Huawei P8: First Impressions
The Android phone market added a couple of big name new entries in recent weeks, in the form of the HTC One M9 and the Samsung Galaxy S6. Having intentionally held back to avoid the throng of competition, Huawei’s latest high-end offering, the Huawei P8, has joined the fray.
Having dropped its predecessor’s ‘Ascend’ prefix, the P8 is hopefully a sign of things to come from the Chinese manufacturer. The handset highlights the company’s high-end intentions, with a 6.4mm thick metal body and sizeable features list that includes an OIS-enhanced 13-megapixel camera and 64-bit processor.
Is Huawei finally a premium smartphone player that can be held in the same breath as Apple and Samsung? I went hands-on with the P8 to find out.
Watch our Huawei P8 hands-on video below
Huawei P8: Design
Visually the P8, which will set wannabe owners back €499 (£358), is not too dissimilar to last year’s Huawei Ascend P7. It’s not its predecessor that it most closely resembles, however.
I can’t help feel that there is a distinct air of the iPhone about the device. The metal backed finish, with top and bottom antenna bands is an amalgamation of sorts of the iPhone 5S and iPhone 6 – with a bit of the Sony Xperia Z3 thrown in for good measure.
Potential plagiarism aside, the P8 is a beautifully designed product. At just 6.4mm thick, it is very slight, but not unnervingly so. The phone’s metal unibody build is solid. There’s no undue bend or flex and its slightly curved edges means it's comfortable to hold.
The handset holds its 144g weight well, too. I found the phone to be well balanced, with the brushed metal finish giving it a pleasing amount of grip. The P8 is being offered up in four colours on day one, silver, grey, black and Champaign (white).
After an hour with the device, I would go as far as to suggest this is the best looking phone Huawei has made to date. The finish ticks all the requirements of a high-end device, and, pleasingly, this strong start continues beneath the surface.
Huawei P8: Screen
Despite many of its rivals moving to QHD screens, Huawei has persevered with a tried and tested 1080p Full HD panel. I really don’t mind this, though. It's a good-looking screen and a lower resolution should improve battery life.
Colours are vibrant and images pin sharp. If Full HD screens can be this good, I’m not desperate to move to a QHD panel just yet.
It helps that the screen totally dominates the design. Echoing the LG G3, Huawei has reduced the P8’s bezels to near nothingness. The ‘frameless’ display accounts for 78.3 per cent of the phone’s face, the best screen to handset ratio on the market according to Huawei.
This really helps the FHD panel pop. During early usage I also found the screen to be responsive to all the touch screen commands I could throw its way. Even Huawei’s new knuckle touch – which allows you to use your knuckles to annotate screens – worked well.
Huawei P8: Features
Delving deeper, the P8 is no slouch. Overlooking the mainstream likes of the Qualcomm 810, Huawei has bestowed its flagship phone with its own 64-bit custom chip, the Kirin 930. This octa-core processor is built around big.LITTLE architecture, meaning it should provide plenty of power without being too tough on the battery.
This is paired with 3GB of RAM and the option of 16GB or 64GB of internal storage, expandable via microSD. There are also single SIM and dual-SIM iterations of the device.
During my time with the P8, I found the handset to feature more than enough processing power for standard use. Given the limitations of my test period, however, I was unable to put it through its paces on the gaming front. As such, further testing is required before judgement can be passed on the handset’s processing prowess.
The phone’s improvements aren’t hardware restricted either; Huawei’s Emotion UI has been further developed too. A long-standing bugbear of the company’s handsets, the Android skin is more refined and sophisticated than on past devices thanks to a few tweaks. Overlaid on Google’s latest Android 5.0 Lollipop OS, the P8’s interface also features strong customisation options thanks to a selection of interchangeable themes.
All of these features need a good power supply; fortunately this is covered by a 2600mAh Lithium battery. Huawei predicts this will comfortably enable 1.5 days of ‘standard’ use. Again, however, given my limited time with the device, further testing is required before I can confirm these claims.
Huawei P8: Camera
2015 looks set to be the year that smartphone cameras really come to the fore, and Huawei is looking to get in on the act at the ground floor. A major focus for the P8, the handset features a 13-megapixel, OIS-enhanced primary camera further enhanced by a new 4-colour RGBW sensor, dual flash and an independent Image Signal Processor.
From my brief play with the phone, these advancements look to have combined to produce a handset with strong photographic capabilities. Tested in bright sunshine, the P8 handled areas of light and shade with equal aplomb, struggling only in the most direct light. For the majority of our sample shots, there were no white balance concerns or focussing issues.
A variety of new shooting modes – from Time Lapse to Light Painting – have also been thrown into the mix. Further dedicated camera tests are needed before a full verdict can placed on the P8’s imaging abilities, though.
Up front, a secondary, 8-megapixel selfie shooter takes pride of place. Yet another manufacturer to jump on the selfie bandwagon, Huawei has bestowed the P8 with a selection of different vanity shot options. The Group Selfie mode – which is essentially a panorama feature – is just fine. The ‘Perfect Selfie’ option, however, is slightly ridiculous.
In essence, the Perfect Selfie feature is a way of making you look more attractive. A selection of scalable controls allow you to amend profile shots in a number of ways – from smoothing out blemishes to shaving a bit off that second chin. The result? Weird alien heads that are overly smoothed and clearly doctored. That and a lack of self-esteem.
This appears to be one of the few negative on an otherwise impressive device.
Early Verdict
Huawei is edging closer to high-end success. On first impressions the P8 might not worry the S6 or iPhone 6 just yet, but it’s a whole lot closer than the company’s past efforts.
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