TomTom Go adds Wi-Fi, smartphone notifications and Siri, Google, Cortana voice controls

TomTom’s latest Go satnav device adds a range of connectivity options to make it a more rounded companion for your car, not just a device to get you from A to B.

The TomTom Go includes all the features you expect from the Go family – like Traffic, speed cameras, smart route guidance and free mapping updates, but expands to offer a more fully-featured smartphone connection too. 

New to the 6200, 5200, 620 and 520 models is connectivity that will give you smartphone notifications on your TomTom display. These will appear at the bottom of the display in a swipe-up tray, letting you quickly glance, have them read to you and respond where necessary. 

These notifications are designed to help you keep your eyes on the road, rather than reaching for your phone when you get a message. The Go won’t support all messaging formats, however, and email isn’t included, but you will be able to get WhatsApp, Facebook, Line, SMS and iMessages read to you. 

That’s not the only smartphone skill these new Go models will offer however: they also support Siri, Google and Cortana, so you’ll be able to talk to your phone exactly as you would if you were directly interacting with it. 

This will mean, for example, that you can tell your phone to play songs on Spotify, or to initiate calls. You can use voice to find locations too, although there’s no direct link-up between mapping on your phone and mapping on the TomTom, unless you’re using the TomTom My Drive app.

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All the connectivity options come via Bluetooth and as before, the new Go models offer four options. The Go 6200 and 5200 have an embedded SIM for live updates to traffic, and have a 6 or 5-inch display respectively. 

The Go 620 and 520 need a smartphone connection to provide that data, so you’ll have to tether via Bluetooth on these models – again, in 6 and 5-inch screen sizes respectively.

One advantage that the 6200 and 5200 have is that you get Europe-wide roaming with these devices too, so you’ll get traffic and other services when you’re driving further from home, without having to worry about roaming on your smartphone tariff. 

There’s another new addition to these models and that’s Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi connection is there to update the TomTom software. The idea is that you connect to your home Wi-Fi network to allow map updates, rather than having to plug it into a laptop.

With most home Wi-Fi connections extending into the driveway, that should mean that when your car is parked, your TomTom can check for a connection and update itself without you having to do anything. 

The new TomTom Go models will be available from September, breaking down as follows:

• TomTom Go 6200 Europe: £359.99
• TomTom Go 5200 Europe: £319.99
• TomTom Go 620 Europe: £259.99
• TomTom Go 520 Europe: £219.99 

TomTom Touch activity tracker monitors your body fat, not just your steps

TomTom is making its move against market leaders Fitbit, with the launch of the TomTom Touch. 

This is an activity tracker that wants to stay with you throughout your fitness journey, looking to differentiate itself from the mass of other devices by showing the progression in your physical state.

While the Fitbit Flex and similar devices have been extremely popular, TomTom wants to give you a little more, with the inclusion of a body composition monitor. Using the metal sensor on the rear and the matching pad on the top that doubles as a button, the wearer can measure their body fat.

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This works by sending an electrical current around your body, in this case in contact with your wrist on one arm and your finger on the other. It works in the same way as body analysis scales, such as the Withings Smart or Fitbit Aria.

The idea is to report back more than just the number of steps taken, or estimated distance travelled, but allow you to keep track of the (hopefully) positive change in your body composition along your fitness journey. 

In addition to body composition and the obligatory steps, the TomTom Touch will also track your activities, allowing you to log a run for example and sync that to MySports, TomTom’s sport app.

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There’s a small display on the top, to check your status and deliver you essential notifications from your phone, as well as reporting back the results from the optical heart rate sensor.

Like TomTom’s Spark, Runner and Adventurer watches, the Touch offers a changeable strap, so you can have something to suit your style and first impressions are of something that’s soft, but secure. 

The TomTom Touch will be available for £129 from September and we’ll be bringing you a full review as soon as we’ve spent some time with this new tracker.

• Best fitness trackers 2016: The best activity bands to buy today
• Fitbit Charge 2 and Fitbit Flex 2: Release date, specs, price and everything you need to know

TomTom Adventurer is the sports watch for your snow sports, hiking and trail running

TomTom has added a new model to its line-up of sports watches with the TomTom Adventurer.

