[rwp-review id=”0″]
If the latest smartphone trends are any indication, big phones are here to stay. For long we have mocked the idea of 6 inch phones, but they have become the norm. Even Apple caved in and made bigger iPhones.
Huawei’s Mate 8 is the latest beast in the big phone circus. It has a lot of things going for it, and just like any other smartphone, a few things that need to be ironed out. However, the Mate 8 is a serious contender in a growing segment, and the competition needs to take notes. Huawei is not fooling around with this one.
The Bold and the Beautiful
A problem with phones this size is that it’s very difficult to make them look elegant. Smaller phones are cute and pocketable; bigger phones are big slabs of plastic and screen that tend to be awkward and ergonomically challenged. Not the Mate 8.
The peculiar thing here is that there’s nothing that is uniquely special about the design of the Mate 8 that makes it groundbreaking. It’s an all metal phone, just like the iPhone 6s Plus. It’s borrowed design elements from the Mate S. It has a repressed round fingerprint sensor and your usual volume and power button placement.
But here’s the thing — it just fits in the hand wonderfully. It looks absolutely stunning. It’s one of the finest premium phones you’ll ever see. It’s simple in design with bold elements — the round camera elements slightly protruding with the round fingerprint scanner slightly recessed are eye-catching. The chassis is edged sharply yet the screen glass slightly curves all around to make the phone comfortable. Very few phones have all the design elements working well together — there’s always an odd element sticking out as a sore point — but the Mate 8 has it all perfected, right down to the exact placement of the fingerprint scanner and the tiny LED notification light that’s visible without being distracting or annoying.
It’s also light and comfortable; despite it being a 6 inch phone, it is not larger than the iPhone 6 Plus, and this is because Huawei has minimised the bezels to such a degree that almost the entirety of the real estate is the screen, with a tiny bezel at the top and bottom to house the logo and camera module.
A Good Screen That’s Great
Here’s the thing: big phones have really high resolution screens. Huawei’s very own Nexus 6P has a screen solution of 1440 x 2560 pixels. 4K resolutions are also making their way into smartphones (unnecessarily so) — but the Mate 8 is at 1080 x 1920 pixels. One can argue that the iPhone 6s Plus has the same resolution, but it’s a smaller screen, so the pixel density is higher.
For your everyday use, though, the screen is perfectly fine. Text is crisp and colour representation is superb, without being overly saturated. You can see some text and image softness if you pull in the phone 5cm away from your face, but that’s now how anyone uses the phone. For your everyday use, the screen is perfectly capable.
But the sheer size of the screen is what is truly attractive. It occupies almost the entirety of the phone, even at the edges, and it’s almost ridiculous at times. Your apps render enormously and you feel that you’re holding the app itself, not the phone. It isn’t as surreal as the S6 Edge, but close enough.
Powerful Beast
The Mate 8, powered by an octa-core 2.3GHz Kirin 950 processor, makes it twice as powerful as its predecessor — and the best part is that the phone never got hot, even when playing games. Apps are loaded almost instantly; web browsing is snappy; games run smoothly.
My gripe, however, is not in the processing power of the Mate 8 — there’s no questioning it’s a powerful phone — but rather the Emotion UI that is overlaying Android 6. Unlike other manufacturers where design elements are kept from stock Android, Emotion UI makes Android almost unrecognisable. And that there is no app drawer — an Android staple — makes app organisation a nightmare, just as it is on iOS. Of course, one has the option to install any of the plethora of excellent launchers that has been developed over the years for the Android platform, but it is a shame that Huawei ditched the design elements almost completely. And let’s face it, stock Android is beautiful. It’s also unfortunate that there are more pre-installed apps than you ever need. Keep it simple and clean, people!
Emotion UI has some nifty tricks, but they’re mostly gimmicks. You can tap your knuckles to trigger the camera, enable glove support (but you can also buy phone-friendly gloves), and draw letters on the screen to launch apps. Are they nice to have? Sure. Necessary? You’re likely to forget they’re there.
Good Camera
One of the most important features I look for in any phone is how capable the camera is. Actually, scratch that — it really is the most important feature. Cameras on phone are often a deal-breaker for me, so how does the Mate 8 fare?
It’s a 16MP with optical image stabilisation, dual tone LED flash (thanks, Apple), and plenty of shooting modes including a very good auto and even manual mode (or professional mode, as they’re called). The lens is 27mm — wider than Apple’s iPhone — and has a bigger aperture as well at f/2.0.
When it comes to actual shooting, the camera is good, but not great. Colours are naturally toned, but sometimes come out a bit too flat (something that can easily be remedied). The camera sporting such a wide angle is both fantastic and a curse; you can fit in more scenery into a photograph, but as it is with wide angle lenses, you get field distortions which pushes away background elements even further. So if you’re taking photos of the building next door, it will feel like it’s further away than it actually is.
Auto mode does a very good job for the most part, but with slightly trippy skies with ominous clouds, you might want to switch on HDR or go into pro mode. HDR works really well, not giving much of the green tinge often found in other cameras.
The image quality is a mix and match. In some instances, shots are wonderfully sharp and perfectly toned. In other instances, one or the other is out of order — more often the sharpness part. It’s a good enough camera, but with everything else the phone has to offer, it isn’t up to par. Video stabilisation isn’t very good, either.
The front camera takes good selfies, but it is also has a wide angle lens, which works in situations when you’re on a trip but not in any other situation. LG’s V10 did a good job incorporating two front cameras to tackle the different selfie situations.
Great Value for Money
The Mate 8 has a lot of things working for it. An excellent design, form factor, power and all day battery life make it one of the strongest phones in the market. The camera isn’t the best, but it’s good enough for most people’s needs. Priced at AED 1899, it’s also great value for money, considering other premium phones start at a much higher price point.
