Smart Android And Trik-Commenting on Andorid indeed never endless, because smart devices this one is often updated every certain amount of time. So that the market can always be garapnya menerinya with pleasure. And it is not denied if this device has become the lifestyle of each society. To not wonder if the 6th business information and many are turning to mobail smartphone. With Android which thoroughly dominated the mobile industry, choosing the best Android smartphone is almost identical to choose the best smartphone, period. But while Android phones have few real opponents on other platforms, internal competition is intense.
Introduction
The fall may as well be the season of phablets. Apple, LG and Samsung are the usual suspects but Huawei wants in too - as a front-runner, mind you, not an also-ran. Like its illustrious rivals, Huawei is also yielding to the pressure and the new Mate 10 is trying hard to please the fickle crowd.
Bezel-less is the latest buzzword and everybody is keen to oblige. Xiaomi has Full Screen, Samsung has Infinity, LG's got FullVision and Apple's pitching the Super Retina. FullView is Huawei's contribution to both the borderless display concept and - let's face it - less than stellar copywriting. But yes, they all have it.
Not only does the Huawei Mate 10 have those bezels duly trimmed but is hopping on the Quad HD bandwagon too. The HDR10 support is a welcome addition at a time when the HDR video content is clearly on the rise.
The Kirin 970 is the beating heart of the new Mate 10 and it seems Huawei has focused more on the new chipset than on the trademark dual-camera, to bring one of the best performers in the market. With a class-leading GPU, a new 10nm FinFet+ manufacturing process and one of the industry's first Neural-Network Processing Units for on-device machine learning acceleration, the Kirin 970 is clearly bidding for one of the top spots.
Huawei has abandoned the full-metal unibody in favor of an all-glass design, but is still admirably consistent with a generous 4,000mAh of battery capacity. The dual-camera has been updated with f/1.6 bright lenses, while the new EMUI 8 and the NPU do offer a few nice perks.
Let's have a closer look.
Huawei Mate 10 key features
- Body: Dual glass body with metal frame, curved Corning Gorilla Glass, IP53 rating for dust and splash protection, more compact than the Mate 9 while keeping the same screen size
- Screen: 5.9" IPS LCD of 1440p resolution (499ppi); HDR10 support, up to 730 nits of brightness
- Chipset: 10nm Kirin 970 chipset, Octa-core processor (Cortex-A73 2.4GHz + A53 1.8GHz), Mali-G72 MP12 GPU
- Memory: 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, microSD slot (hybrid, uses SIM2 slot)
- OS: Android 8.0 Oreo with EMUI 8.0;
- Camera: 12MP color + 20MP monochrome, phase-detection and laser-assisted autofocus, 4K video capture, dual-tone LED flash, Leica branding
- Camera features: F/1.6 lens, OIS, Hybrid Zoom, Variable aperture mode and Portrait mode
- Selfie cam: 8MP, f/2.0 lens, Portrait mode
- Battery: 4,000mAh; Fast charging (58% charge in 30 min)
- Security: Front-mounted fingerprint reader
- Connectivity: LTE Cat.16, Dual-LTE SIM, IR blaster, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2 + LE, NFC, USB Type-C, 3.5mm audio jack
Main shortcomings
- No proper water-proofing
- Limited market availability (some markets will get the Mate 10 Pro instead)
- Lackluster camera update
- No wireless charging
A few things have been left as they were on the Mate 9. You'll notice right away that it's the same eight cores as last year. Yet, the Kirin 970 chipset is more power-efficient given the 10nm manufacturing process and the NPU is said to leverage machine-learning algorithms in a way that will make a difference in terms of both processing speed and power management.
The Leica dual camera has also kept the same sensors as last year, but they're behind brighter lenses this time around. And the battery? Well, we have no beef there.
The Mate 10 will be available where the Mate 10 Pro isn't, and those two are quite a bit different. For starters, the Mate 10 isn't actually water-proof, just splash resistant. It is the one with an audio jack and higher-screen resolution though, whereas the Mate 10 Pro comes with a 1080p AMOLED screen and IP67 certification. The fragmentation doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's what it is.
The Mate 10 is an attention-grabber and you've probably noticed that already. Huawei seems well aware of what the market wants and has made sure the Mate 10 is properly equipped to face its competition. This phablet season though, we're talking some really rough competition. So, let's see.
Unboxing the Huawei Mate 10
The Huawei Mate 10 comes packed in a flat cardboard box. Inside you'll find a 22W charger, a USB Type-C cable, a pair of earphones and a soft silicone case. The USB cable has the extra pins for Huawei's Super Charge technology, so if you want to quickly top up your phone the bundled cable is a must. If you use any other USB cable, charging will only go as high as 10W.
The retail box • its contents • the transparent case • Mate 10 wrapped in that case
The provided case fits the Mate 10 perfectly and will keep the rear safe from scuffs, which are more likely as of late since Gorilla Glass prioritized shatter-proofing over scratch resistance.
Some units (such as ours) may come with a factory-applied screen protector. We got rid of it for our photo shoots and screen tests but having both these protection options right out of the box is great. We would have appreciated a more premium case, that's for sure.
Huawei Mate 10 360-degree spin
The Huawei Mate 10 measures 150.5 x 77.8 x 8.2mm and that's astonishingly good 5mm shorter and 1mm narrower than the Mate 9, which had the same size screen. The Mate 10 weighs 186g, which makes it 4g lighter than the Mate 9 - the benefit of ditching the metal back.
Putting the Mate 10 next to its predecessor is the easiest way to appreciate the trimmed bezels.
And if you look closer, you'll see that both screens are actually of the same size.
Design
The first impression is important and the Huawei Mate 10 knows it. It's a fine looking handset, no two ways about it. A massive screen with near-zero bezels, a smart glass design and some attractive paintjobs all contribute to making the Mate 10 so appealing.
After generations of metal-clad Mates, Huawei changed its mind and opted for glass instead. Unlike Apple though, Huawei didn't reuse an old design - it didn't even keep the old camera accents. Design-wise, everything's about the Mate 10 is new and that has to count for something.
So, the Mate 10 now comes in a dual-glass body, held together by a brushed metal frame. The screen bezels have all but disappeared and the fingerprint scanner has been moved over to the front, doing double-duty as a Home or a multi-function key, depending on your preferences. The good news is that the bottom bezel didn't grow to make room for the new tenant.
Speaking of, the fingerprint reader is the fastest and most accurate unit we've used to date. It's always-on, of course, and feels almost like it recognizes your fingertip even before you touch the surface. Yup, it's that fast!