As the name suggests, this is a watch for the great outdoors. Built on the foundation of the new TomTom Spark, it uses a similar design to TomTom’s existing line-up of sports watches, but supercharges it. 

With the addition of a barometer to give more accurate information than you’ll get from the GPS alone, the Adventurer doesn’t just track your progress, it gives you 3D distance, taking into account the change in elevation too. 

It offers the route tracking feature that’s just been added to the new TomTom Spark 3, so if you head out into the wilds, you can see a trace on your watch and find your way back to where you started.

TomTom

There’s the normal optical heart rate sensor on the rear of the body to track your activity, as well as dedicated modes for tracking skiing, snowboarding, hiking and trail running. 

To boost the appeal to skiers and snowboarders, there is automatic lift detection, showing you a summary of your run once you’re sitting down, so you can see your stats on the piste with a glance at your wrist, rather than having to fish out your phone and check an app.

The TomTom Adventurer gets itself a boosted battery, designed to be used over a weekend, as well as the normal water resistance of 40m and a strap that’s rugged. 

The Adventurer isn’t only for outdoor pursuits, however, as it will still offer you things like run tracking for the rest of the year when you’re not hitting the slopes in Morzine.

The TomTom Adventurer will be available in October for £249.99.

HTC One A9s official: Updated metal mid-ranger drops display to 720p

HTC has announced the HTC One A9s, an updated version of its compact metal mid-range handset. 

The HTC One A9 was something of a surprise for 2015. It was best known for the iPhone-alike looks, but there was no questioning the quality of the design and build. It was also the first phone from HTC to launch with a new software build – Android with HTC Sense. 

The HTC One A9s repeats much of this, presenting a phone that’s very similar in design, but the camera appears to have shifted to the corner, rather than sitting in the top-centre as it was previously.

Otherwise, the phone looks similar, although according to HTC’s tech specs, it’s slightly larger and slightly heavier, coming in at 7.99mm thick and weighing 149.8g.

• HTC One A9 review: Could it be magic?

However the spec sheet reveals some fairly hefty changes. Shifting away from Qualcomm, this is now powered by a MediaTek Helio P10 chipset. This is a mid-range octo-core chipset and we suspect it will be just as capable as the Snapdragon 617 it replaces. 

The biggest shift, however, is in the display. From a full HD display, the HTC One A9s now appears to be offering a 720p display. That could impact on the visuals a little, however the shift in the display and chipset really indicate that HTC wants to make this a cheaper handset. 

There’s a 2300mAh battery and it supports fast charging. The A9 was surprisingly efficient and we have the same hopes for this handset. HTC said some of the efficiency came from optimised software and again we see Android Marshmallow with a very light HTC Sense pasted over the top.

There’s a 13-megapixel camera on the rear and a 5-megapixel camera on the front. The rear camera will offer functions like RAW shooting, but doesn’t stretch to 4K video capture.

HTC hasn’t confirmed the price for the One A9s, but the One A9 was too expensive for its position in 2015. Hopefully, you’ll now be able to get this wonderfully-built mid-ranger without paying top tier prices.

Lenovo P2 preview: Boasting a 5,100mAh battery in a 5.5-inch design

Welcome to the big battery club. This is the Lenovo P2, which boasts a 5,100mAh battery in a 5.5-inch screen device. And it’s really not as chunky a phone as you might expect, which goes to show just how advanced battery tech has become.

Squeezing a battery into that body of this size is aided by a number of other factors. The screen is an OLED panel, for example, which means it’s slightly thinner than LCD technology. But every millimetre counts here. Additionally it’ll be preferable to power consumption, while delivering an ultra-punchy colour palette, as you can see in our gallery of pictures.

The “Vibe P2” has been the discussion of rumour and speculation for some months. But the P2 ditches the Vibe brand and goes simple: Lenovo P2 it is, keeping the name nice and clean.

Other features in this big battery phone include a front-facing fingerprint scanner, rear camera which sits flush with the slightly curved body, and an octa-core 2GHz chipset to keep everything ticking along.

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At this early stage the phone was saw was a Chinese-sourced engineering sample. And without the full ins and outs of an official specification, we don’t know everything about the phone just yet. But we did reconfirm with a Lenovo official about the battery capacity, which was twice confirmed as a 5,100mAh capacity – not the previouly rumoured 5,000mAh.

