Battery Life and Conclusion
Battery Life
With the display brightness set to a measured 180 lux (about 50% on the brightness slider) I ran PCMark's Work battery life test. The results were very good, with the Mate 8 lasting just under 10 hours (9 hr 53 min).
We are in transition with our mobile battery testing, so I don't have comparison data to add here at the moment. Subjectively, I found the Mate 8 to offer significantly better battery life than my old Nexus 6, and slightly better than the Nexus 5X that was my daily driver when I had the Mate 8 in for review.
Conclusion
The Mate 8 is an unassuming phablet design with a gorgeous screen, and excellent performance in everyday tasks. I didn't really talk about the UI over Android 6.0, and that's becuase I found it unobtrusive. I was never bothered by it, and other than a few differences (such as apps residing only on the home screens, like in iOS), it functions mostly like stock Android.
There is the usual assortment of branded helper apps that want permissions, but this can be managed in a granular way with Android 6.0. Overall the UI felt very responsive, and I took advantage of the option to install my preferred launcher (Google) and other apps to make the phone fit my usage patterns.
In the end, I can't really fault any aspect of the Mate 8 other than the camera, which was disappointing. That is not insignificant, and while it was perfectly servicable there are other options in this price range that will produce better results. But there was one thing that made me want to work with this handset, regardless of any perceived deficiencies: the display. It's really, really good – a nice balance between the best of IPS (color, viewing angles) and OLED (saturation, black levels) – and I'd never heard of IPS-NEO before this review. I wish it was used in more phones!
The market for an unlocked $499 smartphone is very crowded, and there is stiff competition from not just other handset makers, but HUAWEI itself with the Nexus 6P at the same $499 (or probably less, very soon). I would personally choose the 6P as I have been a Nexus user since the introduction of the Nexus 4, but this Mate 8 is geared more toward the phablet (i.e. Galaxy Note) crowd. In the phablet space the Mate 8 makes a very good impression, and offers solid performance from its relatively unknown SoC (which just happens to be powered by the most current ARM cores).
Strengths
- Fantastic display quality
- Snappy UI performance
- Excellent build quality
- All-day battery life
- Excellent sound quality
Weaknesses
- Below average camera at this price
The Mate 8 certainly deserves a look – and once you see the display for yourself you just might be sold.
A shame about the GPU
A shame about the GPU results. If it had done better the Kirin chip could have been a real contender for high performance phones. Unfortunately (as far as I see it) these results are more indicative of a lower mid range item.
Would a person who doesn’t
Would a person who doesn’t play mobile games notice the slower gpu?
I’ll agree the comment above,
I’ll agree the comment above, the HUAWEI looks more like a lower mid-range office.
Although the US just got the S7 with the 820 version, it’s still good enough it looks like.
May be a firmware update
May be a firmware update might fix the GPU performance later on.
Unfortunately, this is the
Unfortunately, this is the real performance, cause Kirin 950 uses just 4 shader cores of Mali T880, while Exynos 8890 uses 12 and its closer to Adreno 530. The full Mali T880 (16 shader cores) could be faster than Adreno 530 (SD820) but it seems it might not be suitable for smartphones.
What a shame.
What a shame.
Am i the only person that
Am i the only person that looks at all the current phone releases and says why?!? Until Google outlines DayDream further why would anyone consider a phone that is more than $200 right now?
Apple is probably doing the same thing as Google with the next release.
All phones on the market are about to be considered bargain bin phones with the exception of the photography phones.
With the S7 regular now
With the S7 regular now available for around $370us just got 1 and that’s my limit now.
It’s not a custom ARMv8A ISA
It’s not a custom ARMv8A ISA running micro-arch, it’s just 4 reference A72s, and 4 A53s Big/Little and not so much. Maybe we will be seeing the A73 CPU micro-arch and the Mail/Bifrost GPU IP at some time in the future, but this SKU is too costly relative to the performance it provides. Until the New Mali/Bifrost based GPUs are available the graphics will not be too exciting!
So at Hot Chips conference day one 8/22/2016, 9:45 AM
“GPUs & HPCs Bifrost, the new GPU architecture and its initial implementation, Mali-G71 Jem Davies ARM”
Who covered this and when will the Mali-G71 graphics/IP be in any new products. The Zen coverage was good, but now it’s about phones so who covered this presentation on the new Bifrost GPU architecture!
Why do smartphones need 8
Why do smartphones need 8 cores? What advantage does having 8 cores on a smartphone provide over 4 cores?
Maybe it’s an American thing,
Maybe it’s an American thing, but I’m much happier putting my money towards Samsung (many made in Korea) than HUAWEI (China).