Huawei Mate 10
The Huawei Mate 10 is official, along with the Mate 10 Pro and the Mate Porsche Design edition. Although they have small variations, they do share a lot in common, and the new Mate 10 will provide a user-experience baseline which is slightly sublimed by the two derivatives. We spent some time with the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro, so let’s take a more in-depth look at how good they are.
Note that the devices we handled were not the final retail units, and some details, along with performance and camera numbers will be looked at when the final hardware will land in our office. The street price for this phone remains unknown at this point, but we will update this when the news comes from the channel and carrier partners. At this moment, we will assume that it competes at the high-end, and we have compiled the following list of competitors.
It's fair to say that Huawei has had its ups and downs since pushing into the smartphone market. Most recently it was the P10 that didn't quite hit the mark - especially on reflection of the better and cheaper Honor 9, which is also made by the company - while its larger-scale Mate series has struggled to really make an impact in the UK.
That all looks set to change with the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, a flagship smartphone that has clearly learned from Huawei's endeavours - both good and bad - to form a device that's bold enough to take on the best of them, from Apple iPhone 8 Plus to Google Pixel 2 XL and Samsung Galaxy S8+.
Huawei Mate 10 Design
With such skinny sides, Huawei is effectively cramming a 6in screen into a phone the same physical size as last year’s 5.5in models. More for less is always good in my book, and the whole thing sits comfortably in your hand.
Flipping it over reveals the other big switch. The entire back panel is made from glass, which is bonded to an aluminium frame. So pretty much like every other big-name phone doing the rounds right now. Huawei has gone for curved glass to better fit the curve of your palm, though, which both looks and feels slick.
At the right angle, the whole back glints with colour and depth, thanks to the multiple layers of glass that reflect light in different ways. A small strip of darker colour highlights the twin Leica-branded cameras, and the fingerprint sensor floats on its lonesome just below, but otherwise the panel is uninterrupted. Just watch out for fingerprints - this thing is a magnet for ‘em.
The midnight blue colour is more than a bit tasty, but I’m partial to the mocha brown version too - those copper hues are very in right now, don’tcha know. A much more restrained titanium grey is also available (if you’re boring), and a fourth pink gold model completes the line-up.
IP67 water- and dust-resistance mean you can comfortably take it to the beach, pool or even just near the kitchen sink without worrying a bit of butterfingers will result in a dead phone. This finally puts Huawei on par with Samsung, which has had a waterproof option for a year or two now.
You won’t find a headphone jack anywhere around the sides - Huawei has ditched it in favour of USB-C or wireless headphones. With Google, Motorola and HTC all doing a similar thing, this move was almost inevitable, but it’s still annoying if you’ve got a quality pair of cans you want to listen to.
Huawei Mate 10 Display
Huawei is also joining other makers in the shift to a more elongated screen, adopting an 18:9 ratio for a far better one-handed fit (NB: there is also a Mate 10 "standard" (sorry, we can't help but call it that - especially as it won't be coming to the UK) which has a fatter 16:9 screen ratio and, well, it feels too wide in today's phone world).
The one oddity of the Mate 10 is the lack of any physical buttons to the front. Many have become so used to using a home key, or even gestures, that the removal of such a key feels initially odd. Huawei has attempted to tackle this with what it calls a "floating dock" key - a software version of a home key, which you can position anywhere around the screen to suit your needs. Press it to go back, press-and-hold to return to home screen, swipe it for an open apps display.
Oh, and just so it's mentioned: yes, the Mate 10 features an oleophobic screen coating, so smeary fingerprints aren't an issue. That's a mistake that the company made with the P10 and, well, a mistake can't imagine it will make with any smartphone ever again.
It’s the glass that has seen the biggest upgrade, with f/1.6 aperture lenses for both cameras. Only LG’s V30 can match that for wide-open, let-in-as-much-life-as-possible glass, and could make all the difference in low light.
Only the 12MP snapper has optical image stabilisation, but the 4-in-one hybrid zoom should mean you’re never left waiting for the phone to lock onto your subject. You get contrast, depth, phase-detect and laser autofocus all working together, and it certainly felt speedy during my brief hands-on.
Speed is the name of the game here, really. Everything is lightning-fast - including the AI-assisted scene detection. Machine learning algorithms are constantly running in the background, recognising whatever you’re pointing the camera at and adjusting the automatic preset accordingly.
Point at some flowers? It’ll boost greens, yellows and reds to make the petals really pop. It recognises faces and knows when not to blur the background, so group shots don’t leave the people at the back with smeared faces.
It all sounds great, and I don’t doubt it’ll deliver great photos, but I’m really hoping Huawei has dialled back its aggressive image sharpening. The effect was really noticeable on the P10 and P10 Plus, making some scenes just look unnatural rather than adding detail and definition.
Without properly testing the cameras I can’t make a final call on image quality just yet - that will have to wait for a full review a little closer to launch.