Interestingly Lenovo also confirmed the P2 will be coming to UK shores and many other European regions – not just the Indian, easter European and Asian regions where such devices typically do so well.

No word on price or release date just yet, but we’ll gather together more detailed information as and when it’s officially seeded.

Huawei Nova: A mid-range smartphone repositioning with 5-inch and 5.5-inch Plus handsets

Huawei has announced a pair of mid-range Android phones at IFA 2016, looking to shake up the mid-range with a new family: Huawei Nova.

The Nova is aimed at what Huawei called “dynamic aspirers” which you can loosely read as “young people who want a nice looking phone”. That’s exactly what you get, as the new Nova handsets offer full metal unibody design, challenging some of the top manufacturers in terms of build.

At the same time, the Nova is a strange pairing. The more visually interesting device is the 5.0-inch Nova, which borrows from the Nexus 6P design (also a Huawei phone), so give you a sort of mini Nexus 6P aesthetic. 

The larger Nova Plus with a 5.5-inch display seems to be a reboot of the Huawei G8 from 2015, with a similar design to that handset.

• Huawei Nova preview: Channelling Nexus 6P design into the mid-range
• Huawei Nova Plus: An elegantly built mid-range challenger

What the Nova handsets don’t offer is a similarity in design: although they align on specs with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage and microSD support, they look decidedly different.

Both offer a full HD resolution and both devices will launch on Android Marshmallow, layered with Huawei’s EMUI software over the top.

The Huawei Nova will cost €399 when it launches in October, initially hitting Germany, Austria, France and Spain, before opening up in other markets.

The Huawei Nova Plus will cost €429 and also launches in October, stating with Spain, Italy and Canada, before hitting other countries.

Huawei Nova Plus: An elegantly built mid-range challenger

Huawei’s appeal has been increasing with a number of great devices, from the Mate 8 to the Huawei P9, pushing solid design and build with impressive specs at a price the undercuts the better known brands.

In a move to redefine the mid range, Huawei announced the Nova at IFA 2016 in Berlin. With a smaller 5-inch device and this larger Nova Plus at 5.5 inches, Huawei is looking to appeal to what it is calling “dynamic aspirers”.

We’re not sure what that type of person is, but we understand the logic: to offer a mid-range device with design and build that doesn’t compromise.

Huawei Nova Plus: Design and build

Huawei is setting out its stall to be the leading manufacturer of metal unibody phones. Where that was once unquestionably the realm of HTC, metal phones are all the more common now, and not just from premium brands.

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Huawei’s mastery of metal and keen eye for design has been evident for a number of years, although the early models seemed too focused on being the thinnest, rather than being the nicest. That’s slowly evolving and the Nova Plus’ reassuring feel is evident of that.

Huawei calls the design “dynamic minimalism”, which might sound fancy, but is essentially the same approach we’ve seen more most other manufacturers like Apple or Samsung. Huawei describes it as taking the 2.5D edge of the display and it seamlessly transitioning into the curve of the body of the phone. 

Where the smaller Nova looks like the Nexus 6P, the Nova Plus doesn’t get the same association. There seems to be no reason why these phones aren’t aligned in terms of design; glance at the rear of the Nova Plus and the squared, raised, camera and those who follow Huawei well see this as a G8 replacement. 

The design (and general specs position) is similar to the G8, although there’s refinement in the design and build that makes it more appealing.

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Overall we like the execution. We think the smaller 5-inch Nova is the better looking device, but as with that model, the Nova Plus pulls off a quality move. It feels well-built, imparting a welcome sense of quality.

• Huawei Nova preview: Channelling Nexus 6P design into the mid-range

Huawei Nova Plus: Specs and battery

Sitting under the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset, which marks this out as the mid-range handset it is. This is backed by 3GB RAM. That should result is strong performance at this position. We’ve seen a number of devices with this low-tier Snapdragon in and although they might not be as snappy as flagship phones with the same graphical prowess, they’re competent enough in daily tasks.

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The Nova Plus offers a USB Type-C connection on the bottom, supporting fast charging of the 3340mAh battery. That’s a fairly generous battery for this type of device and although we don’t have any figure for the endurance, the lower grade chipset and restrained display resolution – combined with Huawei’s software – should see it easily getting through a busy day. 

