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Menelaos

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 27, 2017
3
1
Hello folks.

I'm about to invest in a new tablet and could do with the opinions of some more experienced people.

I am between the iPad 32GB Wi-Fi (which features an A9 chip) and the Hussein Media pad M3 (which features a double quad-core processor.)

My most memory heavy uses of the tablet will be photo processing with Lightroom and local web design via an on-tablet setup of Apache, MySQL and PHP. Other than that, typical web and docs use.

Here are my two questions:

1. Which of the two processors is most powerful? I have found some comparisons online, but could do with your opinions too.
2. For the aforementioned needs, would you recommend one or the other?

Thank you in advance.

M.
 

keysofanxiety

macrumors G3
Nov 23, 2011
9,539
25,302
iPad demolishes it. Much better CPU. Core count is almost completely irrelevant when per-core performance is so significantly better. Memory speed will be way better too. As will the NAND speed.

Furthermore the Hussein Media Pad (lol, that name, seriously?) will... well, where to start. The OS won't handle multicore performance well. Android is bitterly unoptimised with RAM usage. Build quality won't be as good. Aftersales support won't be as good. Display won't be as good. Touch ID won't be as good. Applications won't be as good.

If you consider any single aspect, the iPad takes it.
 

Menelaos

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 27, 2017
3
1
Hahahahaha. Apparently autocorrect decided that Hussein is a more suitable brand name than Huawei.

All points well noted and appreciated. Thank you.

M.
 

KGB7

Suspended
Jun 15, 2017
925
753
Rockville, MD
CNET Review
The best Android alternative to the Apple iPad Mini 4.

They compared it to a 2 year old iPad. This tells me that 5th gen iPad would be a better choice.

I've been with Android for 7 years and OS is not as good as iOS imo. Plus with iOS 11 right around the corner, I strongly believe iPad will be a better choice.

Last thing to consider. Apple customer service is one of the best. Huawei is slacking behind by a mile.
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
14,921
13,274
Relative performance of the Kirin 950 (Huawei Mate 8) and Apple A9 (iPhone 6s/6s Plus).

Created by HUAWEI, the Kirin 950 powers the HUAWEI MediaPad M3 to new performance heights. Offering superior efficiency, the Kirin 950 gets through even the most computationally intensive tasks with ease. Created on a 16nm FinFET+ process and clocking in at 2.3GHz, the newly designed architecture further boosts memory bandwidth, whilst optimizing energy efficiency, making the HUAWEI MediaPad M3 a class-leading powerhouse.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9878/the-huawei-mate-8-review/4
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9878/the-huawei-mate-8-review/5

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JPack

macrumors G5
Mar 27, 2017
13,568
26,262
Actually the Huawei Media Pad M3 performs quite closely to the A9. Huawei is one of the few companies that designs their own HiSilicon chip the way Apple does their Ax chips.

If you trust the Geekbench scores, the M3 has a higher multi-core score while the iPad has a high single-core score. Your photo processing apps will take advantage of the multi-core aspect.
 

ManyThreads

macrumors member
Jun 9, 2017
94
56
Benchmarks don't tell you the full story these days. I use several iOS and Android devices daily and even though Apple wins some synthetic benchmarks depending on the device, some Android devices are faster and smoother in day-to-day use than some iOS devices that have better synthetic benchmarks. It's best if you can try them out yourself, I would not recommend buying anything off of benchmarks. Really at the end of the day you're buying into an ecosystem. Both offer great hardware and extremely polished software experiences, so mostly it comes down to picking Android 7/8 which is very good or iOS which is also very good. A lot of the negative things you hear is old information that does not apply today. Many things on Android are also built for multi-core use, so even though their single core performance is sometimes lower than the equivalent Apple CPU, they make up the speed in multi-core tasks. If your smartphone is one or the other, that will likely weigh on your decision as well if you like to have things consistent and sync'd cross platform.

Also, I would ask this same question on an Android specific forum to balance out the answers - it's pretty obvious what most people here will tell you to buy ;) Good luck with your decision - you might find that a combination of devices works best for you as it does for me.

One last thing - neither of the tablets you are looking at are going to be a speed demon in Lightroom unless they are tiny JPEG files. Even the newest iPad Pro's do not handle high volume editing of large RAW files well.
 
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parseckadet

macrumors 65816
Dec 13, 2010
1,495
1,276
Denver, CO
The point that you're buying into an ecosystem is an important one. Don't just consider what you're going to purchase right now, but in the future as well. Obviously the iPad Pro blows both options out of the water, but I assume you're not including that due to cost considerations. But will that always be the case? Do you see yourself being able to upgrade to better hardware in the future? If so, will that hardware be running Android or iOS? Remember that you'll be buying apps as well, and in the future you'll be faced with the choice of staying in the same ecosystem, or re-purchasing those apps.
 
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