Despite only using the MP4 variant of the Mali-T880, I wish Google had used this SoC in the Nexus 6P. The Snapdragon 810 is garbage, and the only bad thing about my phone. It gets very warm when simply browsing webpages.....
Unless your browsing includes js/webgl heavy games, out benchmarks something is wrong with your phone. The only time I've noticed my gf's n6p getting noticeably warm was during benchmarks.
Well tell her to be careful! The ground might be slippery with all this ice and fish laying around, she might slip and drop her brand new phone. That would be a problem. Erm... what was it we were talking about again?
Oh, don't worry! The fish aren't a problem any longer. It's really the roving superpacks of wolves you need to watch out for...also, her phone has a case:)
Ppl never learn that ShtDragon is epic fail.. Now SD 820 is going to be tested on LeTV on purpose in case of ignite.. LeTV not realising qualcom used them as experiment and others manufs. will be watching.. bcos nobody wants to implement SD anymore..
SD800 and SD801 were brilliant chips, and SD805 was pretty good, but came out when others were further along with 64-bit. People have hope that SD820 will bring them back on track. However, if SD820 is bad, QCOM will risk losing permanent trust with everyone. They really have to nail SD820. Even Google was rumoured to be so unhappy with QCOM after SD810 that they began looking into designing their own SoC designs.
SD810 was so horrifically bad, that they really owe everyone an apology. SD810 singlehandedly caused most flagship 2015 devices to suck, overheat, and have bad battery life. Worse still, QCOM denied the problems, claiming that people were just just spreading FUD about overheating SD810. Just look at QCOM's stock. They're at almost half their value from a year ago. All attributable to SD810. They need to apologize, and admit that SD810 was awful before people will believe their claims for SD820.
However, most people believe that QCOM's custom SoC were great, so there's hope for SD820.
$700+ for a Chinese device, yeah good luck with that. They really think people are going to choose this over a shiny new iPhone? They need to approach Western markets the way Hyundai and Toyota/Lexus did. Very few people will risk that kind of coin when there are proven alternatives available at the same price. That's why Lexus and Hyundai went with the "Everything the other guy has but 10% cheaper" kind of thing. If they were selling this phone for $450 people would take the risk, but I can't imagine this will be a smashing success in the West.
I'm more concerned about the software on these phones than anything else. The reason why the Nexus 6P is doing so well is because Google manages their software and people are inclined to trust that process. Any other phones by Huawei will not sell well here, especially at those high prices.
Huawei is pretty good from my experience. I own a Honor 6 and it got a relatively timely update to lollipop last year (though you need to download it from the Indian support site). There is reportedly Marshmallow update plans scheduled for this year, too. If this device gets Marshmallow, that will be quite impressive.
The sound is NOT good as on Vivo X5Pro but that IPS screen .aah whites are much much better still than ON AMOLED.. I really can't wait to receive S6 edge to compare the whites and the brightness
Stupid Huawei fanboy you don't even know how to make a proper comparison. If you need the "blazing" white as some put it, using adaptive mode solves it. If you want an accurate white, there are basic and AMOLED photo modes.
Generally agree. I tried Blu 6" 1080p not for $100 but for $200 as a temporal substitute. Aside from speed in games it was OK. Of course Nexus 6 is better but not that much really. And the screen of Blu is way brighter. Every next gen of cheapo phones make all other phones more and more marginally different. Advantages? You do not care to lose or drop them. Companies must think of allowing multiple phones with the same phone # so that we will never search for the misplaced phones LOL
My post was not in reference to the country the phone is built in (I have never owned a single apple product BTW) but rather the country that is designing this phone. The Chinese don't exactly have a reputation for quality. See the Bahamian resort in bankruptcy because of incompetent Chinese builders. As a perfect example. The long term durability of apple products are a known quantity, the same cannot be said for Huawei. My point was, you need to provide a compelling reason (price) to entice enough people to gain traction. This is like trying to go 0-60 instantly.
If apple products are known for quality, explain antenna gate, yellowing Macbook screens and overheating Nvidia GPUs in Macbook. My point is, the country it is designed in may have historically associated with cheao quality, but doesn't mean every thing would be. For every one competent engineer in the west you can find 10 in China. The historical fact that smaller Chinese companies weren't focused on quality but more on quantity was not due to Chinese people lacking design expertise, but was driven by world demand in cheap products. Nowadays, especially big Chinese companies with stake in brand image, are much more quality focused since even local market , the more affluent Chinese general population, are increasingly demanding higher quality products. The shift is rapid.
A recent independent blinded tests for example of Japanese vs Chinese made rice cooker for example resulted in no perceived quality difference.
Your view is bigoted and narrow-minded - the chinese can build lousy quality and they can build good quality - whatever the customer wants and pays for.
Sure, there is that thing where a lot of companies seek to manufacture in China for the low manufacturing cost, enabling low purchase cost, thus quality is compromised for the sake of pricing.
But all in all, the chinese are capable of producing as high quality products as anyone else. It is not rocket science. Whether on not it is quality is not a subject of expertise but to whether or not you want quality.
we taught the Chinese how to make a good phone. In the case of the iphone, Apple gave them the tools, and knowledge on how to produce a quality product. it was a partnership. Apple shipped all their CNC milling machines (apple bought out the CNC Manufacturing industry for 5 years, nobody else could buy one). They are also a stake holder in many of the Foxconn factories (because they helped build them due to their volume purchase orders).
Chinese have cheap labor, and many engineers, and they have towns built around electronics manufacturing. To say they did this all on their own is not true.
Exactly! It's exactly like how Japan learned how to build cars from the US companies, and now everything Japan makes can be wholly contributed to US expertise!
So, who DESIGNED the "Bahamian resort"? Apparently "Chinese builders" shouldn't matter, incompetent or whatever, so that can't be "a perfect example" as you explicitly pointed out in Apple's case.
Problem with ipones is that prices DOESN'T go down quickly.. For this Mate 8 it will soon be cheaper .. Mate 7 released in october or november 2014 and in december I bought it just for £300 on ebay So it will be the same with mate 8 but forget iphone 6s to be cheap man..
Haha they say the same about Huawei in China, except they meant it the other way around, "prices go down so slow so Huawei must be good~ look at that crappy Samsung that drops 1/3 of its price in a few months~"
it is quite a bit cheaper, your $700 figure is for a 128GB model, and a 128GB 6S Plus is a Grand dude. Look at the lower storage models, they are still cheaper than a iphone by 25% (even beats your toyota/hyundai comparison)
I mostly agree about your pricing point, a Huawei can't be so pricey , but your cars analogy is very poor: Hyundai and especially Toyota / Lexus (Japanese cars !) are making very good cars, even better than American's...
Mentioned this before, the SoCs memory score in Geekbench is all over the place, you haven't noticed anything off there? Other than that the SoC does ok , a bit of a pity that they don't use better NAND and WIFI since it would make a rather big difference in actual usage. Power is not ideal since it does throttle and you could have pushed further and load all 8 cores. The product should work at advertised speeds , anything less should be clearly disclosed to the consumer but considering how bad things are elsewhere , this is great.
The phone is a bit pricey, the screen is just 1080p and not quite ok colors. Too bad since it's one of the most compact designs and almost nobody is doing that now, except maybe LeTV.
Any clue on die size? Hope we see the SoC in better offerings, assuming it's not too big (and costly).