There’s a fingerprint scanner on the rear, repeating the performance of many recent Huawei and Honor devices. We’ve been impressed with recent scanners on devices and here it’s boosted with enhanced interaction, letting you swipe to open notifications, for example. 

There is 32GB of internal storage and this can be boosted via microSD through the card tray that will either give you storage expansion, or let you turn it into a dual SIM device.

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Huawei Nova Plus: Display

Where the Nova Plus really differs from the Nova is in the display size. Marked out a 5.5-inches, the Plus is making a play to those wanting a larger device. It matches the size of the recent Moto G4, a device that may well be on its list of handsets to out-perform.

With 1920 x 1080 pixels of IPS display spread across 5.5-inches, you get a pixel density of 401ppi. That’s pretty good, and results in nice sharp visuals. It’s also in the territory where flagship devices will offer more: 2560 x 1440 is fairly common in phones around 5.5-inches and that’s a small compromise you’re making here, although it likely won’t matter to all but the display purist. 

Our first impressions of this display are good. It’s bright, it’s vibrant, but we haven’t had the chance to test it in a wider range of environments to see how well it will really work.

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Huawei Nova Plus: Camera

Where the Nova Plus wants to take a jump over the Nova is in the camera. This sees itself boosted to 16-megapixels with the addition of optical image stabilisation, which is a feature you don’t always find in the mid range. That should mean that this phone is slightly better a dealing with your handshake, especially in those slightly longer exposures in low light.

We’ve not had the chance to fully test the camera, but we do wonder why the shift in sensor, when Huawei has had some great results from the 12-megapixel sensor it is using elsewhere, such as in the P9. We suspect this is really to make the Plus appear to be offering you more and drive a difference in price. 

The camera offers the full range of features we now expect from Huawei, offering plenty of shooting modes and a capable 8-megapixel front facing camera, designed to make you look beautiful.

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Huawei Nova Plus: EMUI Software

Launching on Android 6 Marshmallow, the Nova Plus gets itself topped with EMUI, the familiar software layer that Huawei adds to all its devices and those of the Honor sub-brand.

EMUI offers plenty of features, but does customise lots of Android, in some cases changing elements of Google’s operating system that really don’t need changing. However, as EMUI has matured, it’s become better to live with. Some of the additions are fun – like the fingerprint scanner enhancements we’ve mentioned and the fully-featured camera.

On the other hand, we’re still not hugely keen on the visual reworking of every app icon and the lack of apps tray, but in many cases, if you don’t like what Huawei has done, you can change it: such is the beauty of Android.

In our initial play with the Huawei Nova Plus we didn’t get the chance to fully assess the performance of this device, but things seemed to be running smoothly enough on the software front, even if it was a pre-release build.

First Impressions

The Nova Plus gives Huawei a larger screened mid-range handset to rival some of the popular devices out there, like the offering from Moto. The Nova’s strength is really in its premium metal bodywork, giving you a phone that looks the part.

Although we’ve not had the chance to fully assess this device, we’re expecting it to be rather competent. Equipped with the right specs to make it a good day-to-day phone, and the €429 asking price looks competitive, only €30 more than the smaller model. Exactly how that will translate into UK pricing, we’re not sure.

The Huawei Nova Plus looks like a strong addition to the mid-range, but we prefer the cutsey stylings of the smaller Nova, with those mini Nexus 6P looks.

The Huawei Nova Plus will be available in October.

Huawei MediaPad M3 review: An unfussy Android media tablet

The tablet market has stumbled. From everyone offering a tablet – in Windows, Android, iOS – things have dwindled. Even Apple’s iPad has slowed in pace.

The shift has been toward offering tablets that replace your laptop, devices designed for productivity, the iPad Pro, the Pixel C and any number of Switch and other hybrid devices. 

Sometimes you just need a tablet to play and that’s exactly what Huawei’s MediaPad is designed to do. The MediaPad M3 saw its announcement at IFA 2016 and we’ve been living with it to see if it fills that entertainment hole. 

Huawei MediaPad M3 review: Design

Huawei is slowly turning into a metal master, with a range of devices that are beautifully crafted. The MediaPad M3 fits into this category, offering up the 8.4-inch tablet with a unibody metal design.

