It’s been over a year since we audited the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 and Ascend Mate 2. For some individuals and including ourselves at AnandTech these were among one of the first encounters with Huawei as a smartphone gadget maker. Following the time when our survey of the Honor 6 I sort of fell into the position of being the fundamental editor accountable for Huawei gadget audits and therefore experienced direct the organization’s endeavors in the top of the line and their inexorably unmistakable venture into western markets.
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The Mate 8 is the successor to the Ascend Mate 7, and in a comparative manner to the P8 the previous spring the phone drops the Ascend name for better setting up the Mate brand for Huawei’s vast premium phablet models. The Mate 8 is in a considerable measure perspectives a transformative design over the Mate 7, however at same time comes right now of a generational shift delivered by the selection of the new Kirin 950 SoC. With help of the new chipset and different upgrades we’ll see that Mate 8 not just figures out how to increase present expectations for Huawei additionally to arrangement hits to contending gadgets in a few viewpoints, making the phone a commendable competitor in the up and coming 2016 smartphone era fight.
Specification and Features
So let’s dive in for a comprehensive look at what Huawei has managed to bring this year for the Mate series and determine its strengths and possible weaknesses.
Huawei Mate 8 | ||
SoC | HiSilicon Kirin 950 4x Cortex A53 @ 1.8GHz 4x Cortex A72 @ 2.3GHz Mali-T880MP4 @ 900MHz | |
RAM | 3-4GB LPDDR4 @ 1333MHz | |
NAND (NXT-AL10) | 32GB / 64GB / 128GB NAND + microSD | |
Display | 6” 1080p JDI IPS-Neo LCD | |
Modem | 2G/3G/4G LTE Cat 6 (Integrated HiSilicon Balong Modem) | |
Networks (NXT-AL10) | TDD LTE | B38 / B39 / B40 / B41 |
FDD LTE | B1 / B2 / B3 / B4 / B5 / B6-B6 / B7 / B8 / B12 / B17 / B18 / B19 / B20 / B26 / B28 | |
UMTS | 850 / 900 / AWS / 1900 / 2100 ( B19 / B8 / B6 / B5 / B4 / B2 / B1) | |
GSM | 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 | |
Dimensions | 157.1 (h) x 80.6 (w) x 7.9 (d) mm 185g weight | |
Camera | Rear Camera w/ OIS 16MP ( 4608 × 3456 ) Sony IMX298 1/2.8″ w/ 1.12µm pixels F/2.0 aperture, 27mm eq. | |
Front Facing Camera 8MP ( 3264 × 2448 ) Sony IMX179 1/3.2″ w/ 1.4µm pixels F/2.4 aperture, 26mm eq. | ||
Battery | 4000mAh (15.2 Whr) | |
OS | Android 6.0 with EmotionUI 4.0 | |
Connectivity | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac dual-band 2.4 & 5GHz BT 4.2, microUSB2.0, GPS/GNSS, DLNA, NFC | |
SIM Size | NanoSIM + NanoSIM (w/o microSD) (NXT-L09 is single-SIM) | |
MSRP | 3 GB + 32 GB | China: ¥2999-3199 (USD~479, ~449€) – Europe: 599€ |
4 GB + 64 GB | China: ¥3699 (USD~591, ~554€) – Europe: 699€ | |
4 GB + 128 GB | China: ¥4399 (USD~703, ~659€) – Europe: N/A |
At the heart of the Mate 8 we locate HiSilicon’s new Kirin 950 SoC. We were sufficiently fortunate to be one of only a handful couple of western media outlets ready to go to the SoC’s dispatch occasion in Beijing prior in November and convey a top to bottom take a gander at what the new chipset guarantees as far as changes over past Kirin eras. As a short review, the Kirin 950 is a big.LITTLE SoC with the first versatile execution of ARM’s Cortex A72 centers in a quad-center setup checked in at 2.3GHz, joined by a quad-center Cortex A53 at 1.8GHz going about as the minimal group. Design is fueled by a Mali T880MP4 GPU with a recurrence of 900MHz. Past Huawei gadgets’ major frail focuses were identified with the decision of SoC and as we’ll see without further ado in the committed SoC segment we’ll see that HiSilicon could satisfy and even surpass some of our desires of both ARM’s new Cortex A72 and the Kirin chipset in general.
As far as memory the Mate 8 comes in either 3 or 4GB RAM variations, contingent upon whether one picks the 32 or the bigger 64GB and 128GB NAND stockpiling models. Expandable capacity is not bad, but at the same time not enough to blow anyone’s mind as we have a combo-double SIM space with the decision of either utilizing a second (2G just) nanoSIM or to utilize the opening as a microSD card extension.
Going over the design we see a front outside that doesn’t change all that much when contrasted with the Mate 7, with just unpretentious points of interest having the capacity to give indicates this is another model. Keeping the same structure calculate, the Mate 8 keeps up a genuinely huge size coming in at 157.1 x 80.6 x 7.9mm. Despite the fact that the gadget is vast, it’s ready to wear a decent screen-to-body proportion for the huge 6″ 1080p JDI Neo-IPS screen. The top and base bezels especially make the Mate 8 very short contrasted with different gadgets of comparative screen size.
See more cool gadgets of CES 2016