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Hands-on review: Huawei Mate 10
Sat, 13th Jan 2018
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Until last year I held the belief that no phone brands could stack up to Samsung and iPhone.

Now that I've spent a little while with the Mate 10 that belief has been entirely shaken.

The first thing that this phone impressed me with was its charging capabilities, charging to nearly 100% within an hour.

I thought that over time this charge speed might slow down, however, even after extensive use the battery still charges up within about an hour and 15 minutes.

The battery life is just as impressive, on average from 7:00 AM I play Pokemon Go for about two hours a day and watch about an hour of Youtube, on top of this I basically live on Facebook, yet all of this often only drains the phone's battery to around 50% by 6:30 PM.

For me, this was a major step up from my last device, although that's not saying much as my last phone was essentially forged in the fires of Mount Doom 9,000 years ago.

The camera is easily one of the most impressive features, and words can't quite describe how good the pictures are, so I'll let the shots speak for themselves.

Here are some of my favourite photos taken with the Mate 10:

The gull

Sun on a hill Welcome to the beach

Keep in mind all of these pictures were taken by an amateur, I can't even begin to imagine what a professional could achieve with this device.

Some other features worthy of note include the FullView Display which has incredibly vivid colours and the Kirin 970 AI processor.

On top of all the standout features, the phone also comes with all of the standard high-end device bells and whistles.

These features include:
  • Fingerprint scanner.
  • Augmented Reality capabilities.
  • Voice assistant.
  • 64 GBs of memory.
  • IP67 water and dust resistance.

The device also features a sleek design with a minimal bezel and a 3D glass body.

It runs on EMUI 8.0 based on Android 8.0, which in my opinion results in a sort of iPhone Samsung hybrid interface.

In the end, there is very little to not like about this device and most of the issues I had, such as the auto-lock closing the phone too quickly, were quick fixes within the options menu.

Huawei has come a long way and this phone is a great option for anyone looking for a versatile and intuitive smartphone.