The idea of combining a smartphone with a tablet isn't a new one (see: the Asus FonePad), but it's also a product that hasn't been attempted a number of times.
There's a reason for that.
It simply isn't practical. Most people aren't so desperate to consolidate their mobile devices that they're willing to hold a (at least) 7-inch slab against the sides of their heads when they make a phone call. Regardless, Huawei has taken another swing at the smartphone/tablet with its recent MediaPad 7 Vogue (priced at $300), but unfortunately its whacky concept isn't the device's only flaw.
Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue EarpieceBuild and Design
The Vogue's design just might be its greatest strength (though everything is relative here). It's not super sleek and sexy, but it's also not ugly; the silver and white mix of colors on the device's back is easy enough on the eye. And while it's a little on the heavy side for a 7-inch tablet at 335 grams, it's not overwhelming. If anything, the weight is simply a byproduct of solid construction.
Measuring 9.5mm thick, the Vogue is actually a little thinner than, say, the Google Nexus 7, which is 10.45 mm thick, so it's definitely not too clunky. In fact, the device is generally comfortable to hold (just not against your face), even one-handed, and the buttons are nice and chunky and stick out far enough for easy pressing. That was more than I could say about the annoying low-profile controls of the Nexus 7, which were flush with the curved side of the device and were not raised enough to be pushed comfortably.
The only downside to the design of the Vogue is the bezel, which is so thick that it borders on goofy. A slimmer bezel -- which, in turn, would have allowed for a slightly more compact bezel -- would have given the device a more premium look.
Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue BottomDisplay
The display on the Vogue is just plain bad, no two ways about it. The 7-inch, 1024 x 600 display lacks sharpness to the point that it looks almost looks like it's out of focus at times. It's also not terribly difficult to see individual pixels on the screen, even when it's not all that close to your face. The brightness isn't awful, but even when it's cranked up to its maximum, it's unlikely to impress.
Above all though, the biggest issue with the display is its color saturation, or lack thereof. Colors look painfully bland, so much so that they look washed out. I was shocked, for example, to see how noticeably different Temple Run 2 looked on the Vogue compared to how it looked on the Samsung Galaxy S IV's Super AMOLED display; it was almost like the colors on the Vogue had been filled in with weak pastels or watercolors, they looked so faded.
It also doesn't help that the screen sensitivity is sorely lacking. It typically took me at least three or four taps on an application link on the home screen before one of them finally registered.
Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue Card Slots and ButtonsOther Buttons & Ports
Aside from the earpiece located at the very top of the device above the display, button and port location on the Vogue is pretty much what you would expect. The power button and volume rocker adorn the upper right edge, while a single cover conceals the SIM and microSD card ports on the lower right. That just leaves the micro USB charging port and 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom, and a small rear-firing speaker on the back located directly below the device's 3.1-megapixel camera.
Performance
Despite the fact that the Vogue is equipped with a quad-core processor, it only has a 1.2 GHz clock and 1 GB of RAM, and the weaker specs really show. Lag abounds when running even moderately intensive tasks or apps; even framerates for something as simple as Fruit Ninja were painfully low. Load times are brutal as well, with the same app being launched at the same time on a Galaxy S IV loading noticeably faster than on the Vogue.
To paint a clearer picture of just how much the Vogue's performance lags behind that of the competition, I ran Quadrant to get a benchmark. The number was so low (4,068) that the Vogue ranked well below the HTC One X (nearly 4,750), a smartphone that was released over a year ago and the North American version of which runs on a dual-core processor. Needless to say, this thing is slow.
And finally, there's the rather frustrating fact that the Vogue only comes equipped with 8 GB of onboard storage. In the Vogue's defense, it is equipped with a microSD card slot so expansion is an option, but it's an unfortunately low spec nonetheless. It's especially problematic given that, out of the box, the usable total after the OS and preloaded software are accounted for is only around 6 GB of space.
Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue FrontSoftware
Huawei deserves credit for not weighing down the Vogue with an excessive amount of preloaded software. Aside from the requisite suite of Google apps, the device comes out of the box loaded only with a single widget on the home screen, a few basic apps (email, browser, media options, calculator, calendar, etc.), and a couple of more unique (but equally useful) pieces of software.
Some of these include an app installer for sideloading apps of the microSD card, cloud services, voice-enabled features (phone dialing, search), video editing software, and DLNA. The only thing I could have done without was Huawei's HiSpace app store front. I always find these to be useless, and Huawei's is especially bad given that most of the apps are native tablet apps and either don't work properly or fail to resize correctly. Stick to the Google Play Store which, thankfully, the Vogue does have access to.
Camera
As one would expect from a 3.1-megapixel camera on a device that places virtually no emphasis on its imaging capabilities, the camera on the Vogue is pretty much useless. Users shouldn't plan on taking even remotely important pictures with this device, as they will be completely lacking in sharpness. White balance and colors aren't offensively poor, but users can forget about taking any shots in anything other than the brightest-lit environments. Graininess and noise abounds in low-light scenarios.
Huawei MediaPad 7 Vogue CameraOne other issue with the camera was the software, which had a funny quirk where it would appear to have taken a picture, only to continue processing it for a second or two after sliding the image away as if it were finished. If the Vogue was moved at all while it was still processing, it would result in a blurry/ruined photo. Aside from the fact that it takes getting used to holding the camera still even after it's apparently finished taking the picture, it simply processes pictures too slowly (or perhaps it's a shutter speed issue) to be considered acceptable.
There's also a front-facing VGA camera, but obviously that's only meant for video chatting and little else.
Battery Life
Like the device's decent build, the battery life of the Vogue is one of the few things it has going in its favor. Granted, a big part of that likely has to do with the relatively dim, low-res screen and only 3G connectivity; if it was 4G LTE, the drain would be a little harsher. Nevertheless, the Vogue could last for a week in standby, or a healthy three or four days based on how heavily it was used. Given that I always had it connected to some sort of network (typically Wi-Fi), kept the dismal screen on maximum brightness (for obvious reasons) and kept as many battery-draining features on as possible, like email push, I found the results to be impressive.
