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Now Huawei goes big on tablets with new Android MediaPad M2 10.0

Huawei unveils the MediaPad M2 10-inch tablet with four speakers and its M-Pen stylus.
Written by Liam Tung, Contributing Writer
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Huawei's 10-inch MediaPad M2 features four speakers, two for bass and two for treble on the top and bottom edges of the device.

Image: Sarah Tew/CNET

Huawei has taken the wraps off the MediaPad M2 10.0 tablet, which maintains the MediaPad M2 8.0's focus on audio over display resolution but introduces the new M-Pen stylus.

Huawei teamed up with Harmon Kardon to deliver the dual speakers in the MediaPad M2 8.0, released in mid-2015, and now the company has unveiled its larger 10-inch sibling, which features not two but four speakers.

Two speakers for bass and two for treble are located on the top and bottom edges of the device. To boot, the 10-inch model features Huawei's new M-Pen stylus and is kitted out with a fingerprint sensor.

Pricing hasn't been revealed yet and the device is expected to be available in the US and Europe at some point in 2016.

Despite this shipping date, it appears it will be running Huawei's take on 2015's Android 5.1 Lollipop rather than the current Android 6.0, which Huawei helped usher in last year by manufacturing Google's Nexus 6P.

Huawei has retained the same 1,920 x 1,200 resolution display featured on the eight-inch model, but equipped it with larger sensors on the rear and front cameras, which are respectively 13 megapixels and five megapixels. It's also powered by a 6660mAh battery.

The 'standard' device is available silver while the 'premium' comes in gold. The standard ships with 16GB internal storage and 2GB RAM, and the premium with 64GB storage and 3G RAM.

Both run on Huawei's Hisilicon Kirin 930 system on a chip, which consists of a quad-core 2.0GHz processor and a quad-core 1.5GHz processor.

The stylus features 2,048-level pressure sensitivity but is only available with the premium model.

Huawei is showing off the tablet this year at CES Las Vegas, where ZDNet's sister site CNET had a chance to test the M2 and stylus, reporting that it was as natural as writing on a conventional notepad while the tablet did quickly recognise handwriting and converted it to text.

However, one drawback was that the tablet lacked palm rejection, making it easy to accidentally exit the note-taking app.

According to Huawei, the device weighs about 500g (1.1lb) and is 7.35mm (0.3 inches) thick, with a length of 239mm and width of 172mm (9.4 inches by 6.8 inches).

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