Huawei Mate 8 - my impressions

[WereCat]

Hi guys.

So I got tired of my Nokia Lumia 920 as it is already 3 years old and the battery life is getting to the point where it cant last half a day without needing to recharge so I bough Huawei Mate 8. This is first Android device I won (not the first I used).

 

There is a couple of reasons why I went with Huawei Mate 8.

- 4000mAh battery

- very good camera

- great efficient CPU

- support almost all radios

- 4G on all frequencies

- metal body

- dual SIM support

 

 

The device has 6" 1080p IPS screen which makes it a phablet and I bet that most of you will get turned off by this but I have really long fingers and so this size isnt that much of a problem for me. Needles to say though, because this phone is quite thin compared to my Lumia which was 11mm thick and this one is only 7.9mm thick so combined this small thickness with the size of the device makes it a little bit awkward to hold and use with only one hand.

Image is bright and sharp. 368 PPI is more than enough for me. Viewing angles are good as well and I havent noticed any backlight bleed at all.

 

To adress this first. There is not stock Android. But there is Android M6.0 with Huawei EMUI skin on it which is quite good in my opinion. As I said previously I have not owned any Android device before but my father has ASUS Zenfone 5 and I believe it has stock Android and to be honest I dont really care. Now this may be another turn off for some of you because this EMUI skin has no app menu, all apps are on your desktop like on iPhone. Luckily you can make folders and add another desktops to hide apps you dont want to use or you just use rarely. This is not an issue for me personaly since on my Lumia I had all my apps on desktop anyways though it was done a lot better on Windows Phone where you could snap icons right next to each other without wasted space. There you have grid and there is quite a lot of wasted space between icons. I am not a heavy app user though so two desktops suffice me. One for everything I need everyday and another for apps I rarely use.

 

Phone was very well packed and it had pre applied protective foil on the display and there was also transparent case included in which phone looks no different than without it. You just feel plastic now when you hold it instead of the metal case on the phone.

Phone features 16MPix main camera with optical image stabilization and 8MPix front facing camera. There was issue with the main camera when phone launched and it was software issue that made phone take only blurry images but it was fixed since so it is no longer an issue. The photos are sharp and good looking especialy when you shoot a lot of close ups as the camera excells in that.

The camera app launches immediately and taking photos takes barely any time so if you need to capture some moment really fast it is not an issue.

 

There is also touch ID on the back of the phone right under the main camera. Since there are no physical buttons or home button on front of the phone it was placed there so entire front of the phone is clean and only uses software buttons on display. This is advantage and disadvantage since if you want to unlock your phone you have to pick it up from the table or use the lock button on the side and then enter your security code but if you are holding phone already in your hand it is much comfortable to touch the touch ID with your pointing finger and unlock it in no time. Touch ID is really fast and snappy and it doesent take even a seccond to register your fingerprint to unlock the phone.

 

Side buttons are not as good as on my Lumia but they are miles better than on any other Android phone I ever had in my hands. They are also metal and clicky though they still require a little less force to activate than I would like. I just miss the dedicated camera button with half press as focus that was present on my Lumia.

 

Speakers are on the bottom of the phone where the charging USB port is so you still have to cup your hands if you are in louder enviroment to hear better but these speakers sound really well and clean. In fact I would say that these are one of the best sounding speakers you could have on the phone.

You have 4 different volume controlls. Media, Alarm, Notifications, Calls which is great.

 

There is 32GB of internal storage with possibility of adding SD Card but if you want to use Dual SIM you cant have SD card as the one slot is shared.

 

Battery life is AMAZING. I cant really complain there. I was playing 6 hours of Hearthstone over Wi-Fi, then I was watching 2hours of YT over Wi-Fi and then some browsing on LTE and Skype calling and I was still left with 45% of battery. And to top it off after playing 6hours of Hearthstone the phone was only warm. Not hot at all .. just warm. My Lumia was almost uncomfortable to hold after single hour of Skype call as it got so hot I was affraid it will start to melt.

The USB port on the phone is OTG and features quick charge and the amazing thing about this is that in 30mins of charging your phone is easily ready for entire day of medium use.

There is also notification LED on the front above the screen which some of you may like. I havent used GPS at all so I dont know how long the phone will last when using it.

 

Is there any bloatware? Yes but very little and 90% of it you can uninstall completely. Some of this stuff is integrated with the phone like HiVoice which is supposed to be like Siri or something .. I dont know I just restricted it as I dont plan on using it at all.

 

OS is smooth and snappy and I havent noticed any slow down at all and 3GB of RAM looks like is plenty as I never got near 2GB of usage. Battery management is great as well and lets you set up a lot of things into details and informs you about everything that takes more battery than expected when you are not using it (you can turn it off).

 

So far I am verry happy. I had this phone for only 5 days so there is still some time for me to find new things within it but so far I can only recommend it if you are okay with having 6" screen.

 

Sorry for the wall of text

 

TL;DR - great phone, has everyhing you could ask from phone and more, awesome battery life, looks great.