Huawei Mate 20 Lite Gold Test
Huawei Mate 8
MSRP $664.99
"With strong specs, smart features, and good looks, Huawei's Mate 8 is strong plenty to accept on Apple and Samsung."
Pros
- Fast fingerprint sensor
- Elegant all-metal build
- Gorgeous big screen
- Useful and fun extra features
- Respectable battery life
Cons
- Emotion UI is annoying
- Unattractive black frame around screen
Long established every bit a smartphone titan in China, Huawei has been gathering momentum for a major U.S. phone launch for years. Its collaboration with Google on the Nexus 6P and the Huawei Watch gave information technology a running start, and now information technology's ready to come clobbering through the door with the Mate 8.
The massive phablet sports an elegant all-metal body and a 6-inch screen, though you'd never know it from looking at it adjacent to an iPhone 6S Plus. With high-stop specs and a bevvy of smart extra features, the Mate 8 is good plenty to take on Samsung'southward Notation 5, the LG V10, and only about any other flagship phone from 2015. Its Achilles heel is one that'south plagued Chinese smartphone makers for years: An Asian-flavored user interface renders Android unrecognizable and is certain to delay updates.
Simple design maximizes screen real estate
The Mate 8 looks more or less like every other Huawei smartphone that's come up out in the past twelvemonth. It has a sleek, all-metal body with no frills or embellishments. In that location's no obvious antenna banding on the back of the device – unlike the iPhone with is white lines – and both the round camera sensor and fingerprint scanner are centered perfectly on the top portion of the phone's behind.
Like the fingerprint sensor on the Nexus 6P, the Mate eight's is slightly recessed on the dorsum and perfectly round, different earlier Huawei phones that had a foursquare sensor. It's flat and it's not a push button, so yous never have to press it to unlock the phone. The sensor is remarkably speedy, and merely as skillful every bit the one on the Nexus 6P or iPhone 6S. Y'all can besides use it with Android Pay, assuming the phone arrives in a land that supports the mobile payment organisation. The camera protrudes slightly above the fingerprint sensor, and a ring of chamfered metal surrounds both sensors.
To complete the look, the edges of the phone are chamfered equally well. There's a Micro USB port on the bottom forth with two speakers. Both the MicroSD card slot and the SIM tray are located on the left side of the phone. The ability button sits on the right-hand side beneath the volume rocker, which is unfortunate. Although the power push button in textured and so you can locate it easier, I often establish myself pressing it accidentally when I held the telephone in my right mitt. Occasionally, I'd hit the volume rocker instead of the ability button, as well. Although many phones put all the buttons on i side, it'southward something that's ever annoyed me.
Otherwise, the Mate eight's blueprint is spot on, and the phone is a delight to agree. The chamfered edges requite it grip, which helps, because this phone isn't your average phablet – it's a 6-inch device. Even though the Mate 8'southward screen is bigger than the ones on iPhone 6S Plus, LG V10, and Samsung Galaxy Notation 5, the phone never felt overly large or much larger than the more standard five.five-five.7-inch screen sizes on other phablets.
Part of that comfort is owed to the virtually complete lack of bezels on the sides of the Mate viii's screen, and the minimal white bezels at the top and lesser of the device. The end consequence is a mighty six-inch phablet that's the aforementioned size equally the iPhone 6S Plus.
Powerful Kirin flake shines
Huawei'southward Mate series traditionally sports large, 6-inch screens and pinnacle-of-the-line specs, and the Mate 8 is no exception. The screen isn't Quad Hard disk, merely information technology sports a 1,920 x one,080 pixel resolution, which is crisp, bright, and bonny. Not anybody notices the difference in a screen with more pixels than that anyway, and the extra processing strain eats into battery life. The Mate 8's total Hard disk drive screen should keep all but the most picky smartphone connoisseurs happy.
The Mate viii'south design is spot on, and the telephone is a please to hold.
The extra screen real estate more than makes up for any quibbles you might have about the pixel count. The Mate 8 boats an impressive 83 percent screen-to-body ratio, meaning that the front of the phone is nearly exclusively dedicated to the screen – non those annoying bezels. In fact, until you lot turn the screen on, you'd never think it had bezels at all – the screen appears to go make clean over to the sides of the telephone, thanks to two.5D curved glass. However, when y'all plow it on, you'll see a slim black frame around the entire screen.