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The metal bodywork is sandblasted to a fine smooth finish, with Huawei’s (now signature) diamond cut chamfer on the leading and trailing edges of the sides. There’s very slight curve to the rear edges to make this tablet easy to hold one-handed, but still sit fairly stable when you have it flat on a table.

Gone are the ridges of the smaller MediaPad M2, which we think leads to a better overall result. The MediaPad M3 measures (approx.) 214 x 124 x 7.5mm and weighs 322g.

Where many tablet manufacturers have opted for the 4:3 aspect (like the iPad), Huawei is offering a slightly wider 8:5 aspect. This makes for a widescreen look when holding the tablet in landscape, great for gaming and movie watching, but perhaps less friendly in portrait when reading.

We’ll also mention the chocolate box packaging. Huawei has impressed us with quality presentation before: we’re talking about Apple-rivalling presentation, which is important in reinforcing the fact that Huawei is a serious technology company, with some seriously attractive hardware.

Overall, it’s a thumbs-up for design for the MediaPad M3.

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Huawei MediaPad M3 review: Let’s talk about audio

Flip the MediaPad M3 over and you’ll see Harman Kardon on the rear. The M3 offers twin 1W speakers tuned by Harman Kardon, sitting on each end. They are designed to deliver your stereo audio with a punch when holding the tablet in landscape. 

These speakers cope well with game and movie sounds and offer plenty of volume. We like that, because you can fire up something like Real Racing 3 and listen to the visceral screaming of the cars on the track with plenty of detail and immersion.

The same applies to movies and TV. Watching YouTube, Netflix or Amazon videos, you’ll find that you don’t need headphones, as the sound quality is perfectly good. The positioning slightly off-centre makes space for your hands to grip the tablet too, with Huawei telling us that it knows how you’re holding the tablet so it can adapt the sound accordingly.

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If there’s a criticism of the speakers it’s that they get a little shrill on the highs at top volume and the bass drops away, but that’s typical of small format speakers. As such, the MediaPad M3 isn’t great for listening to music through those speakers. It’s possible, it’s loud, but it’s not the best quality.

While talking about headphones, let’s not forget to mention that there’s a pair of AKG headphones in the box (AKG is a Harman company, so it makes sense). But that’s a savvy bit of pairing by Huawei – why provide your own when you can make a show of offering quality headphones from a partnership?

These AKG headphones are compact, look great and come with a great corded cable. Their compact format means the audio delivery can be a little thin. Again, it’s bass that suffers, although we managed to get a good fit and enjoyed the lighter sound they offered – certainly better than many sets of bundled headphones you’ll find in boxes.

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Huawei MediaPad M3 review: Display

With an 8.4-inch display, Huawei goes the whole hog in offering a 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution display. That gives you 359ppi, which is higher than many tablets offer. With content appearing at a range of resolutions, you’re only likely to be streaming at in HD quality, but some apps will take advantage of the extra detail this display will offer.

There’s plenty of brightness from this display, so using it in sunnier conditions is possible, but one of the highlights of this tablet is its low light mode, which will take things down as low as 4 nits, ideal for using it in bed. That said, we found ourselves manually bumping the brightness up a little in darker movies, just to bring a little more detail back in dark scenes. 

There’s also an “eye protection” mode, or blue light filter, to try and help avoid it frazzling you when watching late at night. It doesn’t appear to offer an automatic mode, however, so you’ll have to manually toggle it on – and there’s no adjustment as you’ll get from Samsung’s latest devices.

For all the resolution and features, this isn’t the best display around. The viewing angles are a little restrictive, greatly favouring direct viewing. Whether this is designed for privacy, or is just a byproduct of the display used, it can mean that the usually good presentation of colours and details drift off if you’re not viewing straight on.

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Huawei MediaPad M3 review: Hardware and performance

The MediaPad M3 is equipped with one of Huawei’s own brand HiSilicon Kirin 950 chipsets, offering octo-core 64-bit power and supported by 4GB of RAM. On review here is the LTE version of the tablet, so it also features a SIM and microSD card tray in the base. There is 64GB of storage. 

When it comes to performance, we very often ask less of a media tablet than we do of a smartphone, because we’re not using it on the move and carrying out a lot of simultaneous tasks. It tends to be domestic use, but centred around longer gaming sessions, prolonged movie watching or browser use. 