I wouldn't complain about that if it was 200$ but it's not. There is a reason 1080p screens are in 120$ phones (even rather good displays like the one in the Meizu m2 Note). And it is 6 inch so you get about 367ppi vs 577 ppi in something like the S7.
You believe that they need to add a "premium" screen to justify the asking price, when the "cheaper" parts are in fact better for the experience. I'd rather have them spend the savings on other components, like better flash, audio amplifiers with a better DAC, and a general better internal layout of components for easier repairability.
If all parts are optimum and they still save a good buck on their BoM, then good for them.
They're selling them to presbyopic middle-aged men on the verge of retirement who only need the phones to make calls, they can't see so clearly close-up in the first place so they need huge screens and not a lot of DPI. Don't count on a better DAC, it doesn't fit their positioning, especially in China, their main market.
Last update was that it's due - IIRC - before the end of this week unless other schedule conflcts get in the way, from the question being asked on another thread.
Joshua Ho had finals to study for and to take, then holiday break. Plus, it's going to be harder than your normal review as comparing x86 vs ARM isn't trivial.
The CPU efficiency results gives me hope for this year's phones. I'm going to have to keep my 6P in good shape and hope that the 2016 Nexus will equal it in every way save the SOC.
This is why I finally gave up and went with an iPhone after using exclusively Android phones:
"While this is DEFINITELY NOT A PERFECT DEVICE and Huawei can definitely improve in aspects such as SCREEN QUALITY, I’m tending towards calling the Mate 8 a worthwhile purchase – that is, if Huawei manages to fix the SEVERE CAMERA ISSUES."
There are issues like this with every device. Galaxy S6, good but loaded with crapware and has memory leak due to known Android issue. Recent Nexus devices? Fantastic, but color calibration on 6P is iffy and no image stabilizer and long post-processing...and daylight picture quality is inconsistent. Note 5...glass back and crapware. Samsung Edges? Looks GREAT but the edge is a useless gimmick and makes the phone harder to hold.
Finally got 6s Plus and love the fact that everything works without issues. Yeah, I wish the OS were a bit more flexible in some aspects, but it's great to have a phone where all features work well and navigation is ALWAYS smooth. And honestly, after a few weeks, I don't really notice the things I thought were going to annoy me. I do notice the smooth consistent experience every time though.
Agreed. It seems like the ideal device would be Apple hardware with Google software. QCOM is to blame for the utter disaster of 2015 Android phones. Who would have thought a single company could cause so much damage.
Maybe the ideal future device would be a Pixel phone :).
Google software? Oh god, no! Not that Android is bad. No, no, it's great, but for me OS X and iOS are very good reasons to use Apple hardware. From a developer standpoint too, great as Android is, no denying about that, sometimes it makes me want to cry for having to deal with sheer absurdities about it.
How is the n6p's color calibration "iffy"? Just toggle srgb and it's one of the best calibrated screens available. Also, dxomark ranked the n6p camera as better than the new iPhone. Yes, post processing takes awhile BUT it's in the background and you can capture photos in the meantime.
You stupidly and naively went for ''tacky'' boring iphone JUST because it has highest bars on pictures right .. OOh man I hope you will grow up within few years and realize how naive you were yesterday .. Saying that android phones are bad is just stupidity of person.. And media and internet pushed you to buy ancient same iphone with boring icons only on home screen..
I almost went there myself. Every single 2015 phone has some kind of fairly major compromise. Not a single one did/does everything. Great phone, no OIS. Great phone, no SD card. Great phone, no nfc. Great phone, 32GB max storage and no SD. Etc, etc.. 2015 phones need to just go away already. I ended up giving the 64GB S6 a go, just because my Note 4 was getting to be too big and getting in the way. I regret that, and will be dumping it as soon as something else viable comes along that isn't making me compromise.. It may end up being apple, unfortunately.
lol wrong. S6 crapware?? Blame your vendor! Or get it TOTALLY CLEAN like I did in Europe! The memory leak was fixed months ago, 3-4 firmware updates ago! "Samsung Edges? Looks GREAT but the edge is a useless gimmick and makes the phone harder to hold." ?? At least it looks great unlike any other of those on your list! And I don't think it's hard to hold at all, how it feels in the hand also has to do with what case/frame you get to go with the phone.
Looks like they decided to pair decent CPU performance with ho-hum GPU performance. I'm curious if this visibly affects the performance of any high end games at present, or if they're all still tailoring to the average market performance where far lower end phones can still run every game fine.
Which will soon become among the slowest of all flagship CPUs. Please, it's one generation above Exynos 7420 (courtesy of ARM) and still doesn't beat it in all aspects.
The mate 8 achieved similar if not better sustained framerates than the Exynos 7420 in demanding games like nba 2k15/2k16. And that is when the 7420 is also running on 1080p, not 2k (Meizu Pro 5).
I'd say GPU on the 950 is totally comparable to Exynos 74xx in actual gameplay because it has so little thermal throttling. In fact, it is probably superior to some phones using snapdragon 810, especially after a few minutes of playtime and on 2k screens. I know because I have a Oneplus 2 which plays like shit after 10-15 minutes game time.
This GPU won't compete with 2016 flagship SoCs, but it can easily match the high end chips currently available in actual usage. The graphics benchmark really don't tell you the whole story.
Google's devices arent half bad, but I agree with you display accuracy should be of primary concern and I, for the life of me, have no idea why it isn't an this extends right across the board to LCD TVs and monitors.
The reason is because more people prefer the overly saturated colours. The most common comment I get when people look at my previous phones where the colours were set to as accurate as possible for that model is "why does it look washed out?".
This is why a screen capable of colour accuracy like the Nexus 6P ends up with a saturated default setting.
That's why Samsung's approach with multiple screen modes makes so much sense. Most will leave it on Adaptive, those who care will change it to Basic or AMOLED Photo. Those watching really badly compressed videos could use AMOLED Cinema.
I've had one of these for nearly three weeks, a 4gb/64gb one (coming from Note 4 and Nexus 6P previously). This review aligns with my experience. Battery life is easily the best I've had, in the same use it is basically doubling what I had with the Note 4 and 6P. Battery life is fairly high on my priority list and this device is a breath of fresh air in this regard. I had noticed the camera issues, but hadn't picked the reason until Andreilux informed me a few days ago. I'm on a newer B129SP02 firmware, which somewhat ameliorates the issue but not as successfully as it needs to. I think this should be able to be resolved in firmware though, so hopefully will see more of the sensors potential in upcoming updates (I've had three firmware updates so far, so certainly they are moving at a reasonable pace to address issues thusfar). Can update as more firmwares come in if people are interested. Regards the screen my subjective experience matches the review. Coming from the Note 4 in basic screen mode and the 6P in sRGB mode, the garish colours are a bit of an eyesore. Not sure if you mentioned it, but the screen is fairly reflective too, so despite a reasonable brightness sunlight viewing is mildly irritating at times. Blacks for a non-AMOLED screen are sufficient for me, white on warmest colour temp also good enough for me. Overall though the panels performance is acceptable for me. The last firmware update changelog mentioned changes to the colour temp adjustment, but I'm not perceiving a difference. I hope they can refine colour temp adjustment further with firmware updates. Again, not sure if I missed it, but the speaker performance here is really enjoyable - best bass I have heard from a smartphone till now. Speaker performace gets noticeably stressed as you approach 70%+ of the volume range, but volume is plentiful enough beneath that to not give me cause for concern. Pleased with your GPU write-up, a balanced viewpoint (it matches my own, so I suppose I would say that). While GPU performance is not wonderful in raw terms, it exceeds most devices this year for native resolution workloads on account of the 1080p screen. Throttling behaviour is particularly pleasing, since I do mostly emulator gaming on my phone and it's really nice playing the Gamecube's Fire Emblem Path of Radiance at fullspeed here (Dolphin overclock setting at 0.2). Overall I'm well pleased, the camera issue needs resolution, but I use my GH3 for when I really want to take nice shots, so for me it isn't the showstopper that it will be for some on current software.
