Child"s play

Do you have children who constantly snatch your phone or nag you for one for themselves? A new kid-friendly tablet from Huawei is a good choice that will not break your bank.

This MediaPad M5 lite is a full-fledged tablet that can take a SIM card and is 4G ready, making it free from Wi-Fi only. It is quite rare a tablet this cheap will offer this option.

The tablet is made with metallic casing and is solid and durable. Amazingly, even with an 8-inch screen, it is still light enough to hold with one hand. But I find the placement of the volume and power buttons to be inconvenient, as I accidentally turned it off on a regular basis.

The tablet is fast enough to run ROV, Thailand's top multiplayer game played by millions on high resolution graphics settings, but the high framerate setting is unavailable. I found the graphic capability to be in the mid-to-high range, which exceeds its price range.

Personally, coming from a vibrant OLED screen to this tablet's IPS LCD screen does need some getting used to, but since the colour is a bit washed out compared to the over-saturated OLED, it's serviceable.

A 5,100mAh battery capacity is ample, compared to around 3,000mAh on most phones. This tablet can easily last for about eight hours of heavy constant use and can go up to three days when sporadically used.

A dedicated kid's mode, called Kids Corner, that can restrict children's time on the device or allow only certain apps to be used is a real boon for parents to keep their children from misusing the gadget.

Loud dual speakers certified by Harman Kardon can be great for media consumption. But since they are back-firing, I found it a bit underwhelming especially when holding the tablet with both hands (which is most of the time) because they will cover the speakers.

FaceID is quite convenient. It may work bit slower compared to devices above 10,000 baht, but is still convenient to use for unlocking the tablet.

Its photos are mediocre in quality and will require a steady hand when shooting in low light. But that is to be expected from almost any tablet these days, since tablets are perceived to be specially used for media consumption, not as a multi-purpose device, like a mobile phone.

I used this tablet as my only communication device for a week, making calls, playing games, taking some photos, and found that it can survive as a stand-alone device no problem. For those who have never bought a phone that cost more than 15,000 baht, the MediaPad M5 is a good option, and can be purchased for less than 8,000 baht.

SPECS