It looks a little featherbrained when you accept a light background set on your phone or you open up an app with one. Information technology's a small, picky flaw that detracts from the overall sleek appearance of the telephone. Yous can't help just think that Apple and Samsung would never allow such a thing on one of their phones.
When it comes to power, the Mate 8 is a monster. Information technology's powered by an octa-cadre ii.3GHz Kirin 950 processor. It'due south a remarkable flake that uses FinFET engineering science to offer a 100-percent performance boost over the Kirin 930 processor found in the Mate 7, improve battery life, and make sure the phone doesn't run too hot. When Huawei and Kirin co-presented the chop at an consequence in Beijing, the two emphasized that this chip won't overheat like some do, namely, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810.
Indeed, the chip handles normal tasks like a champ, loading apps and websites swiftly. The Mate viii never got hot to the touch, fifty-fifty when I updated a number of apps at the aforementioned fourth dimension while performing other tasks. That'southward non something I tin can say of most phones. In benchmarks it did well, likewise, scoring 29,724 in the Quadrant criterion and 919 in the 3D Mark Slingshot examination.
In improver to the Kirin chip, the Mate 8 sports an i5 co-processor, which will handle spoken communication recognition, reduced location-based power consumption, and depression-power MP3 consumption, among other tasks a typical processor would normally demand to handle.
Jessica Lee Star/Digital Trends
An over-the-acme UI with some excellent tricks
Similar near Chinese companies, Huawei'due south phones run a very heavily customized user interface on top of Android. Huawei's EmotionUI iv.0 draws over Android 6.0 Marshmallow until it's scarcely recognizable. There'southward no app drawer, then all your apps pop up on the diverse home screens, but like in iOS. You tin can utilise a number of themes, which customize app icons, color schemes, and other key parts of the interface's appearance. The notification shade looks like a notebook or an calendar, and a bunch of quick settings are a tab away.
Huawei besides packs a ton of apps on the phone that cannot be uninstalled. We counted 25 pre-installed apps, including the phone dialer, electronic mail, and messaging app. To my listen, information technology'southward pure overkill. Sure, it'due south nice to have a calculator, FM radio, flashlight, and compass at my fingertips, but information technology'southward a bit annoying that I can't get rid of them if I don't want them, nor can I get them off my home screen. I take to shove them in a folder that just sits there, taking upwards space.
The Mate viii has so many tricks up its sleeve it might too be a sorcerer.
Users hate it when they can't uninstall apps – specially when they finish upwards with two of everything on their phones, after they've downloaded all the utility apps they actually like to use. It's not to say that all of these apps are worthless, just it would exist nice to take more selection in what stays on your phone and where it'due south located. The absence of an app drawer is more annoying when you have besides many pre-installed apps onboard that you cannot remove.
Beyond the visual annoyance of all these apps and the valuable infinite they take up, they also delay updates. The more serious threats to Android become, the more important it is for manufacturers to push out updates early. The more circuitous and heavy the UI, the longer the updates have to go far. Non only do slow updates forbid users from taking reward of new features, but they as well put users' phones at chance.
Seeing pure Android on a Huawei phone with the Nexus 6P was a existent pleasure, and proof that the visitor can practise away with EMUI without sacrificing also much in the procedure. To be honest, the uncluttered 6P has nigh ruined me for seeing any kind of UI on a Huawei phone.
That said, Huawei does bring a few truly innovative and useful features to the Mate viii via the abrasive UI. In fact, the Mate 8 has so many tricks upwards its sleeve it might besides exist a magician. You can tap your knuckles on the drinking glass to take screen shots for one; activate a lawmaking word to wake, unlock, or help observe your phone; alter the screen's color temperature; accept the screen unlock automatically with a trusted Bluetooth device like a smartwatch; enable glove manner for when your hands are covered upwards in the wintertime; the list goes on.
My favorite one was setting a keyword to wake the phone and so find the device when I'd misplaced it. I set the phone to react each time I said "panda comport" – not a word I say much in conversation, so I didn't risk waking my phone up for no reason. Later saying the word to the Mate 8 a few times so information technology could become used to my vox, I placed the phone in the other room, and called out, "Panda bear!" and so, "Where are you?" With that, the phone began to play music and say, "I'g here!" in a pleasant voice, as the music swelled to a crescendo. And it wasn't just novel: Information technology proved helpful the next day when I couldn't remember which purse I'd stashed the Mate 8 in.
Cool features like these add together to the user's experience – not skins, weird icons, and extra apps. I'd exist more than happy with EMUI if all it did was offer fun, useful features instead of over-the-top theming and extra apps.