"One characteristic that might be defining for the Kirin 950 is that it still uses a CCI-400 fabric"
Might I suggest as a future article one that clarifies what the relationship is between all these ARM terms. We have AMBA, CHI, ACE, CCI and probably a few more I've forgotten. They all seem to have something to do with coherency between different "ARM ecosystem" cells, but what exactly, and how are they all related?
CCI (Cache Coherent Interconnect) is basically responsible for connecting and "shifting" load between CPU clusters (, GPU and various other compute blocks) in a big.LITTLE configuration based on compute load needs.
Andrei, do you always use the same compiler, version, and settings for the SPECInt2000 measurements? The reason I ask is if you compare these results to the A9 results http://www.anandtech.com/show/9686/the-apple-iphon... things are mostly as you'd expect except 300.twolf and (especially) 175.vpr The latter in particular is discrepant enough that the only thing that seems like it might have caused it is a substantial compiler optimization like a loop re-ordering.
On Android we use the same binaries unless we specify some flag changes which happen over longer periods (Last change was in August). Generally we try to publish a given article with apples-to-apples scores.
For iOS it's impossible to use the same compilers and we have to rely on Apple's LLVM. It's very possible that Apple's scores are higher due to better optimizations. I have in mind to try LLVM on Android (currently it's GCC) but it's something of a long-term project rather than something we can just switch to and even then it will never solve the optimization issue as Apple's LLVM toolchain has additions that we simply can't keep track of.
Here the Exynos 7420 SPECInt2000 numbers are sometimes EXTREMELY different (like sometimes over a factor of 2, eg 175.vpr) from the Exynos 7420 A57 numbers you give in this article.
Maybe it would be good form, going forward, to publish this information, just so we can all keep track. (And obviously it is interesting to see when LLVM results differ greatly from gcc results, or even when the LLVM results show a great jump.) Obviously one can't hope for PERFECT LLVM parity. Certainly Apple are keeping the back-ends of the compiler toolchain (Typhoon and Twister, maybe even the current Cyclone and Swift back-ends) secret; and given that they use a slightly different linker, there may be differences in exactly how, eg, they handle LTO. But one would expect mostly similarity between the Apple and Android LLVM, and rather more difference with gcc.
My point is not some sort of "rah rah Apple"; it's more just a desire to understand. For example, IS it the case that gcc happens to have some sort of (presumably fairly recent) optimization that managed to double the 175.vpr result? (And if so, what's the nature of that optimization.)
I think we'd all be curious to know, for example, whether you use LTO in building these SPECInt2000 binaries. And whether, if you use PGO, you get a substantial boost in performance.
There were issues with the 7420 harness that caused us not to immediately catch validation failures and it treated the runtime as if the test were simply faster. SPEC is relatively complex so unfortunately such problems do happen.
No complaint about the power and volume buttons being on the same side? That seemed to vex you on the Nexus 6P a couple of weeks ago despite it being a recurring design choice.
My complaint on the 6P wasn't them being on the same side, it was that the volume buttons were extremely low on the phone and positioned below the power button, an odd positioning that kept one pressing the volume buttons when holding or picking up the phone. The Mate 8 has a traditional layout which doesn't cause any issues.
Wow, the efficiency of the A72 seems the best out of any CPU. If I'm not mistaken, it consumes less than 50% of what the Apple Twister in iPhones needs
Read my comments above. The SPEC numbers seem tainted and untrustworthy. I wouldn't trust them in the slightest until AnandTech (or someone else) has had a chance to validate them. In particular the vpr number still seems unlikely.
As for your efficiency of A72, I don't know where you're getting that claim from. In particular the sort of fine-grained per-core power data needed to make the determination has not been made available for iOS. The best we can do is macro-level tests like the WiFi and LTE battery life tests, and obviously iPhone does fine on those. (Which is not to denigrate ARM/TSMC/Huawei's achievement --- this does look like a very nice CPU, unlike the somewhat more problematic A57.)
What smartphone sites and reviewers doing wrong is comparing two completely different systems which is VERY WRONG and misleading to the ppl on internet !!! It is simply inapplicable ! If Apple would manufacture their iphone with android system then their pone wouldn't even start .. ! And it would be MEGA slow But IF iOS for iphone would be on an android (latest) device , you would not even realize when the phone iOS booted to home screen.. That is the FACT ! The main reason is that android is and true operating system where are 5x more processes than on poor simple iOS which is just the ''shell'' system.. there are no many processes in background as on android system.. android is linux which is VERY VERY similar to Desktop PC linux.. AND THAT is WHY Apple DENIED put iphone's iOS onto MACs or MacBook PROs or OSX onto iphones !! There is ''behind the scenes'' big game around and about this ''secret'' Apple's software but unfort. many ppl HAS NO IDEA unfortunately ! ..
You appear to have misplaced your tinfoil hat. There is no reason android wouldn't run on an iPhone if Apple decided to do that. Literally no reason. It also wouldn't be MEGA slow, since the a9 is one of the finest SoCs ever made. The rest of your post appears to be uninformed dribble and garbage.
OK u unknowledged person I won't be even bothering with you .. who DOESN'T understands the reality which is in the world.. A9 finest ? pleease .. you are so stupid bcos u believe media and advertise marketing.. and maybe fake benchmarks when it comes to iphone .. such common person you are.. live you in your dreams.. ;)
@Andrei Frumusanu I must say that THIS TIME Andrej u made an WONDERFUL, TRUTHFUL , NOT biased review for Huawei product ! WELL DONE ! I am starting like anandtech slowly .. But one thing I need con.. ; Why such MEGA TERA in depth ? Isn't it too much ? silly ;) Do we really need those cpu's or gpus instructions and those not really friendly graphs just to make call or browse net , play vid ? This review was very very in -depth than previous any smartphone review.. But still great .. I admire those ,who is truthful and real and this time you were.. But overall huawei disappointed me in more aspects..
Disappointments ;
* Yes agree very thick black borders around the screen .. it is just horrible huawei NEVER been like this .. Only solution is going for black screen..
* The display is really bad I can't believe , I had P8 which has the SAME mauf. same technology so how can be mate 8 screen so bad ? P8 is JDI IPS NEO too ...should be the same.. weird
* The battery is Ok thought will be better than Mate7 a lot more.. Can't understand how Mate 2 has the BEST battery life from all smartphones in the world.. But cannot believe that there was better battery life with iphone 6.. I DON'T believe that .. That's on paper DEFO not real world ! So may iphone 6 ppl wouldn't complain !
* The pictures are bad .. disappointment !
* The video recording is just horrible blurred not sharp .. Only one thing slightly saved it that 1080p 60 real motion .. that was cool I would record ONLY with 60fps.
*NO USB C and no fast charge very bad !