These are the jobs that the MediaPad M3 is well suited to and firing up our favourite game Real Racing 3 sees swift loading times, smooth animation and plenty of detail in the graphics, oh and that lovely sound we mentioned previously. Slick performance of that kind is reproduced across this tablet across a range of media and apps, although it’s perhaps not as graphically powerful as it could be.

The other side of this tablet, of course, is the 5100mAh battery. That’s a generous size and we’ve found it lasting us several days with regular use. There doesn’t tend to be the same demand from tablet batteries as there is on smartphone batteries (for the same reason, you’re mostly using it at home) and this is typical of a tablet of this size. 

There’s a Micro-USB on the bottom, which is perhaps an oddity as Huawei is generally moving towards Type-C on its other devices – like the Nova handsets also revealed at IFA 2016. Like other Huawei devices, this also lets you reverse charge, so if you connect a phone you can change it from your tablet’s battery. A niche offering, perhaps.

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Huawei MediaPad M3 review: Fancy fingerprint scanner

Huawei adds some interesting features to the fingerprint scanners on its devices. Not only does it unlock nice and quickly on the M3, but there’s some additional goodness too.

As the MediaPad often hides the navigation controls for Android, the fingerprint scanner offers most of the navigation functions you’d normally associate with those Android’s buttons. 

Swiping the fingerprint scanner across will allow you to switch to the last app you were using, basically like using the recent apps button. A tap will take you back; a long press will go home. Once you get used to these functions, it’s a surprisingly fluid way to interact.

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Huawei MediaPad M3 review: Software

Huawei has fallen into the habit of offering devices for review with the caveat that it’s pre-release software. That applies here too and although we’ve been living with the tablet for some time, bear in mind that we’ve been testing it before public release and some things may change.

On the software front the Huawei MediaPad arrives with EMUI – Huawei’s own Emotion UI which you’ll find on its other devices, including those from the Honor sub-brand.

On a tablet EMUI works well enough, offering portrait or landscape home screens, although we’re still not taken with the removal of the apps tray. Rather like the iPad, that means you just swipe across screens of icons. Of course you have the advantage of widgets too and if you feel strongly about the visuals, you can always change the launcher to something more “Androidy”.

• Android Launchers: How to install and change

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This being the LTE version of this tablet, you’ll find it filled with full phone capabilities too, so you have a dialler and messaging apps too, whether you think you’ll need them or not. You can switch off the network information from the status bar, however, which helps keep things clean. 

Final software or not, we found this tablet to run smoothly enough. As we’ve said, those main tasks that we want from a media tablet are nicely fulfilled and that’s what really matters. Huawei doesn’t supply anything too exciting in its own bundled apps, except, perhaps, they’re mostly unnecessary. 

There is WPS Office, where you’ll be better served by Microsoft or Google Docs, there’s a Gallery, but Google Photos has you covered. There’s a music player, although again, installing a music app like Play Music or Spotify will serve you better. 

There is the option to secure apps, however, setting a password for them which is useful for those who want to segregate some apps, perhaps if you’re sharing this tablet between work and play, or you don’t want the kids reading your emails. 

In one sense, if you’re sticking to the apps that are the most important to you then you’ll find things run as smoothly as you might want. On the other hand, Huawei doesn’t add a huge amount to the mix for entertainment. There’s no claims of boosting the visuals as you’ll get from Sony, there’s little audio tweaking, aside from the SWS mode, which isn’t very good.

There is support for split screen, however. A press and hold on the recent apps button and you’ll get the option to add supporting apps to this view. Want to control your music and browse Google Maps? That’s no problem.

Huawei MediaPad M3 review: Cameras

The camera is so much of an afterthought on the M3 that there’s no flash and you don’t get all the features you do on a flagship phone like the Huawei P9. That’s fine with us, because we rarely see cause to use it. If you do, there’s an 8-megapixel camera on the rear and an 8-megapixel on the front.

The performance is actually pretty good, so if you’re one of those people who likes to take a tablet to the zoo and take pictures of things so no one else can see, then the M3 will give you some good results in fair light.

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The front camera is also competent. It comes equipped with Huawei’s beauty offering to make you look better, but there’s plenty of detail on offer for those occasional selfies, wherever you happen to be.

