A few hours ago Huawei launched it’s new flagship the Mate 10. From the looks of it, Huawei has pretty set a standard to level up with top smartphone manufacturers like Samsung and Apple. Recently Huawei has produced some of the best Android phones on market with previous Huawei flagship phones pretty much performing faster in comparison with other high-end Android phones. Many have attributed that to it’s processors, and others to it’s optimized operating system. It’s previous high-end processor, the Kirin 950 was one of the top rated processors and this time round, it unveiled the new Kirin 970 in the Mate 10. Not only the Mate 10 was unveiled but also the Mate 10 Pro and the luxurious limited Mate 10 Porsche Design. From design to performance to camera to software optimized by A.I, the Mate 10 is one of the top high-end phones anyone looking for the best smartphone now has to consider.
At first look, the Mate 10 strikes as a very premium phone. Huawei has abandoned the aluminum back for glass, which every premium smartphone maker today is doing. The standard Mate 10 spots a 5.9 inch 2560 by 1440 LCD display with 499 pixels per inch and 16:9 aspect ratio while the Mate 10 Pro and Porsche Design spot a slightly larger and taller 6 inch 2160 by 1080 OLED display with 402 pixels per inch and 18:9 aspect ratio. The slightly lower resolution on the Mate 10 Pro and Porsche Design is rather odd since from current perception the Pro version is expected to pack more than the ordinary version.
Huawei put two camera sensors at the back of these phones, one a 20mp monochrome sensor to achieve better detail and another a colored 12mp sensor. The two camera sensors both have the widest aperture in a smartphone today measuring at f/1.6. This should imply the phones take clearer photos in low light conditions since wider aperture means more light into the sensor when taking photos. The front camera is an 8mp sensor with an f/2.0 aperture. The camera also contains more sophisticated software enhancements that detect the object the user points the camera at to bring out the best possible shot. Say, for example if you point the camera to a flower, a flower icon will display within the camera app before the photo is taken to provide the best possible scenarios under which flowers can be taken a picture
The fingerprint sensor on the Mate 10 Pro and Porshe Design rests on the back while that of the Mate 10 was squizzed on the front, a position many have abandoned. On the right side the volume buttons are located right above the textured power button. The Mate 10 comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack which was not included on the Mate 10 Pro and Porsche Design. Basically the Mate 10 Pro and Porsche Design USB Type-C port will double as the audio output port.
In the inside where power lives we find Huawei’s latest processor, the Kirin 970 fueling the three Mate 10 series. It’s a high-end octa-core 64-bit processor that stands to level with other high-end processors like the Snapdragon 830 found in recent high-end phones. During the launch, Huawei made it a point to emphasize it’s the first chipset to have Artificial Intelligence built-in, basically a processor that learns the user’s behavior and performs to suit their need. A good processor also deserves good software. Despite borrowing a look from Apple’s iOS, far from stock Android UI, Huawei EMUI has proven to be better optimized than majority of phones using stock-like Android. Many speed tests carried out have also shown how EMUI on high-end Huawei smartphones is far more faster and responsive. All Mate 10 series use Huawei’s latest EMUI 8 based on the latest Android 8.0 Oreo. Huawei has also added a few options like being able to hide the on-screen buttons and use a floating button to do tasks the on-screen buttons provide.
The variations in storage space allocation is where the Mate 10 series get differentiated. The Mate 10 comes with 64GB on board storage with MicroSD card expansion of up to 256GB. The Mate 10 Pro however doesn’t have an SD Card slot which looks rather odd especially when the low storage model has only 64GB storage. The other Mate 10 Pro comes with 128GB on-board storage. The Mate 10 Porsche Design comes with 256GB storage.
All the three Mate 10 series are powered by a massive 4000mAh battery and support Huawei SuperCharge to juice up the Mate 10 from 0 to 50% in only 30 minutes. Unfortunately, despite giving the phones a glass back, they don’t support wireless charging as a number of high-end flagships do.
The Mate 10 Pro and Porshe Design are both IP67 certified, water and dust resistant. The Mate 10 didn’t receive this certification.
Huawei also tossed in a screen mirroring feature which essentially allows you mirror the Mate 10 to a monitor for a larger display experience especially when doing things like playing games or watching a video from phone. It further took the screen mirroring feature by enabling a phone display a desktop user interface onto a large monitor. This is very similar to Samsung DeX and Microsoft Continuum. The phone can also be used as a track pad when connected to large monitor.
Talking about more new innovations from Huawei, the Mate 10 series are the first phones to support 4G on both sim cards. The Mate 10 comes in three colors: Black, Champagne Gold and Mocha Brown, the Mate 10 Pro comes in Midnight Blue, Titanium Grey and Mocha Brown and the limited Mate 10 Porsche Design comes in only one color: Diamond Black.