And Huawei phones prices increased dramatically so it is NOT Huawei as I knew this back in day !!! I just purchased S6 Edge just for £280 from aliexpress and advantage is that it has nice brightest screen from all smartphones .. and very good whites .. (in the pas it was disaster with their whites.. looks like samsung learned )
Yes we need more reviews like this one. If you want want to read reviews like "camera OK, display mmm, CPU Antutu over 9000!" there are plenty out here. I literally cum when I read a review such deep like this one.
This is Anandtech, you read the most detailed review anywhere. The second most detailed is Notebookcheck, they release more reviews but they're not as detailed. As for the "impression"s and "hands-on"s they're everywhere.
Strange: on display page, the luminance - Power curve shows 821mW for 200CD/m2 but in the table just below you rate it as ~419 mW. Typo, or I did not understand the table "Screen Luminance Power Efficiency 100% APL / White" ?
The power curve is power of the whole device, to just look at luminance efficiency I use the projected baseline at 0 nits to get a value for the backlight power only.
On the second thought, it might not be at all as the next exynos and snapdragon will have slightly higher cpu performance but a lot larger gpu performance which will be coming in a few mionths. And on a Samsung, it has more polish and maturity at the same price.
You're right. S7 is right on the Horizon and it will be massively superior in most aspects to this, though they're not completely comparable as the size difference makes for different battery life and heat dissipation, and maybe even signal strength.
I've been using a Mate2 since May 2014, the 5.1 update came June 2015. 100% satisfied with it and the performance. I'm not a gamer, but I do a ton of phone, text, web, PHOTOS, etc. Battery life is still outstanding. It's the most stable phone I've owned since my Star-Tac phone. Stays on 24/7, never gets rebooted, no FC, lockups NOTHING. Now, that being said, I wouldn't mind getting the Mate8, but I'm sure not going to shell out the bucks they want for one. The Mate2 was the perfect performance/price point, but it appears that Huawei wants to go all Apple/Samsung pricing. You think consumers, use to the iphone/Galaxy line are going to shell out that kind of money on a virtual unknown? Not going to happen. Personally, all these high end SOC devices are worthless to the bulk of consumers in the first place. Most users, other than the high end benchmark nuts or gamers aren't even going to come CLOSE to utilizing that much horsepower for a phone. Looks like I'll stick with my Mate2 a while longer til it dies. Forking over almost $1,000 for a stupid phone is NUTS, especially when the Mate2 only cost me $300 bucks almost 2 years ago (and now is even less!)
Oh please, Mate S and P8 were much much worse phones for a similar, or higher price. They really want to go Apple pricing, I can see they want to so bad from their Mate S pricing, but they're not there yet so they reverted to a sane price level with the Mate 8. Lucky you, for the meantime.
The 78% screen to body ratio made me somewhat excited for this device. I think it's the highest found on any phone, shared only by lenovo's vibe Z2 Pro and some Sharp Aquos models. Of course this only expresses the relative bezel size, which is helped by the high overall size of the phone. The Sharp Aquos phones are king in terms of absolute bezel size. The Vibe Z2 Pro gets a special mention for squeezing capacitive buttons on the tiny bottom bezel as well.
I brought the phone and tested the camera. With the latest version frameware the camera focus correctly. Although, the image taken sometimes slightly under exposed, when shot with auto exposure.
Are you sure? Because every other phone with this sensor, (xiaomi mi5 and the oppo r9 plus) also seems to produce rather blurry shots.; so is the sensor the problem? I therefore really hope that this review can be updated, since you state the camera has improved. Furthermore, have you also seen any inprovements in low light?
Great review Andrei thank you. 2 points/questions - haven't the battery life tests been superceded now? I wond er too if you're going to update the camera section of the review in the light of firmware updates (assuming these have happened!) Perhaps you could rerun the battery life tests using the new benchmarking and include a report on these at the same time as the camera review?
Not that it matters anymore since the Mate 9 has been released, it would have been nice if you updated the review regarding the camera like you said you were going to do. I hate reviewers who promise to do something and then don't come through! Screw Anandtech!
You forgot to mention that this is the last - Dual Sim Full Active - Mate from Huawei and that is a reason that Mate series got many buyers.
(This is the reason that I ditched Mate 9 because it is Dual Sim Dual Standby and I bought a new Mate 8 and if they will not bring back the DSFA Feature in Mate 10 I will "fly" away to other brand).
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syxbit - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Despite only using the MP4 variant of the Mali-T880, I wish Google had used this SoC in the Nexus 6P.The Snapdragon 810 is garbage, and the only bad thing about my phone. It gets very warm when simply browsing webpages.....
jjj - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Page 2 you do 810vs 820 FP comparison, wrong paste.tuxRoller - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Unless your browsing includes js/webgl heavy games, out benchmarks something is wrong with your phone.The only time I've noticed my gf's n6p getting noticeably warm was during benchmarks.
IanHagen - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Is your girlfriend using her phone outdoors in Winnipeg, by chance?tuxRoller - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Oymyakon. Why do you ask? Do you think that's significant?IanHagen - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Well tell her to be careful! The ground might be slippery with all this ice and fish laying around, she might slip and drop her brand new phone. That would be a problem. Erm... what was it we were talking about again?tuxRoller - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
Oh, don't worry! The fish aren't a problem any longer. It's really the roving superpacks of wolves you need to watch out for...also, her phone has a case:)Ethos Evoss - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Ppl never learn that ShtDragon is epic fail..Now SD 820 is going to be tested on LeTV on purpose in case of ignite..
LeTV not realising qualcom used them as experiment and others manufs. will be watching.. bcos nobody wants to implement SD anymore..
syxbit - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
SD800 and SD801 were brilliant chips, and SD805 was pretty good, but came out when others were further along with 64-bit. People have hope that SD820 will bring them back on track. However, if SD820 is bad, QCOM will risk losing permanent trust with everyone. They really have to nail SD820. Even Google was rumoured to be so unhappy with QCOM after SD810 that they began looking into designing their own SoC designs.SD810 was so horrifically bad, that they really owe everyone an apology. SD810 singlehandedly caused most flagship 2015 devices to suck, overheat, and have bad battery life. Worse still, QCOM denied the problems, claiming that people were just just spreading FUD about overheating SD810.
Just look at QCOM's stock. They're at almost half their value from a year ago. All attributable to SD810. They need to apologize, and admit that SD810 was awful before people will believe their claims for SD820.
However, most people believe that QCOM's custom SoC were great, so there's hope for SD820.
extide - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Well, the benches for the 820 are out ... and they look pretty good so I am pretty confident that the 820 will not be a disappointment.jay401 - Monday, January 11, 2016 - link
Mate 8? Why not just name it the "M8".huberddp - Monday, January 18, 2016 - link
I have a Nexus 6P and it never gets hot. Only the battery when charging.fanofanand - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
$700+ for a Chinese device, yeah good luck with that. They really think people are going to choose this over a shiny new iPhone? They need to approach Western markets the way Hyundai and Toyota/Lexus did. Very few people will risk that kind of coin when there are proven alternatives available at the same price. That's why Lexus and Hyundai went with the "Everything the other guy has but 10% cheaper" kind of thing. If they were selling this phone for $450 people would take the risk, but I can't imagine this will be a smashing success in the West.[email protected] - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
i take my $100 Blu phone over any icrap any day.niva - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
I'm more concerned about the software on these phones than anything else. The reason why the Nexus 6P is doing so well is because Google manages their software and people are inclined to trust that process. Any other phones by Huawei will not sell well here, especially at those high prices.johnny_boy - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Huawei is pretty good from my experience. I own a Honor 6 and it got a relatively timely update to lollipop last year (though you need to download it from the Indian support site). There is reportedly Marshmallow update plans scheduled for this year, too. If this device gets Marshmallow, that will be quite impressive.Ethos Evoss - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Yes I just purchased Honor 6 Plus just for £120 and it is very good phone..Marshmallow is coming on both honor 6 and plus so that is awesome ! http://forum.xda-developers.com/honor-6/general/hu...