The screen sits behind a Gorilla Glass ending on a subtle curve. The rear Gorilla Glass got all the premium treatment - it has a 4-axis curve meaning all sides are curved towards the frame. The effect is stunning to look at and quite practical too.
The dual-camera at the back may be keeping the old sensors, but it got enough upgrades for Huawei to highlight it on the Mate 10 with a wide strip of a darker hue, which makes the design easily recognizable.
The RGB and monochrome cameras have slim metal frames, bulging just a tiny bit. But don't you worry, the Mate 10 doesn't wobble when resting on a flat surface, and you can barely tell the humps exist unless you run your finger over them. A lot of dust tends to gather around the lens rims but at least they're quite easy to clean.
The Huawei Mate 10 feels very nice in the hand, and the metal frame provides for a splendid grip. For a near 6" phablet, the Mate 10 looks amazingly compact.
Unfortunately, the water-proof body is a Mate 10 Pro exclusive - the regular Mate 10 is just dust and splash protected - IP53 in particular. Recent teardowns have revealed everything in the Mate 10 is in fact water-tight ave for the USB port.
Mate 9 vs Mate 10 Pro vs Mate 10
Device overview
Above the 5.9" IPS LCD display is the earpiece, which also doubles as a second speaker. The selfie camera, a couple of sensors, and a small notification LED are nearby.
Huawei Mate 10 • the big screen • the earpiece and selfie camera
Below the new screen is the relocated fingerprint sensor. The Home key can be re-programmed as a multifunctional key if you want to get rid of the standard Android onscreen navigation. If so, a tap will work as back, a tap-and-hold as Home. Left or right swipes will launch the task switcher.
The fingerprint scanner • it can act as all-in-one Android navigation
The card tray is alone on the left. It can take a nano-SIM card and a microSD card. If you opt for a dual-SIM Mate 10, you will be able to swap the memory card for another nano-SIM.
The volume rocker and the power/lock key are on the right.
The right side • the SIM tray • the left side • the power key
The Huawei Mate 10, unlike the Mate 10 Pro, has an audio jack, but it's safe to guess this is probably its last appearance on the Mate series. The 3.5mm port is at the top, alongside an IR blaster and the secondary microphone.
The mouthpiece is at the bottom, next to the USB Type-C port. The second speaker is also around, behind a micro-drilled grille.
The top • the audio jack • the bottom • the speaker's grille
The dual-camera setup behind the SUMMILUX-H lens is at the back, highlighted by the darker painted strip. There is a dual-LED flash around too. We already mentioned the slightly bulging lens rims and we don't think this is going to be an issue in daily use.
The back of the Mate 10 • the dual-camera
Display
The Huawei Mate 10 brings a long overdue update and the 5.9" IPS LCD screen now boasts 1440p resolution and 499ppi. There is also HDR10 support, but no Dolby Vision. The high-res screen was previously exclusive to the Pro model but this time around it's only available on the regular version. Go figure.
Huawei Mate 10's screen uses a PenTile RGBW matrix with an extra white subpixel. This allows the screen to reach higher brightness levels while using less power than the traditional QuadHD LCD panels.
As you will notice, this subpixel arrangement replaces every second blue pixel with a white one - or rather every second blue filter is removed to let more light. Even for an RGBW screen, this sub-pixel arrangement is unusual. Instead of having a string of red-green-blue-white subpixels (RGBW), here you get a string, which looks something like RGB-RGW.
The screen of the Mate 10 has two modes, Normal and Vivid. Some units have the Normal option chosen by default, while others come with the Vivid mode pre-selected. Those two settings offer different levels of brightness and color accuracy.
Normal allows for 415 nits of maximum brightness, while the screen can automatically light up to 630nits under sunlight if needed. The blacks are some of the deepest we've seen on an LCD screen and the contrast is excellent.
The color accuracy is fine with an average deltaE of 4.2 with the most notable deviation being the bluish whites. If you want superior accuracy you can achieve it by setting the display's color temperature to warm - then you'll get an average deltaE of 2.5 with mostly accurate hues. This looks so much better than the Mate 9's screen, which had a color cast that we could never get rid of no matter how long we played with the custom settings.
The Vivid mode on the Mate 10 offers 430 nits of maximum brightness, deep blacks and, once again, excellent contrast. The maximum automatic brightness in Vivid mode, however, is 670 nits under bright sunlight.
Since Vivid tries to emulate the punch of an AMOLED screen, the color accuracy is all over the place with an average deltaE of 6.8 and maximum deviation of 12.
Unfortunately, we couldn't get the advertised max brightness of 730nits but the margin is not huge and could be down to the methodology of measurement. In any case, 670 nits is about as much we got back when we reviewed the Mate 9 using an identical measurement methodology.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
| 0.3 | 415 | 1383 | |
| 0.456 | 630 | 1382 | |
| 0.314 | 433 | 1379 | |
| 0.468 | 667 | 1425 | |
| 0.41 | 665 | 1622 | |
| 0.416 | 592 | 1423 | |
| 0 | 442 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 647 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 412 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 850 | ∞ | |
| 0.392 | 530 | 1352 | |
| 0.471 | 621 | 1318 | |
| 0.002 | 414 | 207000 | |
| 0.032 | 616 | 19250 | |
| 0.409 | 575 | 1406 | |
| 0 | 435 | ∞ | |
As for sunlight legibility, the Mate 10 does an OK job here producing a good enough contrast for an LCD unit.
