There is no clearer illustration of this than the evolution of the mobile phone. With each new release, we expect more advances in connectivity, display size and clarity, camera functionality, battery life, storage capacity and sheer computing power.
We expect a few surprise features along the way... maybe it's water-proof. Maybe it charges wirelessly. Maybe this time it won't bend when you put it in your pocket.
We expect each new phone to work faster than the one before.
But I never expected this...
The Huawei Mate 8 is one of those phones that makes you do a double take... when you first see it in the box, when you first hold it in your hand and ultimately when you fire it up and make it actually do something. (So that's at least 3 double takes)
It is so incredibly fast.
I don't just mean, "Oh yeah, I guess that seems to work a bit better than the last one."
I mean, "Wait... did that app just install in about a second? That can't be right."
But it is right. So right. The Mate 8's Kirin 950 CPU, combined with a healthy 3GB of ram is not just incrementally faster, the speed of operation is absolutely, significantly noticeable. This of course means more reliability, no glitches, no crashes and the ability to do many things at once, effortlessly.
But unadulterated speed is not the only breakthrough Huawei has achieved with the Mate 8. Let's talk battery life. There's a massive 4000mAh battery in this thing which, to coin a phrase, just keeps going and going and going. But don't think that just because the battery is big it takes a big amount of time to charge, quite the contrary. The Mate 8 ships with a fast charger that can get you from 0-100 in just a couple of hours. Unfortunately, Huawei still hasn't jumped on my wireless charging bandwagon, so the Mate 8 may only be nearly perfect.
Remember, this is a full 6-inch display we're dealing with here, amazingly sharp and bright too, but the extra battery capacity copes with these demands with plenty in reserve. If you're currently carrying a combination of chargers, cables and extra power banks around with you just to get you through the day, this phone can solve those issues in one fell swoop.
The screen is remarkably vivid and between it's size, definition and the processing power behind it all, I was really impressed when viewing 3D content with a pair of VR goggles. The image was smooth and clear, with none of the "chicken wire" effect I've experienced from other handsets' displays.
Although the screen is about as big as you'd ever want to get on a handset, the phone does not feel at all clumsy or difficult to hold. This is probably due to its extreme slimness, combined with the subtle curve to the metallic back casing. It's classy to look at and there's a lot of attention to detail, for example; even though there's only a mono speaker, there are two grills at the base to keep everything looking symmetrical.
Many of the Mate's best features have been borrowed from Huawei's version of the latest Nexus. The most obvious of these is the fingerprint sensor positioned on the back for your forefinger, rather than under the Home key on the front like most other phones. This is a much better scenario ergonomically speaking, because you're finger naturally sits there, as opposed to the somewhat dodgy balancing act required to position your thumb at the bottom of your phone if you're holding it with one hand.
For those of you not familiar with Huawei's stock interface, EMUI, there's really no need to worry. It sits somewhere between the Google launcher and iOS and it's pretty simple to pick up. But the real breakthrough on the Mate 8 OS is finally, FINALLY the home screen can flip into landscape mode. Seriously, what other way would you want to hold a device with a 6" screen? The Mate 8 also offers a few new gestures to navigate around, like sliding your knuckle across the phone to enable split-screen mode. I'm not sure this is a massive time-saver, but it's fun to do.
The main camera is a whopping 16MP and captures the same super-bright images owners of previous Huawei phones will be used to. The front facing (selfie) camera takes 8MP images. Insane. Who wants to see themselves in that high a definition? Anyway, it's there if you want it.
You will be pestered by suggestions to optimise your battery life by closing down background apps, but I consider this more helpful than annoying, especially when you can tell the phone not to ask you again. Amazingly, the alarm still works when you turn the phone off. This is important to note if you've left it in a house of sleeping wives and children and gone to work at 3:30am. The consequences of an unexpected alarm going off at that time are... serious.
It's very difficult to find fault with this phone. It is unquestionably the fastest I have ever used and it has the longest battery life of any modern smart phone I've encountered.
The Mate 8 is like a high performance sports car, the question is, will consumers want to pay a premium price for a handset that isn't a Samsung or an iPhone?
Perhaps this time they will. After all, nobody ever bragged about driving a cut-price sports car.
Click here for more information about the Huawei Mate 8.
No comments:
Post a Comment