Huawei Mate 10 Pro Launch

Huawei has always had two mainstream phone lineups, the P series and the Mate Series. We have seen the P series for this year and we were pretty impressed by the offering.

The Mate series traditionally launches later in the year and tends to be aimed at the slightly more business-focused segment of the market. I have used the Mate 9 and it was to date one of my favourite devices.  It is also a competitor to the Samsung Note lineup. Well, the time has come for the latest from Huawei, in the form of the Mate 10 Pro.

I am been lucky enough to be on site for the launch of the Huawei Mate 10 Pro and as such here are the details, direct from the launch event in Munich.

First and foremost what we have here is a stunningly beautiful phone. Huawei has really pushed the boat out with regard to the design, drawing on the lessons learning from the P series. The phone itself now features a nearly bezel-less design and is the first Mate to feature an all-glass body. The screen is a gorgeous “Full View” 18:9 aspect ration and comes in at a 6″ diagonal in size. On the bottom of the phone, you will find a very small area that is set aside for the Huawei Logo and, at the top, a similarly small area for the earpiece and forward

On the bottom of the phone, you will find a very small area that is set aside for the Huawei Logo and, at the top, a similarly small area for the earpiece and forward facing 8MP camera. This is now able to take the ultimate selfie by using “AI” to better identify objects in selfies/portrait shots.

Up here you also find the various different sensors for proximity and light levels. On the very top edge of the phone, there’s an IR emitter for controlling TV and audio systems. Something that we’re not seeing a huge amount of on other devices. This is accompanied by a microphone.

On the right-hand side is where you will find the volume rocker button and also the power key, which is nicely textured to allow you to identify it based purely on feel. This is a nice touch and something I really liked on the Mate 9, so I am glad to see it has been continued.

On the left is the SIM card slot and, as on previous variants, this phone will be available in both single and dual SIM versions.. The phones sold by network partners will most likely go with the single SIM option. If you are able to get a dual SIM option then you can use the secondary SIM slot for another 4G SIM or a MicroSD card up to 256GB.

On the back is where we will find what makes the Mate and P series really special. However, before we get to that there is another detail I want to point out. That is, of course, the Signature Stripe which houses the cameras, the flash and the laser for focusing. This is a really distinctive design and makes the camera array really stand out from the shiny glass surface.

Talking of cameras we find two lenses with a whopping f1.6 aperture. In keeping with Huawei’s standard these cameras are comprised of a 20MP Monochromatic lens and a 12MP RGB lense. The cameras are also separated enough to allow for some very clever focal point separation which I will come back to later. I am pleased that the Mate 10 Pro has kept true to its roots and stayed away from using a telephoto lens like the ones found on it’s rivals. I really like the effects provided by the Monochrome camera, and this is something I miss on my Galaxy S8+.

The cameras themselves have a lot of clever features built into them. You will find the same 4 in 1 hybrid zoom that we have seen before. This comprises of laser, depth, contrast and phase detection focus to give the best possible results. In addition to this, the partnership with Leica has continued with the Mate 10 Pro and they have really worked to make this one of the best cameras in its field. You will find that the camera now has one of the fastest Image sensing processors that Huawei have ever created. This allows for extremely accurate scene recognition when using the camera. This is aided by the “Neural Processing” that is now found on the Hisilicon Kirin 970 processor.

The cameras are flanked on either side by the dual tone flash to the left and the laser emitter and receiver to the right.

Just below the camera strip we find the tried and tested fingerprint reader. I have been very impressed with this on my Mate 9, so I have very high hopes that it will give me the same levels of performance that I found there. The sensor itself will also pull double duty as a trackpad of sorts, allowing you to pull down the notification shade by swiping down.

You can also use it as a shutter button when using either the front or rear cameras.

On the very bottom of the phone, we will find a USB Type C port that will support the fast charging. This is what Huawei refer to as “Supercharge” and it is now one of the very first to be certified by TUV Rheinland. Next to this is the speaker grill and another microphone.

The USB Type C port also has a very clever trick up its sleeve. You can now hook your phone up to any HDMI compatible TV or monitor with just on cable and it will allow you to move into a desktop experience.

This is very similar to what Samsung offers with DEX, however, it does not need the costly addition of a separate dock. Whilst in this mode you will be able to use both the phone display and the external display to work/play on. In addition to this, if you are not able to pair a mouse to the phone, then you can use the phone display as a trackpad. If however, you want a more traditional working environment then you can pair both a mouse and keyboard to the phone with ease. I love this feature and what it will bring to users.

Combine this with the partnership that Huawei have with MobileIron for the enterprise market and we have a real workhorse on our hands here. I can’t wait to use this to show off my picture from the stunning cameras to my friends and family.

The USB Type C is also going to handle your audio as ther eis no 3.5mm headset jack present on the phone sadly.

As for what makes this phone tick, I have already mentioned that the phone is using the newest Kirin 970 chipset that was unveiled at IFA earlier this year. In addition to that, the phone has that Neural Processor. This AI is baked into everything on the phone. It will allow for the phone to learn how you use it and optimize for the best performance as a result. It provides the intelligent scene detection that I mentioned above too. When using the phone in noisy environments, the phone AI will help to identify this and improve your calling experience. There are so many things that can be done by this system that it warrants an article in its own right!

Going back to the calling experience, Huawei has implemented a system called Easy Talk. In essence, this will improve your calling experience for both you and the other caller. Imagine you are trying to make a call from a busy shopping centre. Normally to make yourself heard you would have to raise your voice to a point where you are almost yelling at your phone. Using Easy Call this is no longer an issue as you can just talk normally and the AI will recognise the background noise and cancel it out. This means that the person on the other end of the call will not be aware of where you are and will just hear you and not the hubbub of shopping centre madness. Genius! This is one feature I can’t wait to try out in the real world.

The other important bits that make the Mate 10 Pro power through the daily grind is the memory and storage. Here we have not been left wanting as Huawei have given us 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage to play with. This will make multitasking a breeze and should let it compete very well against the Note 8 from Samsung. To help this multitasking behemoth, we have the very latest software in the form of EMUI 8 and Android 8.0 Oreo from launch.

Here is a list of the specs of the phone for you too drool over.

So we can see here that the phone is certainly up there with the big guns in terms of raw specs and also has some really good features to boot. We will have to dive a bit deeper into all of this in our unboxing and full review which will be coming up very soon. In the meantime here is a brief demo from Peter Gordon of Huawei marketing,

You will be able to buy the device from the Vmall store as of Mid November for 799 Euro and you can preorder them starting soon. We are yet to see what networks in the UK are taking the phone but if the previous P10 is anything to go by then we should be well covered for contract options from the main 4. The phone will be available in Titanium Gray, Midnight Blue and Mocha Brown.

Be sure to check back with us for more content on the Huawei Mate 10 Pro very soon.