EE has unveiled an own-branded tablet device called the Eagle, which it describes as similar to the iPad mini in specification terms, even claiming that it is better than the iPad mini in some.

It is an 8-inch device (screen resolution yet to be confirmed, but we suspect 1280 x 920 pixels) and Android Jelly Bean is pre-installed, and is manufactured, much like the EE Kestrel smartphone released recently, by Huawei. The design is identical to the MediaPad M1, so we suspect the specs will all be the same too.

Also like the Kestrel, the Eagle (see the naming convention?) is a 4G device mainly devised to show off the company's network. It's also reasonably priced for an 8-incher, costing £199.99 on a pay as you go deal, £49.99 when taken with a £15 monthly data plan. That includes a monthly limit of 2GB.

ee eagle 8 inch 4g android tablet pictures and hands on image 6

The device was launched in London, will be on sale in the UK from 28 May and Pocket-lint managed to get its hands on a pre-production sample for a brief while during the unveiling.

The first thing we noticed is that it is incredibly light. Nicely designed, it has a metallic looking back but does feel a little plasticky in the hand, which makes sense considering the price - just look at and feel Samsung's tablets in that price range.

We didn't get much time to use it in operation, but it was suitably speedy. There's a quad-core processor on board so that helps. Storage is 16GB and there is a microSD card slot available for expansion by a further 32GB.

ee eagle 8 inch 4g android tablet pictures and hands on image 4

The camera on the rear has a 5-megapixel sensor, but to be honest, this Android slate is almost certainly going to be used most to watch video on rather than record. EE says that around 50 per cent of the data consumed on its 4G network is streamed video, and this seems to be the device it would like you to do it on.

Just from a very brief play, it's a decent tablet. We wonder if it will be upgradable to new versions of Android, but we'll just have to wait and see.

We'll be able to find out more of the tablet's specifications too when we get one in for review in the next week.