The sound is NOT good as on Vivo X5Pro but that IPS screen .aah whites are much much better still than ON AMOLED.. I really can't wait to receive S6 edge to compare the whites and the brightness
s.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
Stupid Huawei fanboy you don't even know how to make a proper comparison. If you need the "blazing" white as some put it, using adaptive mode solves it. If you want an accurate white, there are basic and AMOLED photo modes.Ethos Evoss - Sunday, January 24, 2016 - link
You ashole qhy I would be fanboy?of this phone? When I have iPhone 6,s6 edge ,vivox5pro, P7 ..I just ignore you kiddo ;)
SanX - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Generally agree. I tried Blu 6" 1080p not for $100 but for $200 as a temporal substitute. Aside from speed in games it was OK. Of course Nexus 6 is better but not that much really. And the screen of Blu is way brighter. Every next gen of cheapo phones make all other phones more and more marginally different. Advantages? You do not care to lose or drop them. Companies must think of allowing multiple phones with the same phone # so that we will never search for the misplaced phones LOLUtilityMax - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Like iPhone is not made in China..fanofanand - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
My post was not in reference to the country the phone is built in (I have never owned a single apple product BTW) but rather the country that is designing this phone. The Chinese don't exactly have a reputation for quality. See the Bahamian resort in bankruptcy because of incompetent Chinese builders. As a perfect example. The long term durability of apple products are a known quantity, the same cannot be said for Huawei. My point was, you need to provide a compelling reason (price) to entice enough people to gain traction. This is like trying to go 0-60 instantly.MobiusPizza - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
That is stereotyping to the extreme.If apple products are known for quality, explain antenna gate, yellowing Macbook screens and overheating Nvidia GPUs in Macbook. My point is, the country it is designed in may have historically associated with cheao quality, but doesn't mean every thing would be. For every one competent engineer in the west you can find 10 in China. The historical fact that smaller Chinese companies weren't focused on quality but more on quantity was not due to Chinese people lacking design expertise, but was driven by world demand in cheap products. Nowadays, especially big Chinese companies with stake in brand image, are much more quality focused since even local market , the more affluent Chinese general population, are increasingly demanding higher quality products. The shift is rapid.
A recent independent blinded tests for example of Japanese vs Chinese made rice cooker for example resulted in no perceived quality difference.
s.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
Which blind test? I only noticed the laughable CCTV tests done by Chinese officials. That was a good laugh, really.ddriver - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Your view is bigoted and narrow-minded - the chinese can build lousy quality and they can build good quality - whatever the customer wants and pays for.Sure, there is that thing where a lot of companies seek to manufacture in China for the low manufacturing cost, enabling low purchase cost, thus quality is compromised for the sake of pricing.
But all in all, the chinese are capable of producing as high quality products as anyone else. It is not rocket science. Whether on not it is quality is not a subject of expertise but to whether or not you want quality.
jasonelmore - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
we taught the Chinese how to make a good phone. In the case of the iphone, Apple gave them the tools, and knowledge on how to produce a quality product. it was a partnership. Apple shipped all their CNC milling machines (apple bought out the CNC Manufacturing industry for 5 years, nobody else could buy one). They are also a stake holder in many of the Foxconn factories (because they helped build them due to their volume purchase orders).Chinese have cheap labor, and many engineers, and they have towns built around electronics manufacturing. To say they did this all on their own is not true.
invinciblegod - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
Exactly! It's exactly like how Japan learned how to build cars from the US companies, and now everything Japan makes can be wholly contributed to US expertise!invinciblegod - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
/sarcasms.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
lol good one.levizx - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
So, who DESIGNED the "Bahamian resort"? Apparently "Chinese builders" shouldn't matter, incompetent or whatever, so that can't be "a perfect example" as you explicitly pointed out in Apple's case.Ethos Evoss - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Problem with ipones is that prices DOESN'T go down quickly.. For this Mate 8 it will soon be cheaper .. Mate 7 released in october or november 2014 and in december I bought it just for £300 on ebaySo it will be the same with mate 8 but forget iphone 6s to be cheap man..
s.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
Haha they say the same about Huawei in China, except they meant it the other way around, "prices go down so slow so Huawei must be good~ look at that crappy Samsung that drops 1/3 of its price in a few months~"jasonelmore - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
it is quite a bit cheaper, your $700 figure is for a 128GB model, and a 128GB 6S Plus is a Grand dude. Look at the lower storage models, they are still cheaper than a iphone by 25% (even beats your toyota/hyundai comparison)MaxIT - Monday, February 15, 2016 - link
I mostly agree about your pricing point, a Huawei can't be so pricey , but your cars analogy is very poor: Hyundai and especially Toyota / Lexus (Japanese cars !) are making very good cars, even better than American's...jjj - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Mentioned this before, the SoCs memory score in Geekbench is all over the place, you haven't noticed anything off there?Other than that the SoC does ok , a bit of a pity that they don't use better NAND and WIFI since it would make a rather big difference in actual usage. Power is not ideal since it does throttle and you could have pushed further and load all 8 cores. The product should work at advertised speeds , anything less should be clearly disclosed to the consumer but considering how bad things are elsewhere , this is great.
The phone is a bit pricey, the screen is just 1080p and not quite ok colors. Too bad since it's one of the most compact designs and almost nobody is doing that now, except maybe LeTV.
Any clue on die size? Hope we see the SoC in better offerings, assuming it's not too big (and costly).
lilmoe - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
"the screen is just 1080p"shhhhh, just shhhhhhhh
jjj - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
I wouldn't complain about that if it was 200$ but it's not. There is a reason 1080p screens are in 120$ phones (even rather good displays like the one in the Meizu m2 Note). And it is 6 inch so you get about 367ppi vs 577 ppi in something like the S7.lilmoe - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
You also get amazing battery life.....You believe that they need to add a "premium" screen to justify the asking price, when the "cheaper" parts are in fact better for the experience. I'd rather have them spend the savings on other components, like better flash, audio amplifiers with a better DAC, and a general better internal layout of components for easier repairability.