Sunlight contrast ratio
- Samsung Galaxy S8
4.768 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
4.658 - Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
4.615 - Motorola Moto Z2 Play
4.459 - Oppo R11
4.454 - Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
4.439 - OnePlus 3
4.424 - Samsung Galaxy S7
4.376 - HTC One A9
4.274 - Samsung Galaxy Note7
4.247 - Samsung Galaxy A3
4.241 - Nokia 8
4.239 - OnePlus 3T
4.232 - Google Pixel XL
4.164 - ZTE Axon 7
4.154 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
4.148 - Meizu Pro 7 Plus
4.147 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)
4.124 - Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
4.124 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro (normal)
4.096 - Samsung Galaxy Note5
4.09 - LG V30
4.022 - Huawei Nexus 6P
4.019 - OnePlus X
3.983 - Vivo Xplay5 Elite
3.983 - Oppo R7s
3.964 - Apple iPhone 7
3.964 - Apple iPhone 8 (True Tone)
3.957 - Huawei P9 Plus
3.956 - Meizu Pro 6 Plus
3.935 - Lenovo Moto Z
3.931 - Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)
3.918 - OnePlus 5
3.914 - Samsung Galaxy C5
3.911 - Samsung Galaxy C7
3.896 - Samsung Galaxy A5
3.895 - Samsung Galaxy J7 outdoor
3.879 - Samsung Galaxy J2 outdoor
3.873 - Samsung Galaxy A8
3.859 - Sony Xperia XZs
3.818 - Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016)
3.817 - Motorola Moto X (2014)
3.816 - Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
3.812 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)
3.804 - Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) outdoor mode
3.802 - Xiaomi Redmi Pro
3.798 - LG V20 Max auto
3.798 - Sony Xperia XZ
3.795 - Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
3.789 - Apple iPhone 6s
3.783 - Meizu Pro 5
3.781 - Microsoft Lumia 650
3.772 - Xiaomi Mi 6
3.767 - Sony Xperia XZ1
3.765 - Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016)
3.756 - Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact
3.729 - Apple iPhone 8 Plus (True Tone)
3.725 - Oppo F1 Plus
3.709 - Vivo X5Pro
3.706 - Samsung Galaxy A3 (2017)
3.688 - Apple iPhone SE
3.681 - Huawei Mate 9
3.68 - Samsung Galaxy A7
3.679 - Meizu PRO 6
3.659 - BlackBerry Priv
3.645 - Sony Xperia XA1 Ultra
3.597 - Apple iPhone 7 Plus
3.588 - LG G6
3.556 - Apple iPhone 6s Plus
3.53 - Motorola Moto Z Play
3.526 - Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) outdoor mode
3.523 - Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016)
3.523 - Acer Jade Primo
3.521 - Microsoft Lumia 950
3.512 - Oppo R7 Plus
3.499 - nubia Z11
3.466 - Huawei P10 Plus
3.456 - HTC U Ultra
3.453 - Samsung Galaxy J7
3.422 - Meizu MX5
3.416 - LG V20
3.402 - Huawei P10
3.379 - Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
3.378 - Oppo R9s
3.352 - Honor 8 Pro
3.341 - Oppo R7
3.32 - Lenovo P2
3.316 - Honor 9
3.289 - Xiaomi Mi 5s
3.276 - Nokia 5
3.261 - Nokia 6 (Chinese version)
3.244 - Nokia 6 (Global version)
3.238 - Samsung Galaxy J2
3.235 - Sony Xperia X Performance
3.234 - Xiaomi Mi Note 2
3.228 - Motorola Moto X Play
3.222 - Oppo F3 Plus
3.218 - Huawei Mate 9 Pro
3.206 - Huawei P9
3.195 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
3.19 - ZTE Nubia Z17
3.159 - Lenovo Vibe Shot
3.113 - Motorola Moto X Force
3.105 - LG Nexus 5X
3.092 - HTC U11
3.089 - Huawei Mate S
3.073 - Microsoft Lumia 640 XL
3.065 - Sony Xperia XA1
3.012 - Sony Xperia L1
2.994 - Huawei P10 Lite
2.974 - Samsung Galaxy Note
2.97 - Sony Xperia Z1
2.95 - Huawei Mate 8
2.949 - Xiaomi Redmi 4
2.92 - Xiaomi Redmi 3S
2.913 - Sony Xperia XA Ultra
2.906 - LG G5
2.905 - HTC One S
2.901 - Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
2.893 - Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
2.884 - Sony Xperia XZ Premium (sRGB)
2.877 - Sony Xperia XZ Premium
2.877 - Sony Xperia Z5
2.876 - Nokia 3
2.871 - Microsoft Lumia 550
2.851 - Lenovo Moto M
2.813 - Xiaomi Redmi 3 Pro
2.803 - Sony Xperia Z5 compact
2.784 - Meizu MX6
2.751 - LG V10
2.744 - Huawei Mate 10
2.742 - Xiaomi Redmi 3
2.735 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
2.714 - Meizu M5
2.71 - Sony Xperia M5
2.69 - Xiaomi Mi A1
2.689 - Huawei P9 Lite
2.679 - Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
2.679 - Vivo V3Max
2.659 - Xiaomi Mi Mix
2.658 - Doogee Mix
2.642 - Xiaomi Mi 4i
2.641 - Xiaomi Redmi 4a
2.635 - Xiaomi Mi 5X (Standard)
2.616 - Sony Xperia XA
2.609 - Motorola Moto G4 Plus (max auto)
2.582 - Motorola Moto G4 Plus
2.582 - Meizu M5s
2.58 - Xiaomi Mi 4c
2.574 - LeEco Le Max 2
2.567 - Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
2.563 - Microsoft Lumia 640
2.563 - Xiaomi Mi Max 2
2.561 - Lenovo Moto G4
2.544 - Lenovo K6 Note
2.544 - Oppo F1
2.528 - Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
2.525 - Huawei Honor 7 Lite / Honor 5c
2.506 - Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
2.503 - Oppo F1s
2.481 - Motorola Moto G
2.477 - Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
2.473 - Huawei G8
2.471 - Huawei nova
2.467 - Lenovo Vibe K5
2.459 - Meizu m3 max
2.447 - Xiaomi Mi 5X (Auto)
2.417 - HTC 10 evo
2.407 - Huawei Honor 7
2.406 - Sony Xperia E5
2.386 - ZUK Z1 by Lenovo
2.382 - HTC 10
2.378 - Oppo F3
2.376 - vivo V5 Plus
2.371 - Meizu m1 note
2.362 - Huawei nova plus
2.329 - HTC One E9+
2.305 - Alcatel One Touch Hero
2.272 - Apple iPhone 4S
2.269 - Lenovo Vibe K4 Note
2.254 - Sony Xperia C5 Ultra
2.253 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (MediaTek)
2.249 - Sony Xperia C4 Dual
2.235 - Xiaomi Mi Note
2.234 - Motorola Moto G (2014)
2.233 - LG Nexus 5
2.228 - Huawei P8
2.196 - Meizu M5 Note
2.189 - Huawei Honor 6
2.169 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 2
2.166 - OnePlus Two
2.165 - HTC One X
2.158 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (X20)
2.145 - LG Aka
2.145 - Archos 50 Diamond
2.134 - Xiaomi Redmi Note
2.119 - Xiaomi Mi 4S
2.095 - Acer Liquid X2
2.084 - Huawei P8lite
2.078 - vivo V5
2.059 - Moto G 3rd gen max manual
2.026 - Xiaomi Mi 3
2.001 - Xiaomi Mi Max
1.996 - Sony Xperia E4g
1.972 - OnePlus One
1.961 - Meizu m3 note
1.923 - BlackBerry Leap
1.892 - Meizu m2 note
1.892 - HTC Butterfly
1.873 - Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
1.772 - ZTE Nubia Z9 mini
1.759 - Sony Xperia U
1.758 - Asus Zenfone Selfie
1.68 - Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
1.675 - ZTE Nubia Z9
1.659 - Jolla Jolla
1.605 - Motorola Moto E
1.545 - Sony Xperia M
1.473 - Sony Xperia L
1.351 - HTC Desire C
1.3 - Meizu MX
1.221 - Sony Xperia E
1.215
Battery life
Some aspects of the Mate series are now changed in the Mate 10 but the battery capacity is not among them. The Mate 10 stays true to tradition with a large 4,000mAh battery, the same commendable capacity which the Mate 7 came with back in 2014.
