Huawei P10 Plus Review

The Huawei P10 Plus is the new top range device comes with a processor Hisilicon Kirin 960 processor similar to Mate 9 and Honor 8 Pro. Huawei has kept a low profile in the US market this past year, deciding not to launch its previous flagship phone. Although sister brand Honor has been active in the market all this while, the only significant Huawei-branded device to launch in US recently was the Mate 9. We spent some time with the device and you can check out our Huawei P10 Plus review below.

Huawei P10 Plus is a flagship phone with a bit more to offer than most in terms of camera performance. It features dual 20-megapixel + 12-megapixel primary cameras co-engineered with German optics maker Leica. Thanks to this, the P10 Plus promises photography that stands out, beyond offering everything you’d expect from a flagship device.

Design

The design is completely identical to the P10, measuring 153.5 x 74.2 x 6.98mm and weighs about 165 grams, well distributed. It features an all-metal uni-body, the edges all around the phone are chamfered, and it is slimmer and lighter than other flagships. There are antenna lines running across both the top and the bottom of the phone, and its overall compact shape makes it incredibly easy to hold and use.

The back of the P10 Plus has the camera strip at the top protected by Gorilla Glass and has the twin camera lenses, as well as the dual-tone LED flash and laser autofocus window. The right side of the strip features the Leica branding and slightly below the brand logo that makes this phone stand out.

The front of the phone has the 5.5-inch screen that covered by Gorilla Glass 5 and curves ever-so-slightly off the edges resulting in a rounded feel. Fast and accurate fingerprint sensor is no longer at the back, now built into the home button and three Android keys are displayed on-screen.

On the right you get the volume controls and a red power button; the SIM and microSD tray on the left, while the bottom sees a USB Type-C post, headphone jack, and a single speaker grille. On the whole, the P10 Plus is a very good looking smartphone and one that feels every bit as flagship as its competition.

Display

Compared to the P9 Plus, the display has a 5.5-inch size, but the panel is now an IPS rather than an AMOLED. Huawei has taken a step backward with regard to the panel technology, which also lost the recognition of the pressure, but a step forward as far as resolution, which is now Quad HD with a pixel density of 534ppi.

This display offers an excellent viewing angle, a very high brightness, wide color gamut with DCI-P3 support and also delivers a good contrast in front view. You can set the color temperature through the settings as per your personal preferences, which is good.

Performance

As said earlier, Huawei used HISILICON Kirin 960 processor for P10 Plus, a 2.4GHz octa-core CPU with Mali MP8-G71 GPU which also provides support to the Vulkan graphics libraries, an i6 coprocessor and 6GB LPDDR4 of RAM. The greater amount of RAM allows better multitasking.

For storage space, we have 128GB of UFS 2.1 storage, which of approximately 16GB occupied by system files. By using microSD you can expand the memory and we can also set the default storage location. For connectivity, includes WiFi 802.11ac/a/b/g/n dual-band, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, USB 2.0, GPS with GLONASS, and Galileo BDS. Sensors like accelerometer, gyroscope and compass are also there.

Excellent performance, the apps are open quickly and games demanding high frame rates, which also runs faster and smoother. The user interface is also very pleasant to use. At high multi-tasking or high-end gaming, it perceives some heat on the back but you never reach high temperatures. In this case, it would seem that the processor goes into the thermal throttle to allow for a faster cooling.

Software

The user interface is the classic EMUI 5.1 based on Android 7.0 Nougat. The features are exactly same as other Huawei smartphones including the possibility of dual apps, an extensive customization option. Gesture controls to capture screenshots, by drawing letters opens various applications. The split-screen multi-tasking feature of the Android Nougat can be activated by drawing.

Huawei health application can track our physical activity and record different sports setting. Built-in Phone Manager app can optimize memory and the device space, create blacklists for calls and messages and protect applications with the fingerprint recognitions. Another new feature offered by EMUI 5.1 is the Quick photo editing app, under photo gallery will find a feature called “Highlights” which will automatically select photos and videos for the user. Then with a tap of the button, Quik app will generate video matching the edit to the beat of the music, adding cool effects and transitions. From there, the users will be able to quickly share the video or customize it, further choosing from various filters, transitions, effects and more.

Battery

The battery capacity is a 3750mAh with the rapid charging support which allows reaching the 60% battery level in just 30 minutes using the supplied charger. Using the P10 Plus with a certain intensity are able to cover an average a day with about 4 and a half hours, sometimes five hours, with the active display.

In detail, when streaming on Netflix or YouTube using 4G it consumes about 10% of battery per hour. With Spotify lost up to 4% per hour, with gaming lost about 25 to 30% per hour. There are also various energy saving systems: the classic mode closes running applications in the background, reduces or disables some sound effects and stops receiving push email. The ultra mode, however, simplifies the home screen and lets you use only a few applications. There is also possible to reduce the display resolution and automatically close background applications that require more resources.

Camera

The camera is the signature feature of Huawei P10 Plus, promising better-than-usual performance thanks to its dual cameras and engineering partnership with Leica. It comes with a 12-megapixel RGB sensor with a f/1.8 aperture and a 20-megapixel monochrome sensor. The color sensor captures the color information in any scene, while the monochrome sensor is able to capture more light and detail since it’s only concerned with how much light is coming in and doesn’t need to worry about color.

The camera has a 2x “hybrid” autofocus system that uses the laser and phase-detection autofocus methods together. The use of two sensors also allows for better depth-of-field perception so you can refocus on different parts of the picture after the shot is taken. Additionally, there’s support for RAW format pictures, HDR, Panorama, long-exposure night shots, time-lapse, slow-motion and a detailed pro-shooting mode.

There are an easily accessible and control-filled pro-mode, as well as toggles for enhanced colors and highly-focused shallow depth-of-field shots. The P10 Plus also introduced the portrait mode that allows you to create a blurred background thanks to the three-dimensional face recognition.

The Huawei P10 Plus camera takes excellent pictures which look even better in monochrome mode. The photos look clean and sharp at normal scales, with great amounts of detail visible even in the darkest areas of the frame.

Low-light photography is also absolutely fantastic, thanks to the camera’s ability to capture detail no matter what the lighting conditions. The photos are not grain-free, but they are certainly more detailed and accurate for color than other dual camera smartphones. There is an 8-megapixel front camera which also developed by Leica, so you can take benefit from both the f/1.9 aperture and fast autofocus.

The PRO mode is also available for videos that can be up to 4K resolution at 30fps. In this case, however, the H265 codec is used which saves storage space, but it is not supported by YouTube. Moreover, FHD video at 60fps has used only the optical image stabilization. The digital stabilization is activated in FHD at 30fps and the front camera can also let you record video at a maximum full HD resolution.

It’s fair to say that all of these modes work well and ensure good photos and videos.

Final line

The Huawei P10 Plus is sold by Amazon at a high price list about $699 in US and £589 in UK for unlocked variants. With this price range, the P10 Plus is indeed a bit overpriced in our opinion. The phone is a good with great looks and an excellent camera, but it isn’t quite the all-rounder that other current flagship phones have proven to be.

The Huawei P10 Plus is still a smartphone that does not disappoint in terms of performance and multimedia segment, after all, also has a good battery life. Surely improved video quality, and also forgot to mention the water resistance to IPX3 standard.