Huawei has officially launched their latest flagship devices in the Philippines. The new Huawei Mate 10 is packed with features that aims to take on the more expensive flagship smartphones around. But before we dig deeper for our full review, we would like to share our first experiences with it.
Our journey in unraveling the Huawei Mate 10 is off to a good start thanks to its elegant packaging. Just like other high-end devices, the Mate 10 comes with chic looking box. The device, together with its accessories, are caged on a thin but wide box.
Inside we have the device itself sitting on top. But the problem is, the device doesn’t have battery charge out of the box. This is just a minor complaint, and probably an isolated case, but it’s still worth noting.
Beneath it, we have the wall adapter, USB Type-C cable, good pair of earphones, SIM ejector tool, and the warranty card and quick start guide. The Mate 10 also comes with a free clear case so you don’t have to go out looking for one.
Personally, I think you’d be really needing a case for this handset. The Huawei Mate 10 is sandwiched with glass, making it a fingerprint magnet. The device was already filled with smudges during my first few minutes with it.
Other than glass, Huawei used metal in building the Mate 10. The device has a metal chassis, which you can feel through its sides. Overall, it seems like the device doesn’t only look nice, but it also feels nice and sturdy.
Due to the rampant existence of smartphones with 18:9 displays, the Huawei Mate 10 looks and feels really wide as Huawei stuck with 16:9 on this one. Coming from devices like the OPPO F5 and Galaxy Note 8, the Mate 10’s wide body already feels unusual as I got used to tall smartphones. Hopefully, I can bring back the same old comfortable feeling as I spend more time with it.
I really appreciate its ultra-thin bezels on the sides and sizes of the top and bottom edges were also kept to the minimum. This gives the Huawei Mate 10 a good screen-to-body aspect ratio, despite not having the 18:9 aspect ratio display.
Huawei’s own EMUI 8.0 interface runs on top of Android 8.0 Oreo. The new EMUI looks fairly clean at first look and really I like the well-organized the settings menu.
Probably my only gripe here is the system navigation. Out of the box, it’s set to “off-screen navigation”, instead of having virtual buttons on the screen. I spent a minute or two being puzzled if there were invisible capacitive buttons until I realized that it requires specific gesture interactions with the home button for you to navigate.
And just like the new iPhones, the Huawei Mate 10 only has a piece of glass that acts as a home button/fingerprint scanner — no more mechanical button underneath. Huawei also did its best to replicate the tactile feeling of pressing a button using haptic feedback, but it’s just not as good as the iPhones’.
Moving on, I also did some quick snaps with its dual rear cameras. It was night time already when I fired it but the camera was still able to produce great images taken in low-light. The noise and grains are barely present, but the pictures are noticeably soft at times. This is probably one of the features of its AI technology and we expect it to improve over time.
I also tried switching to its 20-megapixel monochrome sensor and I still got good results, even at low-light scenarios indoors.
UPDATE: Huawei Mate 10 review
Huawei Mate 10 Specs
- Android 8.0, EMUI 8.0
- Dual SIM, Hybrid
- 5.9-inch FullView IPS display, 2560 x 1440 resolution, ~499ppi
- 16:9 aspect ratio, HDR10
- 2.3GHz Huawei Kirin 970 octa-core processor
- Neural Network Processing Unit
- 4GB RAM
- Mali-G72 MP12 GPU
- 64GB internal storage, expandable via microSD up to 256GB
- 8-megapixel front camera, f/2.0
- 12-megapixel (RGB) + 20-megapixel (Monochrome), OIS, dual-LED flash
- Fingerprint scanner
- 4G LTE
- WiFI 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4G/5G
- Bluetooth 4.2
- GPS, GLONASS, BDS
- NFC
- USB Type-C, DisplayPort 1.2
- Infrared Blaster
- Dimensions: 150.5 x 77.8 x 8.2mm
- Weight: 186g
- 4000mAh battery
Overall, I can honestly say that I’m enjoying my experience with the Huawei Mate 10. Hopefully, it will continue in the entire course of the review process. Make sure you stay tuned so you won’t miss it when it drops.
If you’re interested in getting one, the Huawei Mate 10 is currently available in the Philippines for a price of Php32,990.