If all parts are optimum and they still save a good buck on their BoM, then good for them.
s.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
They're selling them to presbyopic middle-aged men on the verge of retirement who only need the phones to make calls, they can't see so clearly close-up in the first place so they need huge screens and not a lot of DPI. Don't count on a better DAC, it doesn't fit their positioning, especially in China, their main market.lucam - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
..and what about the iPad Pro?Beany2013 - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Last update was that it's due - IIRC - before the end of this week unless other schedule conflcts get in the way, from the question being asked on another thread.KPOM - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Ryan now says on Twitter that the iPad Pro review will be post-CES.lucam - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Thanks. Still don't understand why it's taking so long...Aenean144 - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Joshua Ho had finals to study for and to take, then holiday break. Plus, it's going to be harder than your normal review as comparing x86 vs ARM isn't trivial.lucam - Wednesday, January 20, 2016 - link
January is getting over...and no IPad pro review yet...:(ChronoReverse - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
The CPU efficiency results gives me hope for this year's phones. I'm going to have to keep my 6P in good shape and hope that the 2016 Nexus will equal it in every way save the SOC.phexac - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
This is why I finally gave up and went with an iPhone after using exclusively Android phones:"While this is DEFINITELY NOT A PERFECT DEVICE and Huawei can definitely improve in aspects such as SCREEN QUALITY, I’m tending towards calling the Mate 8 a worthwhile purchase – that is, if Huawei manages to fix the SEVERE CAMERA ISSUES."
There are issues like this with every device. Galaxy S6, good but loaded with crapware and has memory leak due to known Android issue. Recent Nexus devices? Fantastic, but color calibration on 6P is iffy and no image stabilizer and long post-processing...and daylight picture quality is inconsistent. Note 5...glass back and crapware. Samsung Edges? Looks GREAT but the edge is a useless gimmick and makes the phone harder to hold.
Finally got 6s Plus and love the fact that everything works without issues. Yeah, I wish the OS were a bit more flexible in some aspects, but it's great to have a phone where all features work well and navigation is ALWAYS smooth. And honestly, after a few weeks, I don't really notice the things I thought were going to annoy me. I do notice the smooth consistent experience every time though.
syxbit - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Agreed. It seems like the ideal device would be Apple hardware with Google software.QCOM is to blame for the utter disaster of 2015 Android phones. Who would have thought a single company could cause so much damage.
Maybe the ideal future device would be a Pixel phone :).
IanHagen - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Google software? Oh god, no! Not that Android is bad. No, no, it's great, but for me OS X and iOS are very good reasons to use Apple hardware. From a developer standpoint too, great as Android is, no denying about that, sometimes it makes me want to cry for having to deal with sheer absurdities about it.Ethos Evoss - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Another naive/pathetic person...s.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
You're the real pathetic one. Falling for the Huawei crap. Just watch, Kirin 950 will end up among the slowest of all SoCs using a72, just watch.Ethos Evoss - Sunday, January 24, 2016 - link
Jesus just go away weirdo..where am falling ? And u talking bullshit..it is fastest phone..tuxRoller - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
How is the n6p's color calibration "iffy"? Just toggle srgb and it's one of the best calibrated screens available. Also, dxomark ranked the n6p camera as better than the new iPhone. Yes, post processing takes awhile BUT it's in the background and you can capture photos in the meantime.Ethos Evoss - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
You stupidly and naively went for ''tacky'' boring iphone JUST because it has highest bars on pictures right .. OOh man I hope you will grow up within few years and realize how naive you were yesterday .. Saying that android phones are bad is just stupidity of person.. And media and internet pushed you to buy ancient same iphone with boring icons only on home screen..osxandwindows - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
If you are a nerd, its boring.From a normal users perspective, its just a phone.
What if he went with an iPhone?
Thats his own problem.
phexac - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
It was like 3 days before the Android police showed up. I was getting worried all of you on this site had grown up!ummduh - Friday, January 8, 2016 - link
I almost went there myself. Every single 2015 phone has some kind of fairly major compromise. Not a single one did/does everything. Great phone, no OIS. Great phone, no SD card. Great phone, no nfc. Great phone, 32GB max storage and no SD. Etc, etc.. 2015 phones need to just go away already. I ended up giving the 64GB S6 a go, just because my Note 4 was getting to be too big and getting in the way. I regret that, and will be dumping it as soon as something else viable comes along that isn't making me compromise.. It may end up being apple, unfortunately.s.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
lol wrong. S6 crapware?? Blame your vendor! Or get it TOTALLY CLEAN like I did in Europe! The memory leak was fixed months ago, 3-4 firmware updates ago!"Samsung Edges? Looks GREAT but the edge is a useless gimmick and makes the phone harder to hold."
?? At least it looks great unlike any other of those on your list! And I don't think it's hard to hold at all, how it feels in the hand also has to do with what case/frame you get to go with the phone.
tipoo - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Looks like they decided to pair decent CPU performance with ho-hum GPU performance. I'm curious if this visibly affects the performance of any high end games at present, or if they're all still tailoring to the average market performance where far lower end phones can still run every game fine.syxbit - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
decent CPU? It's the best CPU available that isn't shipped by Apples.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
Which will soon become among the slowest of all flagship CPUs. Please, it's one generation above Exynos 7420 (courtesy of ARM) and still doesn't beat it in all aspects.MrSpadge - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
I don't think it makes any sense yet to name "phones" and "high end games" in the same sentence. (still doing it right now)beachletter - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link
The mate 8 achieved similar if not better sustained framerates than the Exynos 7420 in demanding games like nba 2k15/2k16. And that is when the 7420 is also running on 1080p, not 2k (Meizu Pro 5).I'd say GPU on the 950 is totally comparable to Exynos 74xx in actual gameplay because it has so little thermal throttling. In fact, it is probably superior to some phones using snapdragon 810, especially after a few minutes of playtime and on 2k screens. I know because I have a Oneplus 2 which plays like shit after 10-15 minutes game time.
This GPU won't compete with 2016 flagship SoCs, but it can easily match the high end chips currently available in actual usage. The graphics benchmark really don't tell you the whole story.
Lolimaster - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
It seems only Apple, Samsung and maybe Xiaomi cares about display accuracy which is better than focusing on gizmos.5th element - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Google's devices arent half bad, but I agree with you display accuracy should be of primary concern and I, for the life of me, have no idea why it isn't an this extends right across the board to LCD TVs and monitors.ChronoReverse - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
The reason is because more people prefer the overly saturated colours. The most common comment I get when people look at my previous phones where the colours were set to as accurate as possible for that model is "why does it look washed out?".This is why a screen capable of colour accuracy like the Nexus 6P ends up with a saturated default setting.
s.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
That's why Samsung's approach with multiple screen modes makes so much sense. Most will leave it on Adaptive, those who care will change it to Basic or AMOLED Photo. Those watching really badly compressed videos could use AMOLED Cinema.s.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
One up that!NZtechfreak - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
I've had one of these for nearly three weeks, a 4gb/64gb one (coming from Note 4 and Nexus 6P previously). This review aligns with my experience. Battery life is easily the best I've had, in the same use it is basically doubling what I had with the Note 4 and 6P. Battery life is fairly high on my priority list and this device is a breath of fresh air in this regard. I had noticed the camera issues, but hadn't picked the reason until Andreilux informed me a few days ago. I'm on a newer B129SP02 firmware, which somewhat ameliorates the issue but not as successfully as it needs to. I think this should be able to be resolved in firmware though, so hopefully will see more of the sensors potential in upcoming updates (I've had three firmware updates so far, so certainly they are moving at a reasonable pace to address issues thusfar). Can update as more firmwares come in if people are interested. Regards the screen my subjective experience matches the review. Coming from the Note 4 in basic screen mode and the 6P in sRGB mode, the garish colours are a bit of an eyesore. Not sure if you mentioned it, but the screen is fairly reflective too, so despite a reasonable brightness sunlight viewing is mildly irritating at times. Blacks for a non-AMOLED screen are sufficient for me, white on warmest colour temp also good enough for me. Overall though the panels performance is acceptable for me. The last firmware update changelog mentioned changes to the colour temp adjustment, but I'm not perceiving a difference. I hope they can refine colour temp adjustment further with firmware updates. Again, not sure if I missed it, but the speaker performance here is really enjoyable - best bass I have heard from a smartphone till now. Speaker performace gets noticeably stressed as you approach 70%+ of the volume range, but volume is plentiful enough beneath that to not give me cause for concern. Pleased with your GPU write-up, a balanced viewpoint (it matches my own, so I suppose I would say that). While GPU performance is not wonderful in raw terms, it exceeds most devices this year for native resolution workloads on account of the 1080p screen. Throttling behaviour is particularly pleasing, since I do mostly emulator gaming on my phone and it's really nice playing the Gamecube's Fire Emblem Path of Radiance at fullspeed here (Dolphin overclock setting at 0.2). Overall I'm well pleased, the camera issue needs resolution, but I use my GH3 for when I really want to take nice shots, so for me it isn't the showstopper that it will be for some on current software.name99 - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
"One characteristic that might be defining for the Kirin 950 is that it still uses a CCI-400 fabric"Might I suggest as a future article one that clarifies what the relationship is between all these ARM terms. We have AMBA, CHI, ACE, CCI and probably a few more I've forgotten. They all seem to have something to do with coherency between different "ARM ecosystem" cells, but what exactly, and how are they all related?