First Impressions

There’s a lot to like about the Huawei MediaPad M3. It is as much as you might want from a tablet designed to entertain you, a great portal for your browsing, your movies and your gaming. It offers the performance that will satisfy many and avoids the temptation to encourage you to use it for work. It’s well built and a pleasure to use.

Then we come to the price. Drift too high and you get too close to iPad territory – and the iPad mini 4 is £319, Samsung’s Tab S 2.0 is around £300 and those are tablets that perform well. The Huawei MediaPad M3 comes in a number of different versions, but starts at €349 with 32GB storage and Wi-Fi. Exactly what the UK prices will be given exchange rates, but we’d hope that the M3 will undercut those rivals. The Huawei MediaPad Available beginning 26 September.

For the 64GB LTE version on review here, you’ll have to pay €449, which is pretty expensive, but for that you get good performance, plenty of storage and connectivity on the move.

Huawei Nova preview: Channelling Nexus 6P design into the mid-range

When we first caught wind that Huawei was going to be contributing to the Nexus programme in 2015, we were excited for this ambitious Chinese company. The good thing about making a Nexus phone, is it puts you on the Android map. 

Although some questioned whether the company was up to the challenge, the Nexus 6P has been well received – loved, in fact. 

It’s perhaps no surprise, then, to see Huawei release a new handset that channels the Nexus 6P design into something new.

This is the Huawei Nova, and it’s excitingly cute for a mid-ranger. 

Huawei Nova: Design

One glance at the metal unibody of the Huawei Nova, announced today at IFA 2016 in Berlin (alongside a larger Nova Plus) and you can’t help but see the Nexus 6P. As Google’s champion phone of 2015 strolls into retirement, Huawei’s offering this mini version in its mid-range.

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Apart from the size, of course, the biggest difference is that the camera is no longer sitting on a raised platform. The back is flat, giving Richard Yu, Huawei CEO, every opportunity to shout “no bump, no bump,” as he so emphatically did at the launch of Huawei’s flagship, the Huawei P9. 

What the Nova carries is Huawei’s commitment to bring quality to all its devices: 2.5D glass curves into the edges of the phone, with neat chamfering, for a phone that feels solid, high quality and sits comfortably in the hand. 

Coming in gold, silver and grey, the brushed edges meet the sandblasted back in a phone that’s only 7mm thick. It’s a surprisingly confident build for a phone that’s sitting in the middle of the pack. 

• Huawei P9 review: The flagship and the folly

Huawei Nova: Hardware and specs

One of the things about the Nova that’s a little strange for Huawei followers, is that the company has turned to Qualcomm to power this device, rather than using its own HiSilicon hardware. That perhaps suggest that Huawei wants the Qualcomm name to carry this device to consumers and instil a little more confidence; equally, that could just come down to supply. 

It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625, a 64-bit octo-core chipset, with 3GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage. As with other Huawei devices, there’s a hybrid tray in the side that will support with a SIM and microSD, or dual SIM cards. At least you’ll be able to expand the internal storage as you see fit.

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That SD625 chipset marks the phone out as the mid-ranger it is, so it won’t offer the same sort of power as flagship devices on the SD820, like the HTC 10, but from previous experience, we’ve found this class of chipset to perform well in everyday tasks. Just look at the HTC One A9 (a device that’s not too dissimilar to the Nova), and you’ll find satisfying daily performance.

Given the short period of time that we had with the Huawei Nova, we didn’t have the chance to put it completely through its paces, but things seemed smooth enough: bear in mind that it was presented to us running pre-production software, so it’s too early to draw any definitive conclusions. 

The Huawei Nova is powered by a 3020mAh battery and there’s a USB Type-C connection on the bottom of the handset for charging. Fast charging is supported, and there’s a fast charger in the box.

Huawei Nova: Display

We’ve mentioned that 2.5D glass on the front of the display. The Nova is a compact handset, with a 5-inch IPS display, but it still carries a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. There are higher resolution displays out there, but at this size, a bump in resolution makes little difference. 

Here you’re looking at 440ppi, but it’s the colour and vibrancy that’s impressive at first glance. We didn’t have time to assess this display in all conditions, but it seemed vibrant enough, free from grain, with good viewing angles, so there’s little to dislike so far.