Huawei Mate 10 supports the company's proprietary SuperCharge at 5V and 4.5A. Because of the low voltage the battery won't heat up as much as other competing solutions while charging. And that's while the bundled cable and charger can fill a flat battery up to 58% in just 30 mins.
Huawei promised the Mate 10 would have the Mate 9's battery life and our test confirmed that. The Mate 10 did a little bit better in talk time and standby, and thus it scored an extra 5 hours to its total endurance rating.
In real life, we were able to get as much as two days of battery life on a single charge while having all connectivity options such as Wi-FI, location and mobile data always on. Of course, your own mileage will vary based on your usage pattern.
Our endurance rating indicates how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Huawei Mate 10 for an hour each of telephony, web browsing and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
Connectivity
The Huawei Mate 10 supports LTE-Advanced with 3-carrier aggregation, Cat.16 LTE for theoretical speeds up to 1Gbps of download and 150Mbps of upload, 16 LTE bands, 6 3G bands, and the usual quad-band 2G.
There's a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi support with dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct and hotspot capabilities. You also get Bluetooth v4.2 for connecting peripherals, A-GPS, GLONASS, and Beidou for positioning and NFC for close-range communication. We expected to see Bluetooth 5.0, but we guess that's a feature for the next Kirin.
There's an analog 3.5mm headphone jack on board the phone. An IR blaster allows you to remote control your not-as-smart home appliances.
One connectivity feature the Mate 10 lacks is FM radio support.
Finally, the Type-C USB port adheres to the USB 3.1 specs and supports DisplayPort v1.2. The latter means you can use a passive USB-C-to-HDMI cable or dongle for TV-out connectivity. EMUI 8 introduced the so-called Projection mode for a PC-like Android experience, so it may be a good idea to buy the right cable.
Once you connect the Mate 10 to an external screen via a cable, you will get a dedicated desktop user interface. Then you can either use a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, or the phone's screen as a trackpad and on-screen keyboard. Even though the phone doesn't come with Bluetooth 5.0, you can connect a Bluetooth mouse and a keyboard at the same time. Of course, you can't charge the phone while using Projection. But you can still make calls and send messages without interrupting the desktop view.
EMUI 8 on top of Android 8 Oreo
EMUI is now going from v.5.1 straight to v.8 to match the version of Android it comes with - 8.0 Oreo. And we don't mind that, a little cohesiveness never hurts.
The new EMUI should have at least a few new features, which are powered by the dedicated NPU inside the Kirin 970 chipset, though those won't be exclusive to the Mate 10 series. Most of the machine learning processes are expected to make it to the Mate 9 and P10, though we guess they won't be as fast there.
Let's kick off with the EMIUI 8 highlight - machine learning. EMUI has been building on-device user behavior models for faster app startups ever since v.5.1 but Huawei is improving this here and this has allowed for up to 12% faster app startup and more intelligent power allocation.
EMUI 8.0 also (intelligently) suggests features based on the environment and the user interaction. For instance, it can offer you to turn on the blue light filter towards the end of the day. Or when a new notification comes while you are watching a video, it offers you to go straight into split-screen mode. Of course, this works only for apps which support it.
Another new feature in EMUI 8 is the desktop mode called Projection. Once you connect the phone to an external screen via an HDMI-to-USB-C cable, you will get the dedicated desktop user interface.
Now, let's get back to EMUI's basics. Starting with the lockscreen - thee Magazine unlock style is here to stay, but it's now called Subscription. It puts a different wallpaper every time you wake up the device. Naturally, shortcuts for some quick actions are available on the lockscreen but are non-configurable.
If you opt for a fingerprint unlock method, you probably won't be seeing much of the lockscreen anyway.
Functional lockscreen
EMUI 8 has an option for two-tiered interface with an app drawer, but it's tucked away in the settings. Huawei prefers the all-apps-on-the-homescreen and it's the default choice for the Mate 10. App badges are supported courtesy of Oreo. Depending on the market you can enable an additional rightmost pane - either Google Now feed or Huawei's HiBoard with various widgets, info, and search field.
No app drawer by default • Layout settings • You can opt for app drawer • HiBoard • HiBoard
App twins for multiple instances of a single application is available on the Mate 10. Most of the popular social apps are supported, which is the whole idea behind the app twin feature after all.
The rich Theme support has always been a popular EMUI feature. The theme store offers a wide selection and some really artsy options that fit in well with the general high-design image of the Mate 10. There are different static and live wallpapers, transition animations, and icon packs.
Powerful Theme engine
The notification area is a 50/50 mix between stock Android and EMUI. There are (expandable) quick toggles, brightness bar and auto brightness switch.
The task switcher is the usual rolodex of apps with a kill all shortcut. From here you can also use split-screen mode - just tap and hold on a card to kick it out.
Notification shade • notifications • more toggles • task switcher • Split screen
Huawei's Power Manager app for granular battery, permission, and mobile data control is available, of course. There is a one-key memory cleaner and even a virus scanner powered by Avast.
Power manager
The Mate 10 supports various gestures - from motion control to knuckle gestures on the lockscreen. Voice control is onboard, too.
EMUI tries to make the best out of the large screen and you can replace the navigation keys by using the flexible on-screen floating navigation dock. Or you can enable the one-key navigation via the fingerprint scanner below the screen, which we found to be the most practical option.
Smart assistance with navigation options
Security is also really important to Huawei, and it plans on providing Google's Android security updates regularly. The company is committed to providing high-end premium phones with these updates every month. Our Mate 10 already got the October security patch, that's a great start.