Stiff photographic camera with fun features
Huawei consistently uses excellent cameras in its phones, and the Mate viii is no exception. The 16-megapixel photographic camera on the dorsum includes both optical prototype stabilization and a dual-LED wink, along with light painting, night style, manual mode, beauty mode for selfies, panorama, and more.
Jessica Lee Star/Digital Trends
Pro style contains tools for adjusting ISO, EV, shutter speed, focus, and white residuum. You lot can run into the changes in real time, too, which makes it easier for those who aren't pros to take good photos with it. LG offers more fine control and an easier interface in its pro manner on the G4 and V10, but Huawei's is better than about others' attempts at manual mode.
Lite painting is a fun trick that works well on city streets, and produces some interesting shots. A tripod helps make certain the await is steady and professional, but if you want to have fun, you tin can twirl the phone around and go some very mod-art-like shots. Night mode also benefits from a tripod, and illuminates subjects well at night. If you don't accept a tripod, the image may turn out slightly blurred and a little romantic looking.
If y'all like to be artsy with photos, y'all'll enjoy the extras Huawei'south thrown in the mix. The app itself is easy to apply, and all the modes and effects are but a tap away.
On its own, the camera takes smashing photos on articulate sunny days, but like any camera on a flagship phone these days. The colors may be a chip muted or common cold, though, depending on what you're shooting. A quick heave in the editor solves the trouble, though. The Mate 8 focuses apace on subjects and captures detail close upward and from afar well.
If you lot like to be artsy with photos, you'll enjoy the extras Huawei's thrown in the mix.
At night, the photographic camera takes good photos without over or under exposing them. Since it was Christmas time, I took lots of shots on bright Christmas lights at night, and even a shot of the New Year'southward Eve ball poised to drop in Times Square. Surprisingly, the shots turned out lovely. You can come across both the city in the background and the colorful lights without much blur or washing out.
The front end photographic camera is an 8-megapixel shooter, which takes decent selfies, though the tone was a chip cool for my sense of taste. The photographic camera app even helps tell you where to look and so that you lot brand eye contact with the photographic camera, which is something that anybody struggles with when taking selfies (unless they're pros like the Kardashians).
Overall, the iPhone, Samsung's Galaxy S6, and LG'south 1000 4 and V10 all boast ameliorate cameras than the Mate 8, merely non by much. Huawei needs to practise some software fixes to boost the temperature in photos and truly brand its camera shine. Even so, it's a great camera with fun, unique modes.
Battery life
Thanks to the 1080p screen and the efficient Kirin 950 chipset, the Mate eight gets peachy battery life. Information technology hands lasts through a busy day with ample bombardment left, and on less hectic days, it tin even last through a day and a half of use. I never worried well-nigh running out of juice over the class of a day or even into the dark. In a fourth dimension when most flagship phones can barely make it through the day, the Mate viii's strong bombardment life was a welcome addition. It charged up relatively quickly, too, when plugged into an outlet via the Micro USB port.
Conclusion
Huawei has a real winner with the Mate viii. Information technology's a strong flagship phablet that could easily take on the likes of Samsung'southward Note 5, LG'south V10, and the iPhone 6S Plus if it fabricated its way to the United States. Its sleek metallic design, speedy fingerprint sensor, fun camera effects, and unique tricks set the Mate 8 apart from the crowd.
Simply 2 minor issues hold it back: a cluttered UI and its lack of availability in the U.s.a.. Luckily, both of these bug are easily solved. Scaling back EMUI to only the almost essential useful tricks and power-packed apps would elevate the Mate 8 substantially and assistance speed along crucial Android updates.
As for availability in the States, Huawei could always sell the Mate 8 unlocked in its online shop, but the existent challenge is getting carriers to sell information technology. Now that the Nexus 6P is doing so well and Huawei's make is growing in America and the earth over, information technology seems more probable than ever that Huawei sneak into your local phone store alongside Samsung and LG. These are the companies Huawei has always seen itself competing with, and the Mate 8 is certainly a phone strong enough for that battle royale.
Available at: Amazon
Highs
- Fast fingerprint sensor
- Elegant all-metallic build
- Gorgeous large screen
- Useful and fun extra features
- Respectable battery life
Lows
- Emotion UI is abrasive
- Unattractive blackness frame around screen
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Huawei Mate 20 Lite Gold Test,
Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cell-phone-reviews/huawei-mate-8-review/
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