Huawei's view is much the same, with the latest Kirin 970 chipset adding what the company calls a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to benefit artificial intelligence's needs. Right now, however, it's very hard to convey or see what specific differences this will actually make to the Mate 10 over and above its competition - because it's all context relevant. Yes, the Kirin 970 is fast, comes with 6GB RAM and a 12-core GPU, but it's how software algorithms plug into its potential that should supposedly translate its ability all the more.
According to Huawei, the NNPU is 25X faster than a CPU core, with a 50X power-efficiency. When compared to a GPU, the NNPU would be 4X faster, with 8X the efficiency. These are huge numbers, but they seem believable since the NNPU is a dedicated unit built to perform specialized work. That is similar to how a GPU is designed for graphics and is vastly superior in performance and efficiency to a CPU, that is for general purpose computing.
Right now, the number of apps that use this kind of AI is very small, but with Android scheduled to have an AI update with a standard interface for developers to use, things may heat up well before next year. At the moment, Microsoft is using Huawei’s AI hardware search.
The Huawei mate 10 doesn’t have front-firing stereo speakers like Google’s phone, but the Mate 10 still does a great job with the main speaker at the bottom next to the USB-C port. It works in tandem with the earpiece speaker and gets surprisingly loud. Podcasts and YouTube videos shouldn’t pose a problem.
Battery life is one of the most critical features of a handset. Fortunately, The battery capacity of Mate 10 is 4000 mAh, which is excellent in general, and also excellent in its own category. The second batch of phones land within ~3300-3520 mAh (Pixel 2 XL, S8+, Mi Mix 2 and V30). The iPhone 8+ has only 2691 mAh of battery, but with a lower PPI display and a different operating system, it is not completely comparable. So far, the Mate 10’s battery crushes the competition.
The regular Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro, however, are priced at a refreshingly low level. While most big-screened flagships have been coming in at £700 or more, the Mate 10 will cost €699, while the Pro will set you back €799. Given the small differences between the two handsets, that makes the Mate 10, if not the Mate 10 Pro, something of a big-screened bargain.
The Huawei Mate 10 series is shaping up to be an excellent upgrade to a popular line of smartphone. With a refreshed design, Huawei can reach a broader audience and it is undeniable that these phones keep getting better and nicer fast. As it stands, the Mate series will continue to be the best battery-oriented phone. How far it can expand from there will be the subject of our attention.
Still, We're impressed with what Huawei has shown us so far, and the price of the regular Mate 10 at least is pretty reasonable for a large-screened smartphone in today's over-inflated market. I'll be updating this review in the next few days with my final thoughts, but for now it's looking good for the Mate 10.
An Artificially Intelligent Smartphone
Think Like Human
The Huawei Mate 10 is official, along with the Mate 10 Pro and the Mate Porsche Design edition. Although they have small variations, they do share a lot in common, and the new Mate 10 will provide a user-experience baseline which is slightly sublimed by the two derivatives. We spent some time with the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro, so let’s take a more in-depth look at how good they are.
Note that the devices we handled were not the final retail units, and some details, along with performance and camera numbers will be looked at when the final hardware will land in our office. The street price for this phone remains unknown at this point, but we will update this when the news comes from the channel and carrier partners. At this moment, we will assume that it competes at the high-end, and we have compiled the following list of competitors.
That all looks set to change with the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, a flagship smartphone that has clearly learned from Huawei's endeavours - both good and bad - to form a device that's bold enough to take on the best of them, from Apple iPhone 8 Plus to Google Pixel 2 XL and Samsung Galaxy S8+.
From the front, it’s tough to miss the switch to an 18:9 screen: there are barely any bezels on this thing, and the smallest of Huawei logos crammed in at the very bottom.
With such skinny sides, Huawei is effectively cramming a 6in screen into a phone the same physical size as last year’s 5.5in models. More for less is always good in my book, and the whole thing sits comfortably in your hand.
Flipping it over reveals the other big switch. The entire back panel is made from glass, which is bonded to an aluminium frame. So pretty much like every other big-name phone doing the rounds right now. Huawei has gone for curved glass to better fit the curve of your palm, though, which both looks and feels slick.
The midnight blue colour is more than a bit tasty, but I’m partial to the mocha brown version too - those copper hues are very in right now, don’tcha know. A much more restrained titanium grey is also available (if you’re boring), and a fourth pink gold model completes the line-up.
IP67 water- and dust-resistance mean you can comfortably take it to the beach, pool or even just near the kitchen sink without worrying a bit of butterfingers will result in a dead phone. This finally puts Huawei on par with Samsung, which has had a waterproof option for a year or two now.
You won’t find a headphone jack anywhere around the sides - Huawei has ditched it in favour of USB-C or wireless headphones. With Google, Motorola and HTC all doing a similar thing, this move was almost inevitable, but it’s still annoying if you’ve got a quality pair of cans you want to listen to.
The other key part of the Mate 10 make-up is its all-encompassing screen - or Huawei FullView display, as the marketeers will continue to say. Irrelevant of the fancy name, the ultra-trim bezel means the 6-inch screen totally dominates the view. It looks great as there's no excessive bezel/head and shoulders, like you'll find on the Pixel 2 XL.