Chipset - the new Kirin 970
The Kirin 970 chip premiered at IFA a couple of months ago, but this is the first implementation we see. It is manufactured using a high-end 10nm process by Huawei's in-house HiSilicon division and promises faster performance, and great battery-efficiency.
The highlight of the new Kirin 970 isn't the 25% faster CPU or the 4x more powerful GPU, but the brand-new Neural-network processor unit (NPU), which provides hardware acceleration to machine learning tasks. These tasks include image recognition, voice recognition, and natural language processing. Huawei has already trained the chip by showing it millions of images, voice samples, and text, so now it's able to recognize new images, voice and data much faster.
Huawei likes to call the whole process artificial intelligence, but it's not the AI from the sci-fi movies we've all seen, so don't get too excited. And it's not even close to thinking, seeing or learning like a human, despite what the ads might tell you. But it does a lot more than what Apple does with their machine learning chip embedded in the latest A11 Bionic chip, and that's not a bad start.
The new Kirin 970 chipset offers an octa-core processor that should be up to 50% more power efficient than the Kirin 960. The CPU still packs the same 4x2.4 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4x1.8 GHz Cortex-A53 cores, but the two clusters can now work simultaneously to deliver faster multi-threaded performance.
The new GPU in charge of graphics is a 12-core Mali-G72MP12. It should provide 4x performance increase over the 8-core Mali-G71MP8 inside the Kirin 960, while its power efficiency is 8x better than the GPU inside old chip.
Benchmark performance
It's time we put the Kirin 970 through the most popular benchmarks. As usual, the octa-core processor is the first to get our attention. Geekbenching the CPU brought no surprises. A single A73 core is a beast, as powerful as the latest Kryo. It's far from Apple's Monsoon core, but it's at the top of the Android game.
GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 8 Plus
4232 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
1987 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
1986 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
1924 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
1902 - LG V30
1901 - Huawei Mate 10
1882 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (SD 835)
1862 - Huawei Mate 9
1859
The eight cores of the Kirin 970 processor do a great job, matching the performance of all current leaders - Snapdragon 835 and Exynos 8895. The six-core A11 by Apple is out of this world, yet again.
GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 8 Plus
10037 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
6784 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
6783 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
6754 - Huawei Mate 10
6625 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (SD 835)
6590 - Huawei Mate 9
6407 - LG V30
6365 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
6234
The Kirin 970 finally brings a mighty and cutting-edge GPU - Mali-G72MP12, a massive upgrade over the previous generation. Unlike the Mate 9, the 10 has a high-resolution Quad HD screen so its GPU has to be powerful. And the offscreen benchmark tests reveal exactly that - the 12-core Mali-G72 is at least twice as good as the 8-core G71 found in Mate 9, and equal to the Adreno 540 (Snapdragon 835) and the 20-core G71 inside the most recent Galaxies.
Apple's 3-core proprietary GPU is the leader though by another impressive margin.
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 8 Plus
85 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
65 - Huawei Mate 10
65 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (SD 835)
63 - LG V30
60 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
54 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
51 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
50 - Huawei Mate 9
30 - Huawei Mate 9 Pro
28
GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy Note8 (SD 835)
25 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
25 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
25 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
25 - LG V30
24 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
22 - Huawei Mate 10
21 - Huawei Mate 9
13 - Huawei Mate 9 Pro
12
The onscreen tests just cement our previous statement - the 12-core Mali G72 is an equal to all modern GPUs found in the Androids right now. The phones running in lower resolution such as the Mate 10 Pro, Mate 9, and Mi Mix 2 score better, of course, due to the less pixels to work with. Apple's GPU easily reaches the 60fps v-sync cap.
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 8 Plus
59 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
55 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
50 - Huawei Mate 10
43 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
42 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
40 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (SD 835)
37 - LG V30
35 - Huawei Mate 9
28 - Huawei Mate 9 Pro
18
GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
24 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
21 - Huawei Mate 9
14 - Huawei Mate 10
13 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (SD 835)
13 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
13 - LG V30
13 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
13 - Huawei Mate 9 Pro
8.2
Finally, the BaseMark X GPU test once again shows the prowess of the new Mali G72 as is the ES 3.1 benchmark.
Basemark X
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S8+
43862 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
40890 - Huawei Mate 10
40809 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
40232 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
38349 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (SD 835)
37211 - LG V30
36704 - Huawei Mate 9
36519 - Huawei Mate 9 Pro
27600
Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 8 Plus
1644 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
1268 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
1183 - Huawei Mate 10
1142 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
1111 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (SD 835)
875 - LG V30
860 - Huawei Mate 9
794 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
739 - Huawei Mate 9 Pro
616
Moving on to the popular compound benchmarks such as AnTuTu and BaseMark OS, we see the Mate 10 as one very balanced performer on par with the best of the smartphones right now.
AnTuTu 6
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 8 Plus
188766 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
178510 - Huawei Mate 10
175426 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (SD 835)
175153 - LG V30
174330 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
174070 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
160319
128719
122826
Basemark OS 2.0
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 8 Plus
3601 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
3578 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
3425 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (SD 835)
3424 - Huawei Mate 10
3415 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
3333 - Samsung Galaxy S8+
3298 - Huawei Mate 9
2830 - LG V30
2705 - Huawei Mate 9 Pro
2496
Huawei has finally made a flagship chipset with a competitive performance across the board. All previous Kirins lacked in GPU, but the 970 model has one of the most recent GPUs with all the power you need.
The 10nm manufacturing process makes the Kirin 970 a power-efficient chip, though the large battery surely helped, too. It should have allowed the Mate 10 keep the motherboard temperature rather low under pressure, but unfortunately, that's not the case.
Under continuous load, the Mate 10 gets hot at one particular spot. Unpleasantly hot even. The switch from metal to glass surely hurt the thermal conductivity, but we just didn't expect the Mate 10 to become that hot. Naturally, the chip applies performance throttling to prevent overheating. You will never feel this in real life usage, even when playing power-hungry games, but the benchmark scores fell as much as 50% after the first run, especially the GPU ones.
So, yes, the Mate 10 offers flagship performance and smooth Android experience. It will handle everything well, but it may get unpleasantly hot in long gaming sessions. Performance throttling is fact here, though we guess you won't be able to tell unless it's a benchmark you are running.
Telephony
The Mate 10 dialer has a shared interface with the contacts app. There are no groundbreaking features here, but there is nothing missing either.
Smart dialing • contacts • a contact
The dual-SIM settings menu (where available) lets you rename the SIM cards, disable them, and select which one does calls or data by default. Both cards can connect simultaneously to LTE networks thanks to Kirin 970's flagship modem.
