Huawei Mate 10 Pro smartphone review – excellent design and camera

Huawei is ending what has been an impressive year for the company on a very positive note with the release of its high-quality new flagship smartphone the Mate 10 Pro.

The device is impressive as soon as you take it out of the box and hold it in your hand.

It has a head-turning design glossy curved back panel which merges seamlessly to the edges.

There are two Leica lenses and a flash on the rear along with a fingerprint reader/home button directly underneath.

On the front is a dazzling 6-inch screen that goes virtually edge to edge. The display takes up nearly the entire front face of the product.

It has an impressive build quality that seems to have gone to a new level.

And even though it’s a big phone with a 6-inch screen, it still sits comfortably in your hand.

Huawei says it used a new technique to heat the rear glass up to 700-degrees Celsius before shaping it into the style you hold in your hand.

It is rated IP67 which means it is water and dust resistant but the fine print does recommend users should not attempt to charge a wet Huawei Mate 10 Pro. Got it.

The 18:9 OLED display has a resolution of 2160 x 1080 and can handle HDR 10 content.

Movies and videos looked amazing on the 6-inch screen so it can easily become your go to entertainment device to review anywhere.

Customers will be pleased to know the device has a screen protector out-of-the-box and also comes with a soft silicon case to protect it from any drops.

But the Mate 10 Pro doesn’t just look good, it also delivers on the performance side as well.

That’s thanks to its powerful Kirin 970 processor with 10 nanometer tech alongside an 8-core CPU and the 12-core graphics processor.

This is immediately obvious as soon as you start using the Huawei Mate 10 Pro.

What speed things up is its AI computing platform alongside a dedicated neural network processing unit.

That all adds up to speed, responsiveness and efficiency that makes the whole device run as smooth as silk.

It even goes so far as to examine the way you use the device and comes up with the most efficient modes and performance optimisation.

One of the most important features is the new Leica Dual Camera with an f1.6 aperture.

The photos and videos you can capture with the Mate 10 Pro are simply stunning.

The two lenses work together to produce clear low lights and blur free photos.

Under the hood is a 20-megapixel monochrome sensor and a 12 megapixel RGB sensor that worked together as sweetly as John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro takes things further than just having good lenses and sensors.

The camera uses an intelligent photographic algorithm to identify in real-time different scenes and adjust the settings and modes on the fly.

Things like colour, contrast, brightness and exposure can all be intelligently controlled.

You can also recognise objects like flowers, sunsets, sunrises, the beach, snow, food and even your pets.

And it can also put those two lenses to use to create stunning corporate images with the professional bokeh effect which blurs the background while keeping the foreground sharply in focus.

The selfie camera also holds its own with excellent portraits.

What we like about the Mate 10 Pro camera is the fact you can take full control of your photographs in Pro mode and from here you can control the ISO, exposure and shutter speed.

But for most users, they would be happy for the auto mode which allows the camera to do all the heavy lifting.

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro is running Android 8.0.0 Oreo as well as its own EMUI (emotion user interface) which isn’t too obtrusive above the original operating system.

When it comes to battery performance, users are going to love this smartphone.

There is a 4000mAh battery on board which is among the best we’ve seen on a smartphone this year.

Not only do you get that great capacity but throw in the smart power management and efficiency and you’ll easily be getting a day and a half out of the phone for you need to charge it again.

When you do need to charge, it’s incredibly fast with a 20-minute charge enough to get you through a work day.

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro is one of the most feature packed devices on the market, but there are still some things missing.

We just spoke about charging and while it is fast, you can’t charge the device wirelessly.

Even Apple has joined the wireless charging bandwagon along with Samsung but Huawei decided to leave it out of this device.

Another thing that is missing is the headphone jack. Huawei has joined Apple and Google in deleting this feature so customers have to use wireless earphones or headphones to listen to their music or movies.

The Mate 10 Pro has 128GB of storage on board but what you don’t get is a microSD card slot to expand the memory.

When you pop out the SIM card tray, there is no room for a memory card – instead there’s room for a second SIM.

No headphone jack and no microSD card slot could very well be a dealbreaker for some potential customers.

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro is priced at $1,099 which makes it decent value when you compare it to its competition and the level of features it offers.

VERDICT

Huawei has gone to the next level with the Mate 10 Pro which has a stunning design and an excellent camera. It can certainly hold its own against the competition in the top smartphone tier.