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Huawei Nova: Camera

Huawei knows that great cameras get a lot of attention. The Huawei P9 flexes its camera muscles with a partnership with Leica, bringing the novelty of a second monochrome camera. The Nova in comparison is conventional, with a 12-megapixel sensor on the rear. 

This is reported to offer 1.25µm pixels, which aren’t huge compared to the 1.5µm you’ll find elsewhere and an f/2.2 lens. The camera app is the familiar arrangement that Huawei’s Emotion UI offers and our first tests revealed it to be snappy enough. 

There’s an 8-megapixel camera on the front, offering up the usual selection of fun features, beauty modes and so on. 

With the software being pre-release, Huawei wouldn’t let us share any samples, but as it is, we’d need longer to assess its potency as a camera. 

Huawei Nova: Software

Unlock the Nova using the fingerprint scanner on the rear of the handset and you’ll find yourself in familiar EMUI territory. This is the same software as you’ll have seen on earlier Huawei handsets, or Honor devices. 

We’re not huge fans, as we feel it makes a number of changes to Android that just don’t need to be made, such as changing the layout and colour scheme of the settings menu and restructuring the quick settings and so on. While that’s no crime – Samsung does a perfectly good job in this regard – we’ve always been left with the feeling that EMUI could be better.

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That aside, the Huawei Nova offers you all the flexibility and customisation that Android allows, so in many cases, if you want to change something that Huawei has done, you can. 

From the time we’ve had with the device it seems slick enough in operation, although we’ve not had the chance to fill it with our own apps and give it a real world test. Huawei has been getting better and better in this regard, so we suspect the Nova will toe the line and put in a strong performance.

One of the star performers is the fingerprint scanner. We’ve seen excellent performance from the rear scanner on Huawei’s previous devices, but the inclusion of a range of other interactions – like being able to swipe down the notifications with a swipe of the finger on the scanner – adds a dimension that no one else is offering.

First Impressions

There’s a lot to love about the Huawei Nova. It’s a mid-range handset that wants to bring you adequate power, with specs that matter, and a build that’s class leading. The mid-range is in many ways more interesting and disruptive than the flagship level in Android devices and that’s true of the Nova.

The thing that’s likely to turn heads with the Nova is the mini Nexus 6P looks. But it’s not just looks. First impressions are that it pulls off this doppelganger act with some class.

The HTC One A9’s downfall was the price as it sailed over £400, higher than flagship devices like those from OnePlus. Huawei has always been more affordable, and the €399 asking price is reasonable. Exactly how that will translate into UK pricing given current exchange rates, we’re not quite sure.

The Huawei Nova will be available in October.

Tado third-gen system adds multi-room control, plus HomeKit and Echo compatibility

Tado has announced a third-generation of its smart heating system at consumer electronics show IFA in Berlin. The latest system comprises the v3 Smart Thermostat and Smart Radiator Thermostats, the latter of which will enable room-by-room heating control.

The third-generation of Tado devices deliver an optimised user interface and improved algorithms for better energy efficiency. They also offer expanded platform connectivity, meaning compatibility with Apple’s HomeKit, Amazon’s Echo and IFTTT.

This means users will not only be able to control their rooms individually with the new devices, but they will be able to do it using their voice, such as asking Siri or Alexa to turn down the heating in the bedroom. Scenes can also be created using the platforms, meaning you could set your heating to turn down, your lights to turn off and your alarm to switch on when you leave the house, all through HomeKit, for example.

Tado uses your smartphone’s location to automatically turn the heating down when the last person leaves home. It will also turn the heating up when it recognises someone is on their way home and it takes into account the weather and your building characteristics. According to the company, users can save up to 31 per cent with the system.

The third generation of Tado products will be available in two Starter Kits, both of which can be rented for less than £6 per month. The Smart Thermostat v3 Starter Kit includes the Smart Thermostat and internet bridge and costs £199 to buy outright, while the Smart Radiator Thermostat Starter Kit that includes two Smart Radiator Thermostat and the bridge costs £179. 

Additional Smart Radiator Thermostats, priced at £59, and Smart Thermostats can be added to a Starter Kit and they will all be available from 1 September at tado.com.