Loudspeaker
The stereo speakers of the Mate delivered an excellent loudness just like the Mate 9. The audio quality is excellent with crisp and rich sound.
The speaker loudness isn't balanced though. The top speaker is used mostly for high-frequency sounds and it's very quiet, but you'll notice this only if you mute the very impressive bottom one. Somehow Huawei managed to use this feeble earpiece to create some very good stereo effect, which is nice.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing |
Overall score | |
| 62.9 | 65.2 | 71.6 | Below Average | |
| 65.4 | 68.0 | 69.1 | Average | |
| 67.8 | 69.5 | 71.5 | Good | |
| 68.5 | 69.4 | 71.6 | Good | |
| 64.8 | 69.8 | 82.5 | Good | |
| 66.9 | 72.3 | 84.5 | Very Good | |
| 76.0 | 74.6 | 79.0 | Excellent | |
| 83.1 | 74.5 | 85.0 | Excellent | |
| 88.0 | 77.1 | 81.4 | Excellent | |
| 90.6 | 73.7 | 84.0 | Excellent |
Pre-installed apps
There are a few apps pre-installed on the Mate 10. Among the more notable ones is the Health app, which tracks steps and calculates calories, but can also supposedly count the number of floors you've climbed.
Health app
You also have a ton of basic tools preloaded, including a proper file manager, IR remote control, calendar app, notes, weather, compass, sound recorder, and flashlight.
Very good file manager • Files • Remote control • voice recorder • calendar
Pictures, video, and music
The Huawei Mate 10 comes with the familiar EMUI gallery on board. In addition to your camera roll, it offers sorting by albums, or smart sorting by subject, places, events, among others.
The EMUI gallery has its own image editor, if needed, and it also works with variable aperture shots for adjusting the bokeh effects post factum.
The EMUI gallery
The Mate 10 also comes with a pre-installed Video app, which offers basic controls but supports pop-up play.
Video app
The EMUI's Music app is very nice. Its background changes dynamically to match the album art, which is a nice little touch. Lyrics are available and downloaded automatically. Finally, Huawei's Histen sound effects are available on the Mate 10 and include equalizers and simulated 3D audio.
Music app • Now Playing • Lyrics • Sound settings • Equalizer
Audio output
Check back tomorrow for the audio quality test. We will be retesting it before publishing the final test results.
Leica Dual Camera v2.0 with f/1.6 lens
The Huawei Mate 10 has a new dual-camera by Huawei and Leica. The setup is an enhanced version of the second generation of the Mate 9 - the image sensors are identical, but the apertures are wider. To put this in numbers, we're looking at a 12MP color and a 20MP monochrome imager sitting behind f/1.6 lenses each. Even in last year's implementation, the snappers were reportedly capturing multiple frames each and then combining the to achieve clearer shots.
Much like on the Mate 9 and P10 Plus, the color camera has OIS. The B&W sensor has better photosensitivity, so the lack of OIS is compensated (somewhat).
The camera relies on the same 4-way focusing technologies as before - you get laser AF, depth detection, contrast-detect AF, and phase detect AF. There is still no Dual Pixel phase detect AF technology for the second year in a row.
The most important change in Mate 10's camera is the new higher-grade Leica SUMMILUX-H lenses with bright f/1.6 apertures. Thanks to the Kirin 970 and the new dual ISPs that boost processing and noise reduction low-light photography should be better. Photos should have higher contrast, and highlight clipping should be reduced. The camera will also detect movement and adjust shooting parameters flexibly.
The new AI engine powered by the NPU core can identify up to 14 different scenes and automatically adjust camera parameters to produce better pictures. Sony has had a similar thing called SuperiorAuto for quite a few years even without an AI chipset, but most other manufacturers can't accurately tell what's in a scene they are looking at so Huawei may be on to something here.
The camera automatically recognizes what's one the picture
Deep learning algorithms should make the hybrid digital zoom better than before. Portrait mode and the variable aperture should also benefit from the new on-device machine learning capabilities for better accuracy, and more realistic bokeh effects.
Aside from that, the camera interface hasn't changed one bit. Most of the shooting modes, including monochrome, are tucked away in the menu. The viewfinder gives you quick access to Leica filters, Live Photos switch, Portrait Mode, and Variable Aperture. There is a tiny switch for Manual mode on the right side, too. The sliding menus and hidden monochrome switch aren't our favorites, but anyone can get used to those in short time.
Camera UI • Manual mode • Modes • Settings • Variable Aperture
Daylight image quality
The Mate 10's photos may have changed since the Mate 9, but they haven't noticeably improved. That's not a bad thing though, as Mate 9 captured some impressive photos.
The native 12MP color samples are great - there is plenty of detail, great foliage rendition, not a lot of noise, accurate colors, and superbly wide dynamic range. When compared, we noticed that the colors in the Mate 10's photos are closer to real life, while the Mate 9's are usually a bit warmer than they should be.
Mate 10's images are sharper than before, and sometimes the over-sharpening gets in the way of the fine detail such as small text. There are noticeable sharpening halos on every picture. Huawei should make the sharpening less aggressive with some of the upcoming software updates.
Just as Huawei's previous dual cameras, this one has a striking dynamic rage. Some auto HDR trickery is most probably involved here. Whatever is happening behind the scenes, you'll never have to turn on the HDR mode manually.
Huawei Mate 10 12MP color camera samples
And here are the Mate 9 samples.
Huawei Mate 9 12MP camera samples
As we mentioned before, there must be some automatic HDR applied when needed, so there is hardly any need for engaging HDR manually. And that's okay with us.
HDR off • HDR on
Huawei advertises the Mate's camera as having 2x lossless zoom. It's facilitated by those multiple frames that the camera captures all the time, which give it more data to work with than what you'd get from a single 12MP shot (or 20MP). We tried some shots, and those indeed turned out very good with lots of detail, same colors and dynamic range as the normal samples, but a little bit noisier.
Huawei Mate 10 12MP color camera samples with 2x zoom
The 20MP hybrid color images don't match the 20MP monochrome ones for high-intricacy resolution. We don't know the magic behind the combination of high-res monochrome + lower-res color image, but we can't think of a reason to use this mode. The samples are better than upscaled 12MP color samples, yes, but 12MP should be more than enough.