lilmoe - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
CCI (Cache Coherent Interconnect) is basically responsible for connecting and "shifting" load between CPU clusters (, GPU and various other compute blocks) in a big.LITTLE configuration based on compute load needs.For the rest, Google is your friend.
name99 - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Andrei, do you always use the same compiler, version, and settings for the SPECInt2000 measurements?The reason I ask is if you compare these results to the A9 results
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9686/the-apple-iphon...
things are mostly as you'd expect except 300.twolf and (especially) 175.vpr
The latter in particular is discrepant enough that the only thing that seems like it might have caused it is a substantial compiler optimization like a loop re-ordering.
Andrei Frumusanu - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
On Android we use the same binaries unless we specify some flag changes which happen over longer periods (Last change was in August). Generally we try to publish a given article with apples-to-apples scores.For iOS it's impossible to use the same compilers and we have to rely on Apple's LLVM. It's very possible that Apple's scores are higher due to better optimizations. I have in mind to try LLVM on Android (currently it's GCC) but it's something of a long-term project rather than something we can just switch to and even then it will never solve the optimization issue as Apple's LLVM toolchain has additions that we simply can't keep track of.
name99 - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
To add to my point, compare withhttp://www.anandtech.com/show/9330/exynos-7420-dee...
Here the Exynos 7420 SPECInt2000 numbers are sometimes EXTREMELY different (like sometimes over a factor of 2, eg 175.vpr) from the Exynos 7420 A57 numbers you give in this article.
Maybe it would be good form, going forward, to publish this information, just so we can all keep track. (And obviously it is interesting to see when LLVM results differ greatly from gcc results, or even when the LLVM results show a great jump.)
Obviously one can't hope for PERFECT LLVM parity. Certainly Apple are keeping the back-ends of the compiler toolchain (Typhoon and Twister, maybe even the current Cyclone and Swift back-ends) secret; and given that they use a slightly different linker, there may be differences in exactly how, eg, they handle LTO. But one would expect mostly similarity between the Apple and Android LLVM, and rather more difference with gcc.
My point is not some sort of "rah rah Apple"; it's more just a desire to understand. For example, IS it the case that gcc happens to have some sort of (presumably fairly recent) optimization that managed to double the 175.vpr result? (And if so, what's the nature of that optimization.)
I think we'd all be curious to know, for example, whether you use LTO in building these SPECInt2000 binaries. And whether, if you use PGO, you get a substantial boost in performance.
Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
There were issues with the 7420 harness that caused us not to immediately catch validation failures and it treated the runtime as if the test were simply faster. SPEC is relatively complex so unfortunately such problems do happen.RdVi - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link
Nice improvements from Huawei. If the P9 can keep this up while being no larger than the P8, it might be my next phone.SHartman1976 - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
No complaint about the power and volume buttons being on the same side? That seemed to vex you on the Nexus 6P a couple of weeks ago despite it being a recurring design choice.Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
My complaint on the 6P wasn't them being on the same side, it was that the volume buttons were extremely low on the phone and positioned below the power button, an odd positioning that kept one pressing the volume buttons when holding or picking up the phone. The Mate 8 has a traditional layout which doesn't cause any issues.raghwendra123 - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
When should we expect the iPad Pro review?Piscupescu - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Nice review. Keep up the good work.darkich - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Wow, the efficiency of the A72 seems the best out of any CPU.If I'm not mistaken, it consumes less than 50% of what the Apple Twister in iPhones needs
name99 - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Read my comments above.The SPEC numbers seem tainted and untrustworthy. I wouldn't trust them in the slightest until AnandTech (or someone else) has had a chance to validate them. In particular the vpr number still seems unlikely.
As for your efficiency of A72, I don't know where you're getting that claim from. In particular the sort of fine-grained per-core power data needed to make the determination has not been made available for iOS. The best we can do is macro-level tests like the WiFi and LTE battery life tests, and obviously iPhone does fine on those. (Which is not to denigrate ARM/TSMC/Huawei's achievement --- this does look like a very nice CPU, unlike the somewhat more problematic A57.)
Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
I made sure all the tests passed validation so the scores should be correct this time around.fackamato - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Disappointed to not see the OnePlus 2 in the benchmarks, seeing as it's a dual SIM phone as well.zeeBomb - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Well damn. I should have woke up early to read this review.kadeep - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Iphones appear in charts only when they are ahead lolEthos Evoss - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
What smartphone sites and reviewers doing wrong is comparing two completely different systems which is VERY WRONG and misleading to the ppl on internet !!!It is simply inapplicable ! If Apple would manufacture their iphone with android system then their pone wouldn't even start .. ! And it would be MEGA slow But IF iOS for iphone would be on an android (latest) device , you would not even realize when the phone iOS booted to home screen..
That is the FACT ! The main reason is that android is and true operating system where are 5x more processes than on poor simple iOS which is just the ''shell'' system.. there are no many processes in background as on android system.. android is linux which is VERY VERY similar to Desktop PC linux.. AND THAT is WHY Apple DENIED put iphone's iOS onto MACs or MacBook PROs or OSX onto iphones !!
There is ''behind the scenes'' big game around and about this ''secret'' Apple's software but unfort. many ppl HAS NO IDEA unfortunately ! ..
TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
You appear to have misplaced your tinfoil hat. There is no reason android wouldn't run on an iPhone if Apple decided to do that. Literally no reason. It also wouldn't be MEGA slow, since the a9 is one of the finest SoCs ever made. The rest of your post appears to be uninformed dribble and garbage.Ethos Evoss - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
OK u unknowledged person I won't be even bothering with you .. who DOESN'T understands the reality which is in the world.. A9 finest ? pleease .. you are so stupid bcos u believe media and advertise marketing.. and maybe fake benchmarks when it comes to iphone .. such common person you are.. live you in your dreams.. ;)osxandwindows - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
Well, since you claim that the tests for the a9 are fake, you mind sharing tests of your own?Ethos Evoss - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Test result battery stay last a quarter of day.. on s plus slightly more..s.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
Not enough people realize you're a stupid Huawei fanboy so they still bother trying to speak sense into you, what a waste of time.Ethos Evoss - Sunday, January 24, 2016 - link
Jesus Christ you again ???I don't even own huawei phone there is no any waste time ..why u wasting time here replying u mental.. :DEthos Evoss - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link
@Andrei FrumusanuI must say that THIS TIME Andrej u made an WONDERFUL, TRUTHFUL , NOT biased review for Huawei product ! WELL DONE !
