Huawei Mate 8, the full review of GizChina-it

Huawei Mate 8

One of the first tops of this 2016 start is definitely the Huawei Mate 8, the company's flagship phablet officially presented by Huawei at the end of 2015.

The device is characterized by a "premium" design, with a completely metal body, while the technical sector stands out for the presence of the brand new processor octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 950.

The Huawei Mate 8 is available for purchase on TopResellerStore.it at the price of 575 € (with discount code GIZCHINA) with shipping fromItaly e Italian warranty of 24 months.

Are we in front of the best phablet available on the market?

Find out in our full review!

Huawei Mate 8, the full review of GizChina.it

Huawei Mate 8 - Sales package

The sales box is very elegant and is characterized by a black cardboard with elegant finishes that indicate the model.

Inside we find, in addition to the phablet, the following accessories:

  • User manual in Chinese language;
  • rigid protective cover;
  • pin to extract the SIM slot;
  • Chinese wall power supply with 2A output;
  • micro USB-USB cable;
  • Headphones with a similar design to Apple's Earpods.

Huawei Mate 8 - Design and materials

The Huawei Mate 8, as anticipated, is a device characterized aesthetically by a metal body and by rather generous dimensions.

The device, in fact, mounts a display from 6 inches of diagonal with dimensions of 157.1 x 80.6 x 7.9 mm thick for a weight, battery from 4000 mAh not removable included, of approx 185 grams.

Let's briefly see the arrangement of keys and inputs:

On the left we find the on / off button and the volume rocker.

On the right, however, there is the double SIM slot in Nano format, one of which is shared with the micro SD reader up to 128 GB.

At the bottom is the 2.0 micro USB connector, speaker and main microphone.

At the top we also find the 3.5 mm jack for headphones and the second microphone for environmental noise suppression.

Later we find the f16 mega-pixel main camera with dual dual tone LED flash and fingerprint reader. The latter was found to be very fast and very early in the recognition of the impression (guaranteed reading 10 times on 10).

Finally, on the front, we find, in order, a small notification LED, the ear capsule, the front camera from 8 mega-pixels with opening f / 2.4 and the brightness / proximity sensors. At the bottom, however, there is only the Huawei logo.

Huawei Mate 8 - Display

The display is a unit from 6 diagonal inches with resolution Full HD 1920 x 1080 pixel with pixel density of PPI 368. The frames are well optimized and the visual experience is certainly excellent.

The panel, following our tests, proved to be decidedly valid and characterized by excellent color reproduction, a good viewing angle and a rather high maximum brightness and well managed by the appropriate sensor. The only exception is the black, a bit dull and subject to color change in angled vision (classic from IPS).

The display is protected by a glass Corning Gorilla Glass 4 characterized by an excellent treatment oleophobic.

No problem with the touchscreen, very fluid in all circumstances of use.

Huawei Mate 8 - Hardware and performance

The Huawei Mate 8 is moved by a HiSilicon Kirin 950 octa-ocre processor with big.LITTLE architecture with 4 core ARM Cortex-A72 to 2.3 GHz and 4 core ARM Cortex-A53 to 1.8 GHz. The GPU is a Mali-T880 MP4 clocked to 800 MHz.

The device is marketed in a basic variant from 3 GB of LPDDR4 RAM e 32 GB of internal memory and a variant "enhanced" by 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 64 GB of internal memory.

The variant tested in this review is the one with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal memory which in our tests proved to be very performing in all areas of use.

The new Emotion UI 4.0, combined with the powerful octa-core processor HiSilicon Kirin 950, ensures top performance, without any lag or jamming even during the phases of pushed gaming or with intense multitasking sessions.

Testing the device with Real Racing 3, the terminal has reproduced in a fluid and problem-free way the game, keeping very low temperatures (video-review gaming test).

Huawei Mate 8 - Connectivity

The terminal is equipped with a dual SIM slot and is Dual Active, or you can receive a call from the second SIM even while you are on the phone using the first one (and vice versa - tested and working). As anticipated, it is possible to use a micro SD instead of one of the SIM cards to expand the memory.

Signal reception is excellent in both 4G and 3G, as is the excellent Wi-Fi (802.11a / b / g / n / ac), also thanks to the Link + management that improves the use of networks on Huawei devices.

The Mate 8 equipment is completed by the Bluetooth 4.2 Low Energy, From FM radio, GPS with a-GPS and Glonass, theNFC, the compass and theOTG.

Huawei Mate 8 - Audio

The audio in call through the ear capsule is very loud and clear and the same can be said for the audio through the system speaker, which does not tend to croak at maximum volume. Listening to music files is good, even if the bass is a bit subdued. Better audio in the headphones.

Huawei Mate 8 - Battery

The battery is a unit from 4000 mAh with support for quick charging has shown in these days of testing an excellent autonomy, favored by a very low stand-by consumption and that guarantees abundantly to get to the end of the day with very intense use and with two active SIMs. We are roughly on the 5 hours and a half of screen lit..

Il Mate 8 is equipped with the Quick Charge di Huawei and recharge from 0 to 100% in approx 2 hours, but reaches a first 35% in just 30 minutes.

Huawei Mate 8 - Cameras

The rear camera is characterized by a sensor from XMUMX mega-pixel Sony IMX16 with focal aperture f / 2.0, optical image stabilizer (OIS), dual LED dual tone flash e ISP dedicated for the processing of the shots.

The front camera, on the other hand, is a unit from 8 mega-pixels with wide-angle lenses and support to the panoramic mode that makes rather defined and bright selfies.

The photographic sector is perhaps the only aspect that does not excel in this terminal. Obviously we are not talking about a below average quality of the shots, but we are referring to the fact that if we compare the performance in this sector of the Mate 8 to those offered by other top of the range competitors, the different yield and general quality is quite evident.

The focus is not very fast, while the shutter speed is good.

The macros are of a good standard and, in general, the shots are detailed and well balanced, but, in this case too, compared to the competitors, there is no "a little" in the final shot optimization algorithms.

An update could certainly improve the situation and this also in light of the completeness of the Emoion UI 4.0 camera app.

Here are all the shots made with the Huawei Mate 8:

Huawei Mate 8 - Software

As anticipated, the device is moved by the operating system Android 6.0 Marshmallow customized with the user interface EMUI 4.0.

At the first start the device carried out a software update which required approx 15 minutes to be installed.

In the video review you will find a rundown of the main functions of the OS.

Huawei Mate 8 - Final considerations

The Huawei Mate 8 is a top of the range phablet that is really missing poco to be able to shine in the Olympus of Top smartphones, in which, however, it can already project itself to clash (almost) on an equal footing with the other Top players in the sector (not just the Chinese ones, of course).

The device is characterized by an extremely reactive and fast fingerprint reader, a very good hardware and a battery already well optimized to be able to pass abundantly a day of intense use.

Obviously, as everyone knows, the "beautiful things" are paid and also the price of the Mate 8 is not extremely competitive.

The Huawei Mate 8 is available for purchase on TopResellerStore.it at the price of 575 € (with discount code GIZCHINA) with shipping fromItaly e Italian warranty of 24 months.

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