20MP color • 20MP monochrome • 20MP color • 20MP monochrome
The monochrome images are hard to beat for dynamic range, but this camera alone is more of an artistic tool rather than a mainstream shooter. The monochrome 20MP images came with plenty of resolved detail, but there is not that much more detail than in the 12MP color ones. That's why we recommend leaving the resolution at 12MP for the mono shots, too. First its's more convenient because you won't need to change the resolution every time you switch the camera (because the AI can't learn you want to shoot 20MP mono and 12MP color every single time), and then the 12MP ones look much better and eat up less storage.
Huawei Mate 10 20MP monochrome samples
The monochrome photos have superb contrast, low amount of noise, and great dynamic range - especially in the shadows. Those are perfect for street photographers or dramatic closeups, but you need to pick the right subject for them to shine.
Huawei Mate 10 12MP monochrome camera samples
Finally, Huawei offers Leica's proprietary Vivid and Smooth filters, if you are a fan. You can apply those on both videos and pictures.
Huawei Mate 10 12MP color samples with Vivid Leica effect
Huawei Mate 10 12MP color samples with Smooth Leica effect
You can check how the 12MP RGB camera stacks against the Mate 9 and Note8.
Huawei Mate 10 vs. Mate 9 vs. Galaxy Note8 in our photo compare tool
You could also use our tool to compare the monochrome camera samples, if you like.
Low-light image quality
Huawei Mate 10's rear snappers both sit behind bright f/1.6 lenses, which we expected to make a big difference in low-light over the Mate 9 and P10.
And they did - now the phone gets the focus right 9 of 10 times, there is quite a lot of resolved detail, and thanks to the OIS, there is no handshake blur even when the shutter stays open as long as 1/4s.
Huawei Mate 10 12MP low-light samples
And here are some shots we snapped around our office.
Huawei Mate 10 12MP low-light indoors samples
The lack of Bayer (color) filter really helps at night, as it reduces the noise in the monochrome samples, allow for shooting at lower ISO, and eventually you may even get more resolved detail in some scenes. Check the comparison below.
And here are the same low-light scenes captured with the monochrome camera.
Huawei Mate 10 12MP low-light monochrome samples
And here are some monochrome shots we took indoors at low-light.
Huawei Mate 10 12MP low-light monochrome indoors samples
Mounting the phone on a tripod did help get more resolved detail and less noise.
Tripod low-light • Tripod low-light with 2x zoom • Tripod low-light • Tripod low-light with 2x zoom
In full-on Night mode, you can manually select a shutter speed up to 32s with ISO up to 3200. The viewfinder image will change as the exposure develops, so if you figure you've gathered enough light you can stop at any time.
Using the manual mode and a tripod makes wonders, though. If you lock the ISO to 50 and use the longer shutter speeds, you can get some stunning long exposure shots.
Then there's the Light painting mode, which includes four sub-modes: Car light trails, Light graffiti, Silky Water and Star track. You'd need to have the phone perched on a stable support for shooting in these modes (a tripod or a beanbag) as these extremely long exposures can't be done handheld without camera shake.
Color sample, shutter 2s • Monochrome sample, shutter 2s • Car Trails sample, shutter 17s
Variable aperture and Portrait modes
Thanks to the depth information from the second camera, the Mate 10 offers Variable Aperture and Portrait modes. The Variable Aperture feature is accessed from the Wide aperture mode toggle and lets you simulate apertures from f/0.95 to f/16. It works on both the color and monochrome camera.
As with all such implementations, you get nice variable aperture shots photos only now. They wouldn't hold up to closer scrutiny, but they are still good enough.
Var. aperture f/1 • Var. aperture f/4 • Var. aperture f/16
Var. aperture f/1 • Var. aperture f/4 • Var. aperture f/16
The Portrait Mode is available on both the main and monochrome snappers. It combines the Variable Aperture with Beautification and should offer Portrait shots with simultaneously enhanced faces and bokeh background effects.
You can adjust the level of beautification, while the bokeh strength stays the same across all shots. The blurred background is indeed nice, but the beauty effects may destroy some fine detail from your face. Thankfully, you can disable the beautification feature.
Portrait samples
You can use the 2x zoom in Portrait mode, too, though the detail isn't on par with the rest of the 2x zoomed samples.
Portrait samples shot with 2x zoom
Panorama
The panoramic shots taken with the Mate 10 are excellent. They're not the full vertical resolution, but at about 3,100px tall there's plenty of pixels. Detail is on par with still images; stitching shows no obvious issues, and exposure variation is handled smoothly. The dynamic range once again deserves praise.
Huawei Mate 10 panoramic sample
Selfies
The selfie camera on the Mate 10 has 8MP resolution and F/2.0 lens. It also comes with portrait shooting mode, which is able to create a digital bokeh for your selfies. The AI engine tries to recognize all faces in the shot, so if you are doing a groupie, it will keep all faces in focus and blur the background only. Huawei is calling this AI Selfie.
The regular samples turned out great with plenty of detail, pleasing colors, but the dynamic range is rather low.
Huawei Mate 10 8MP selfies
The Portrait Mode simulates bokeh alright, while it also applies beautification effects on your face. The algorithm does a good job at recognizing your face and blurring the background, but the beatification feature is not our favorite.
Huawei Mate 10 8MP portrait selfies
And here are some awful portrait selfies with beautification.
Portrait with Beauty level 5 • Portrait with Beauty level 10
Video camera
The Huawei Mate 10 video capture maxes out at 4K at 30fps and the high-res clips are encoded using the H.265 codec. The bitrate of 23Mbps is quite low for 2160p footage, and hence files take up less space from the phone's storage.
The 1080p (30, 60 fps) videos use MPEG-4 compression, unlike the 4K ones. The 1080p/30fps videos have a rather standard bitrate of around 10.5Mbps, while 60fps - 18.5Mbps.
Audio is recorded in stereo at 192kbps, which is great.
4K videos are sharp and detailed and exhibit good contrast and pleasing colors. The dynamic range is quite decent, too. We've seen more detail in 4K videos but considering the low-bitrate - this is some very good footage indeed.
In contrast, the 1080p footage is just okay, nothing spectacular. The smoother 60fps mode comes at the expense of some fine detail, which makes it pretty unusable.
The Mate 10 offers digital video stabilization only for 1080p resolution and 30fps mode, and not in 2160p. That's the digitally enhanced one; the optical stabilization is available at all times but the combination of the two in the 1080p videos produces the most fluid footage (at the expense of a narrower field of view).
You can also download the untouched video samples: 2160p (10s, 29MB), 1080p at 60fps (10s, 25MB), 1080p at 30fps (11s, 15MB).