Huawei is also joining other makers in the shift to a more elongated screen, adopting an 18:9 ratio for a far better one-handed fit (NB: there is also a Mate 10 "standard" (sorry, we can't help but call it that - especially as it won't be coming to the UK) which has a fatter 16:9 screen ratio and, well, it feels too wide in today's phone world).
It's refreshing to see the Huawei screen avoid gimmicks too: there's no edge-squeeze control; there's no curved edges that are all too easily pressed by accident in this form factor. Instead the focus is on deep blacks and brightness, thanks to an OLED panel - which individually illuminates pixels for a stark black-to-white contrast - and HDR10 capabilities for high dynamic range display (at a purported 730-nits - not a measurement we can confirm at this stage). Finally the Mate 10 breaks out of its Full HD shackles, too, with a 2160x1080 resolution ensuring crisp images (if it sounds low on the vertical, it's because of the 18:9 ratio's slimness).
The one oddity of the Mate 10 is the lack of any physical buttons to the front. Many have become so used to using a home key, or even gestures, that the removal of such a key feels initially odd. Huawei has attempted to tackle this with what it calls a "floating dock" key - a software version of a home key, which you can position anywhere around the screen to suit your needs. Press it to go back, press-and-hold to return to home screen, swipe it for an open apps display.
Oh, and just so it's mentioned: yes, the Mate 10 features an oleophobic screen coating, so smeary fingerprints aren't an issue. That's a mistake that the company made with the P10 and, well, a mistake can't imagine it will make with any smartphone ever again.
Huawei Mate 10 Camera
This year’s P10 and P10 Plus already had great camera hardware, so it makes sense that Huawei has stuck with the same 12MP RGB and 20MP monochrome dual sensor setup for the Mate 10.
It’s the glass that has seen the biggest upgrade, with f/1.6 aperture lenses for both cameras. Only LG’s V30 can match that for wide-open, let-in-as-much-life-as-possible glass, and could make all the difference in low light.
Only the 12MP snapper has optical image stabilisation, but the 4-in-one hybrid zoom should mean you’re never left waiting for the phone to lock onto your subject. You get contrast, depth, phase-detect and laser autofocus all working together, and it certainly felt speedy during my brief hands-on.
Speed is the name of the game here, really. Everything is lightning-fast - including the AI-assisted scene detection. Machine learning algorithms are constantly running in the background, recognising whatever you’re pointing the camera at and adjusting the automatic preset accordingly.
Point at some flowers? It’ll boost greens, yellows and reds to make the petals really pop. It recognises faces and knows when not to blur the background, so group shots don’t leave the people at the back with smeared faces.
It all sounds great, and I don’t doubt it’ll deliver great photos, but I’m really hoping Huawei has dialled back its aggressive image sharpening. The effect was really noticeable on the P10 and P10 Plus, making some scenes just look unnatural rather than adding detail and definition.
Without properly testing the cameras I can’t make a final call on image quality just yet - that will have to wait for a full review a little closer to launch.
Huawei Mate 10 OS, Performance and Specs
The Huawei Mate 10 series runs on Android 8.0, with Huawei’s user interface (UI) layer called EMUI, version 8.0 this time. Huawei jumped a few numbers to land on 8.0 to match the Android numbering scheme. This may indicate that every year, we will get an EMUI update, which makes sense anyway.
According to Huawei, the NNPU is 25X faster than a CPU core, with a 50X power-efficiency. When compared to a GPU, the NNPU would be 4X faster, with 8X the efficiency. These are huge numbers, but they seem believable since the NNPU is a dedicated unit built to perform specialized work. That is similar to how a GPU is designed for graphics and is vastly superior in performance and efficiency to a CPU, that is for general purpose computing.
Right now, the number of apps that use this kind of AI is very small, but with Android scheduled to have an AI update with a standard interface for developers to use, things may heat up well before next year. At the moment, Microsoft is using Huawei’s AI hardware search.
Huawei Mate 10 Speakers
Huawei Mate 10 Battery
When it is time to top up, you’ll get 58% in about 30 minutes using Huawei’s Supercharge tech. There’s no wireless option, though, which is a bit of a shame.
Huawei Mate 10 Price
Verdict
Only time will tell how impressive the new artificial intelligence capabilities of the Huawei Mate 10 are in practice.
Huawei seems to have done just enough to earn a spot in your pocket this year. While the Mate 9 was disappointing and didn’t last long on a single charge, the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro looks to be an improvement on the shortcomings of its predecessor. The Note 8 will be difficult to unseat from its position at the top of the Android phablet table, however.
Huawei seems to have done just enough to earn a spot in your pocket this year. While the Mate 9 was disappointing and didn’t last long on a single charge, the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro looks to be an improvement on the shortcomings of its predecessor. The Note 8 will be difficult to unseat from its position at the top of the Android phablet table, however.
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