Huawei announces Matebook X Pro, 3 new Mediapad M5 tablets and first 5G chip+Modem

[Guest The Viking]

Heavely biased post, long-time fan & Huawei user.

 

Today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (Spain), Huawei unveiled a large range of new devices. Sadly enough, no new P flagship, which will probably be unveiled in its own conference in Paris in March.

 

Apart from unveiling a new Matebook X laptop (and being the first to have such thin bezels, coming straight from smartphones), they also unveiled 3 new android tablets from their Mediapad line-up, as well as a 5G chip, the Balong 5G01, and a 5G router for fixed internet. Please start counting how many "first" Huawei claimed this time, proving, again, who is innovating in both the smartphone and telecommunications industry, as well as the laptop industry now.

All what had to be said about the new Matebook X Pro is already in that thread. I can just add that I am glad that somebody FINALLY came and got rid of those horrible bezels on laptops, and I'm surprised it took 2 attempts to Huawei to make it, while other manufacturers are still not bothering in doing so. 

 

Now, the Mediapad's. They have been around for a while now, with the Mediapad M1, M2 and M3. It seems Huawei decided to skip the M4 and move to M5 directly. This French article says it is because the 4 gives bad luck in China.

Quote

Il s’agit donc de la Huawei MediaPad M5, ardoise venant succéder à la MediaPad M3, évitant ainsi d’avoir le chiffre 4, porte-malheur en Chine, dans un nom de produit.

Source

 

As a reminder, M2 was the first 4G tablet with a metallic unibody, claiming again another first.

 

The specs are as follow, depending on the model:

• Kirin 960 cpu
• 4gb of ram
• 2560*1600 screen
• 13mpx camera on back, 8mpx on front
• 32/64/128gb of storage depending on the model
• Mediapad M5 10 Pro includes a pen, the M-Pen, with 4096 pressure points (is that even how it is said in english?), and the option of getting a keyboard.
• First tablets with 2.5D curved glass screen
• Android Oreo 8.0 with EMUI 8.0
• 5100 mAh/7500 mAh battery! All 3 tablets support Quick Charge
• 2 speakers for small model, 4 on the other two, again collaborating with Harman Kardon for the best sound possible (Harman Kardon is owned by Samsung)
• Depending on the model, you get either WiFi or 4G connectivity for on the go use (obviously the 4G model has WiFi too...)
• Tablets are 8.4" for smallest and 10.8" inches for the two others.
• No headphone jack though, but an adapter is included in the box

Pricing starts at 349 euros, and continue as follows (damn Huawei, just... why? Even as fan, this is just too much variety and we'll struggle to find the right version... but hey, variety!):

 

 

Source

Some pics of the tablets, stolen from here:

 

 

 

Overall, they are already considered as an excellent choice for people interested in playing games or watching movies. The lack of headphone jack though... but still, at least we get an adapter out of the box and aren't forced to buy one, as with Apple (and probably Samsung if they did this).

Pricing is rather competitive for what we get, especially knowing these tablets end up going down in price quite fast.

 

 

Now, for 5G:

 

Source

 

Huawei unveiled the first commercial chip supporting 3GPP standard, the "Balong 5G01". This chip is capable of downloading at up to 2.3 Gb/s on frequencies below 6 Ghz, and supports 4G too. 

 

Quote

“Huawei Balong 5G01 is world’s first 3GPP 5G commercial chipset with peak rate of 2.3 GBPS (gigabit per second),” Huawei chief executive officer, consumer business group, Richard Yu said while unveiling the new technology.

[...]

The company unveiled world’s first 5G consumer premise equipment or router (CPE) with the promise of delivering broadband speed of up to 2gbps on 5G network. The CPE will also support 4G network, as per the details shared by Yu.

 

They introduced at the same time their first 5G modem. Here you can see, with Richard Yu, who, at this point, is probably an icon of the Huawei's Consumer Division or something. Pic from here.

 

Mr. Yu specified they will not be licensing this chip to competitors, and that they are already working with 30 different telecoms to implement 5G. These operators include Orange, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone (therefore Telefonica, for the Spanish market). Mr. Yu also talked of their 5G smartphones coming in Q3 or Q4 of this year. This could mean that the next Mate phone will support 5G already (probably 4.5G though).

 

In France, it is unlikely we'll see any 5G network before 2020, with some operators such as Orange already preparing to deploy it.

 

Promo clip:

 

5G has been tested over the past year in Berlin, in a partnership between Huawei and Deutsche Telekom. 5G is also experiencing some delays in Brussels, with local administrations and locals unhappy of installing more antennas. Meanwhile, the 4G network here is also being saturated in some areas.

 

 

The future seems interesting. 

 

[Guest]

 

I thought this was paper towels. 

[themctipers]

my picture is still in there  

[Guest The Viking]

46 minutes ago, Legendarypoet said:

 

I thought this was paper towels.