Huawei is known for making okay things at an okay pricepoint, but their new Springboard for T-Mobile actually looks more than okay. Way more, actually.
This little seven-inch tablet runs Android 3.2 and has a very speedy 1.2GHz Snapdragon dual-core processor, which should give it some pep, but I definitely saw that same lag we often find in Honeycomb tablets. The screen is nicer-than-expected, with a 1280 x 800 resolution—we've seen that on larger tablets, but on a 7-inch screen that gives this one the edge as far as pixel density is concerned. It also feels rock solid thanks to its aluminum body. It's nice to see an Android tablet without all that flimsy plastic.
It has a 5MP rear camera capable of recording 720p video, and a 1.3MP front-facing camera for video chat. It's certainly not as thin as the Galaxy Tabs, but it's got all of the ports I like seeing: micro USB, mini HDMI, and an SD card slot so you can expand the storage up to 32GB.
This will be a T-Mobile exclusive in the U.S. and while there's no word on an exact release date yet, we've seen a leak that seemed to indicate that it would be available November 2nd. No official word on pricing, but if they can keep the cost low—which Huawei is normally pretty good at doing—this could be a very competitive tablet..
Video coming soon.
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