Finally, here's the video compare tool, where we've pitted the Mate 10 against the Mate 9 and Galaxy Note8.
Huawei Mate 10 vs. Mate 9 vs. Galaxy Note8 in our 4K video compare tool
Wrapping it up
As it happens - more often than not - the Huawei Mate 10 is a fine flagship specimen, powerful and visually appealing, but it's just not that big of an upgrade over the preceding Mate 9. It still seems to have enough to succeed and, as usual, there's a Pro version that ticks a different sort of checkboxes for a different sort of users.
This season, Huawei is following trends: trim the screen bezels, use bright camera lenses, put AI in computing. Now, the latter could've been the single wow feature of the Mate 10, but it's not a tangible asset, so to speak.
The new Kirin 970 has the same set of cores as the previous version but delivers a significant boost in data processing and power management. Even further, it also has one of the industry-first NPUs for on-device AI computing. As much as we think that machine-learning-driven computing is likely to be the next big thing in mobile, we don't believe the Mate 10's potential owners should buy into that aspect of the product marketing that much.
Now, the new GPU is a quantifiable upgrade we can relate too but the benefits are offset by the bump in screen resolution.
Another upgrade you can instantly appreciate is the all-glass design - an attention grabber and, potentially, a strong selling point. It would have been even better with wireless charging support, but Huawei is not there yet. Unfortunately, the Mate is only splash-protected, while proper water-resistance is reserved for the Pro model.
Huawei made a bit of a mess with the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro as the novelties were divided between the two strangely: an 18:9 1080p AMOLED screen for the Pro and a QuadHD LCD for the "vanilla" Mate. Water-proofing but no audio jack in the Pro, splash-resistance and analog audio in the Mate 10. This fragmentation seems hard to justify, but obviously, Huawei know more than we do.
The Huawei Mate 10 is one of the premium options right now but it doesn't quite stand out. Its benefits over the Mate 9 or the P10 Plus are arguable but, admittedly, the high-res screen, the capable dual-camera by Leica, the attractive design and the great battery backup are strong enough selling points.
Huawei Mate 10 key test findings
- Stunning glass design, great choice of colors.
- The IPS LCD screen offers flagship-grade resolution, great contrast, and accurate colors. The sunlight legibility is average.
- The front key houses the fastest fingerprint scanner we've seen and can take over navigation if you want even more screen real estate and decide to get rid of the on-screen keys.
- Solid battery life at 87 hours. The Mate 10 is great at web browsing, video playback, and voice calls. Super-fast charging to 58% in 30 mins.
- Lovely theme-able EMUI v8 with Android 8 Oreo.
- The Kirin 970 chipset offers class-leading CPU and GPU performance, but it's prone to heating and had throttling issue in the benchmark tests (unlikely to get noticed in real-life).
- The bottom speaker is very loud with a clean output. The top one is feeble but does a good job at producing the stereo effect.
- The photos are excellent regarding detail, dynamic range and color rendering. The over-sharpening may destroy some of the fine detail. The bright lenses help at night a lot and both cameras take nice low-light images. The near-lossless 2x zoom works well, so do the portrait shots.
- Fine regular selfies but sometimes overexposed. The portrait mode works alright, but beautification is often a disaster (could be the subjects - no pointing fingers).
- Both 1080p and 4K videos are average regarding detail, while the new codec doesn't take a toll on the storage of 4K videos. EIS is available only in 1080p at 30 fps.
Noteworthy alternatives
The Samsung Galaxy Note8 and Galaxy S8+ are a good place to start our rundown of potential options. The Note8 has an excellent dual-camera with a telephoto lens and shoots great low-light and portrait shots. The Galaxies are just as good-looking, have more advanced AMOLED screens and more RAM. The S8+ is about €100 cheaper than the Mate 10 but you'll lose the dual-camera setup, while the Note8 will give you that and an S-Pen for an extra €150.
Samsung Galaxy Note8 • Samsung Galaxy S8+
The LG V30 isn't available everywhere but nor is the Mate 10. The V30 has a big FullVision P-OLED screen of QuadHD resolution and a dust and water-resistant body in addition to being shock-proof and temperature and humidity resistant. The V30 has a unique dual-camera with a secondary wide-angle lens, an always-on screen, high-res audio recording. The V30 is expensive, ever more so than the Mate 10, but it's a high-performance pro-tool.
LG V30
Xiaomi has placed a bid in the bezel-less race with the Mi Mix 2. This time around, the screen is smaller at 6", the camera has OIS and the Mix 2 runs on the latest Snapdragon 835. Its key feature is the screen so that we can forgive the rather unimpressive camera package. It costs €200 less than the Mate 10, which is quite a tempting price for a cool bezel-less phone.
Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
Apple may be struggling to bring the iPhone X to market, but people are still pre-ordering it by the millions. That's what you get for making a "wow" phone. The iPhone X is by no means the first all-screen phone, but it's all the same to long-term iOS users. Of course, Apple improved its camera a lot this year with a brighter lens and nice new bokeh effects for the portrait shots; there is also the controversial Face ID sensor for face unlock and selfie portraits. The iPhone X has three brand-new features, and they have paid off even before the X (eventually) starts shipping in a week.
There is also the iPhone 8 Plus with the old design, but chart-topping A11 chip and equally better rear dual-camera (minus the OIS on the telephoto). It turned out the safer choice for the fans with a regular 16:9 screen, familiar design and, of course, Touch ID.
Apple iPhone 8 Plus • Apple iPhone X
Finally, the Mate 9 is nearly €300 cheaper, yet it offers the same processor cores, same GPU punch because of the lower screen, a similar camera experience, and equal battery life. The Mate 9 will get the EMUI 8 update in a few months. There is also the P10 Plus, €200 cheaper, with a high-res screen, a big battery and pretty much the same camera. Unless Huawei discontinues those two, the Mate 10 will be a tough sell at its current price.
Huawei Mate 9 • Huawei P10 Plus
The verdict
The Huawei Mate 10 looks stunning and is in touch with what's hot but it's our job to see beyond the first impression. While we appreciate the high-res screen, the duly beefed up GPU and bright lens for the Leica camera, we can't pretend the Mate 9 and Mate 9 Pro don't exist.
The all-glass design and the sharp, borderless display are the right stuff to get the Mate 10 noticed and talked about. But they are the we-can-too sort of features rather than you-saw-it-here-first. Or maybe it's us being just pleased when we were looking to be wowed. That's the thing - the Mate 9 and 9 Pro would do just that, for a fraction of the price.
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