Wave Slate 8 Tablet

Details

An 8.7 inch tablet for reading in bed, propping up in the kitchen, and handing to a child without also handing them a shop. It comes in one configuration, 128 GB with a microSD slot, so there is no storage ladder to climb and no cheaper model with the corners quietly cut. Three cheats define this end of the market. The first is the ladder itself: a base model exists to advertise a low price, and it arrives with less memory, a dimmer panel and slower storage than the model in the review, none of which is on the comparison table. The second is the silicon, because a tablet launched this year very often carries a processor introduced four years ago, and the launch year is the one number never printed. The third is the children's software: a free parental mode that needs an account, reports usage upstream, and puts a subscription in front of the second feature you try to use. And under all three sits the update window, which decides how long the tablet is safe to keep on a home network. The panel measures 396 nits and the box says 396, because we round down rather than up.

• One configuration only: 128 GB with a microSD slot to 512 GB. There is no cheaper version of this tablet with a worse panel in it
• Processor launch year printed on the specification sheet in the box, so a four-year-old part cannot be sold as new silicon
• Four years of LifeOS Mobile version upgrades and six years of security patches, to July 2032. Both numbers, because they are two different promises
• Parental mode built in, free, needing no account, reporting nothing upstream, and with nothing behind a subscription. No pre-installed games, no ads, no store notifications
• 8.7 inch IPS, 1340 x 800, measured 396 nits full-screen white on a production unit. DC dimming at every level, percent flicker under 3 percent against IEEE 1789
• 5,100 mAh at 3.87 V nominal, which is 19.7 Wh. 9 hours 30 minutes of reading measured at 150 nits and 60 Hz on Wi-Fi
• 15 W USB-C Power Delivery charger and cable in the box. 0 to 100 in about 2 hours 5 minutes
• Storage is 128 GB UFS 2.2 at a sequential write of 340 MB/s, not the eMMC 5.1 this class usually gets. Soldered, and stated as soldered
• No IP rating, and we do not print one. The back is a clip fit over a replaceable battery, and a sealed tablet and a serviceable one are not the same object. That is the trade we made
• Every unit is new. No returned display or battery is fitted into a new tablet
• There is no Shuunnya service-centre network. A warranty claim means sending the tablet to us, with no turnaround time promised