I am starting like anandtech slowly ..
But one thing I need con.. ; Why such MEGA TERA in depth ? Isn't it too much ? silly ;)
Do we really need those cpu's or gpus instructions and those not really friendly graphs just to make call or browse net , play vid ? This review was very very in -depth than previous any smartphone review.. But still great .. I admire those ,who is truthful and real and this time you were..
But overall huawei disappointed me in more aspects..
Disappointments ;
* Yes agree very thick black borders around the screen .. it is just horrible huawei NEVER been like this .. Only solution is going for black screen..
* The display is really bad I can't believe , I had P8 which has the SAME mauf. same technology so how can be mate 8 screen so bad ? P8 is JDI IPS NEO too ...should be the same.. weird
* The battery is Ok thought will be better than Mate7 a lot more.. Can't understand how Mate 2 has the BEST battery life from all smartphones in the world.. But cannot believe that there was better battery life with iphone 6.. I DON'T believe that .. That's on paper DEFO not real world ! So may iphone 6 ppl wouldn't complain !
* The pictures are bad .. disappointment !
* The video recording is just horrible blurred not sharp .. Only one thing slightly saved it that 1080p 60 real motion .. that was cool I would record ONLY with 60fps.
*NO USB C and no fast charge very bad !
And Huawei phones prices increased dramatically so it is NOT Huawei as I knew this back in day !!!
I just purchased S6 Edge just for £280 from aliexpress and advantage is that it has nice brightest screen from all smartphones .. and very good whites .. (in the pas it was disaster with their whites.. looks like samsung learned )
boostern - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Yes we need more reviews like this one. If you want want to read reviews like "camera OK, display mmm, CPU Antutu over 9000!" there are plenty out here. I literally cum when I read a review such deep like this one.Ethos Evoss - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
''cum'' u DAFT ..s.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
This is Anandtech, you read the most detailed review anywhere. The second most detailed is Notebookcheck, they release more reviews but they're not as detailed. As for the "impression"s and "hands-on"s they're everywhere.ManuLM - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
Strange: on display page, the luminance - Power curve shows 821mW for 200CD/m2 but in the table just below you rate it as ~419 mW. Typo, or I did not understand the table "Screen Luminance Power Efficiency 100% APL / White" ?Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
The power curve is power of the whole device, to just look at luminance efficiency I use the projected baseline at 0 nits to get a value for the backlight power only.zodiacfml - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
One trick pony with a high price.zodiacfml - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link
On the second thought, it might not be at all as the next exynos and snapdragon will have slightly higher cpu performance but a lot larger gpu performance which will be coming in a few mionths. And on a Samsung, it has more polish and maturity at the same price.s.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
You're right. S7 is right on the Horizon and it will be massively superior in most aspects to this, though they're not completely comparable as the size difference makes for different battery life and heat dissipation, and maybe even signal strength.grrrgrrr - Friday, January 8, 2016 - link
Mate 8 user here. Under light usage a single charge lasts 3~4 days easy.I really couldn't parse the battery life benchmarks when I have to charge a device rated 70h every day and another rated 100h lasts 4 days.
p51d007 - Friday, January 8, 2016 - link
I've been using a Mate2 since May 2014, the 5.1 update came June 2015. 100% satisfied with it and the performance. I'm not a gamer, but I do a ton of phone, text, web, PHOTOS, etc. Battery life is still outstanding. It's the most stable phone I've owned since my Star-Tac phone. Stays on 24/7, never gets rebooted, no FC, lockups NOTHING. Now, that being said, I wouldn't mind getting the Mate8, but I'm sure not going to shell out the bucks they want for one. The Mate2 was the perfect performance/price point, but it appears that Huawei wants to go all Apple/Samsung pricing. You think consumers, use to the iphone/Galaxy line are going to shell out that kind of money on a virtual unknown? Not going to happen.Personally, all these high end SOC devices are worthless to the bulk of consumers in the first place. Most users, other than the high end benchmark nuts or gamers aren't even going to come CLOSE to utilizing that much horsepower for a phone. Looks like I'll stick with my Mate2 a while longer til it dies. Forking over almost $1,000 for a stupid phone is NUTS, especially when the Mate2 only cost me $300 bucks almost 2 years ago (and now is even less!)
s.yu - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
Oh please, Mate S and P8 were much much worse phones for a similar, or higher price. They really want to go Apple pricing, I can see they want to so bad from their Mate S pricing, but they're not there yet so they reverted to a sane price level with the Mate 8. Lucky you, for the meantime.milli - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
Last page:' I’m now eagerly looking forward to testing the Snapdragon 820’s Kyro and Samsung’s Exynos 8890’s M1 to see ...'
KRYO
Rdmkr - Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - link
The 78% screen to body ratio made me somewhat excited for this device. I think it's the highest found on any phone, shared only by lenovo's vibe Z2 Pro and some Sharp Aquos models. Of course this only expresses the relative bezel size, which is helped by the high overall size of the phone. The Sharp Aquos phones are king in terms of absolute bezel size. The Vibe Z2 Pro gets a special mention for squeezing capacitive buttons on the tiny bottom bezel as well.doyleconan - Monday, February 1, 2016 - link
Is there any updates on the camera focus issue?KCKY - Thursday, February 18, 2016 - link
Any news yet on the Camera update ? :)DaveTheWave - Wednesday, February 24, 2016 - link
How about a refreshed camera test?Haven't there already been updates that improved the camera?
WiZARDka - Saturday, March 26, 2016 - link
Any news/update on the camera?doyleconan - Tuesday, April 5, 2016 - link
I brought the phone and tested the camera. With the latest version frameware the camera focus correctly. Although, the image taken sometimes slightly under exposed, when shot with auto exposure.moh.moh - Sunday, April 10, 2016 - link
Are you sure? Because every other phone with this sensor, (xiaomi mi5 and the oppo r9 plus) also seems to produce rather blurry shots.; so is the sensor the problem? I therefore really hope that this review can be updated, since you state the camera has improved. Furthermore, have you also seen any inprovements in low light?Moonraker - Thursday, August 25, 2016 - link
Great review Andrei thank you. 2 points/questions - haven't the battery life tests been superceded now? I wond er too if you're going to update the camera section of the review in the light of firmware updates (assuming these have happened!) Perhaps you could rerun the battery life tests using the new benchmarking and include a report on these at the same time as the camera review?Whocares? - Friday, November 18, 2016 - link
Not that it matters anymore since the Mate 9 has been released, it would have been nice if you updated the review regarding the camera like you said you were going to do. I hate reviewers who promise to do something and then don't come through! Screw Anandtech!cmvrgr - Thursday, February 23, 2017 - link
You forgot to mention that this is the last - Dual Sim Full Active - Mate from Huawei and that is a reason that Mate series got many buyers.(This is the reason that I ditched Mate 9 because it is Dual Sim Dual Standby and I bought a new Mate 8 and if they will not bring back the DSFA Feature in Mate 10 I will "fly" away to other brand).