enough for the entire test set.

Below is a thermal image of the rear surface (top of the image is on the right), obtained after 10 minutes of running the battery test in the GFXBenchmark program:

It can be seen that the heating is not very localized, but still clearly on the right side of the device, which apparently corresponds to the location of the SoC chip. According to the heat chamber, the maximum heating was only 38 degrees, which is quite a bit.

Screen

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is scratch-resistant. Judging by the brightness of reflected objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are no worse than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2020) (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photograph in which the white surface is reflected in the switched off screens of both tablets (Huawei Mediapad X2 is on the right, and in all the following comparative photographs the tested tablet is located above the Nexus 7):

The screen of the Huawei Mediapad X2 is as dark as that of the Nexus 7 (brightness according to photographs is 105 for both). The tripling of reflected objects in the Huawei Mediapad X2 screen is very weak, this indicates that there is no air gap between the outer glass (also known as the touch sensor) and the surface of the matrix (OGS — One Glass Solution type screen).

Due to the smaller number of boundaries with very different refractive indices (glass-air type), such screens look better in conditions of strong external illumination, but their repair in the case of cracked external glass is much more expensive, since it is necessary to replace account for the entire screen. There is a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating on the outer surface of the screen (even slightly better in efficiency than that of the Nexus 7), so fingerprints are removed much more easily and appear at a slower rate than with regular glass.

When manually controlling the brightness and displaying the white field in full screen, its maximum value was about 500 cd/m², and the minimum was 9 cd/m². The maximum brightness is very high, and given the excellent anti-glare properties, readability even on a sunny day outdoors should be at a good level.

In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable value. Automatic brightness adjustment is implemented based on the light sensor (it is located to the right of the front speaker slot). The operation of this function depends on the position of the brightness adjustment slider. If it is 100%, then in complete darkness the auto-brightness function reduces the brightness to 130 cd/m² (a bit too much), in an office illuminated by artificial light (about 400 lux) it sets it to 370 cd/m² (it could have been lower), in a very bright surroundings (corresponding to lighting on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight — 20,000 lux or a little more), the brightness increases to 500 cd/m² (to the maximum — this is how it should be); if the adjustment is approximately 50%, then the values ​​are as follows:

9, 170 and 500 cd/m² (ideal combination), 0% regulator — 9, 38 and 260 cd/m² (the last two values ​​are slightly too low, which is logical). It turns out that the auto-brightness function works absolutely adequately and allows the user to customize their work to individual requirements. At any brightness level, there is virtually no backlight modulation, so there is no screen flickering.

This tablet uses an IPS type matrix. Microphotographs show typical IPS subpixel structure:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of microphotographs of screens used in mobile technology.

The screen has good viewing angles without inverting shades and without significant color shifts, even with large viewing deviations from perpendicular to the screen. For comparison, here are photos in which the same images are displayed on the screens of the Nexus 7 and the tested tablet, with the brightness of both screens set to approximately 200 cd/m², and the color balance on the camera forced to switch to 6500 K. Test picture perpendicular to the screens:

Color balance differs slightly, colors are bright and saturated on both tablets (some differences may be due to slightly different backlight brightness). And white field:

We note good uniformity of brightness and color tone. Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:

It can be seen that the colors and brightness balance did not change much on both tablets, the contrast remained at a good level. Then the white field:

The brightness at an angle for both tablets has noticeably decreased (at least 5 times, based on the difference in shutter speed), but the decrease is the same (taking into account the slight difference when initially setting the backlight brightness). When deviated diagonally, the black field is lightened weakly and acquires a violet or red-violet hue. A photo from the Nexus 7 shows this for comparison (the brightness of the white areas in the perpendicular direction is approximately the same for both tablets!):

And from another angle:

When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is not ideal — there are overexposed areas along the edge:

However, as we already know from the example of Nexus 7, illumination on a black field can vary significantly from instance to instance. The contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is high — about 990:1. Black-white-black response time is 23ms (12ms on, 11ms off). The transition between 25% and 75% gray halftones (by color value) and back takes a total of 35ms.

The gamma curve, constructed using 32 points with equal intervals based on the numerical value of the shade of gray, did not reveal a blockage either in the highlights or in the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.18, which is slightly lower than the standard value of 2.2. In this case, the real gamma curve deviates little from the power-law dependence:

Color gamut is almost equal to sRGB:

The spectra show that the matrix filters mix the components with each other to a moderate extent:

As a result, the colors have a natural saturation. The balance of shades on the gray scale is good, since the color temperature is not much higher than the standard 6500 K, and the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) is less than 10, which is considered a good indicator for a consumer device. At the same time, the variation in color temperature and ΔE is small, which has a positive effect on the visual perception of color balance.

This device has the ability to adjust the color balance using the warmer-cooler tint adjustment.

In the graphs above, the curves are Without corr. correspond to the results without any color balance correction, and the Warmer curves correspond to the data obtained after shifting the correction slider to the “warm” side (as in the screenshot above). It can be seen that the change in balance corresponds to the expected result, since the color temperature has moved even closer to the standard value, but ΔE, unfortunately, has increased noticeably. There is no point in making corrections.

Let’s summarize. The screen has a very high maximum brightness and has excellent anti-glare properties, so readability even in conditions with very bright external lighting will be at a good level. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable value. The mode with automatic brightness adjustment works adequately.

The advantages of the screen include the absence of an air gap in the layers of the screen and flicker, an effective oleophobic coating, high contrast and stability of black to the deviation of the gaze from perpendicular to the screen plane, good color balance, equal to the sRGB color gamut. Significant disadvantages include noticeable unevenness of the black field.