It’s been over a year since we reviewed the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 and Ascend Mate 2. For many people and including ourselves at AnandTech these were among one of the first experiences with Huawei as a smartphone device manufacturer. Ever since our review of the Honor 6 I kind of fell into the position of being the main editor in charge of Huawei device reviews and thus experienced first-hand the company’s efforts in the high-end as well as their increasingly visible expansion into western markets.

The Mate 8 is the successor to the Ascend Mate 7, and in a similar fashion to the P8 last spring the phone drops the Ascend name in favour of better establishing the Mate brand for Huawei's large premium phablet models. The Mate 8 is in a lot aspects an evolutionary design over the Mate 7, but at same time comes at the moment of a generational shift brought forth by the adoption of the new Kirin 950 SoC. With help of the new chipset and other improvements we’ll see that Mate 8 not only manages to raise the bar for Huawei but also to deal blows to competing devices in several aspects, making the phone a worthy candidate in the upcoming 2016 smartphone generation battle.

Introduction & Design

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)
(NXT-L29)
(NXT-L09)
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 3GB + 32GB China: ¥2999-3199 (USD~479, ~449€) - Europe: 599€
4GB + 64GB China: ¥3699 (USD~591, ~554€) - Europe: 699€
4GB + 128GB China: ¥4399 (USD~703, ~659€) - Europe: N/A

At the heart of the Mate 8 we find HiSilicon’s new Kirin 950 SoC. We were lucky enough to be one of the few western media outlets able to attend the SoC’s launch event in Beijing earlier in November and deliver an in-depth look at what the new chipset promises in terms of improvements over past Kirin generations. As a short overview, the Kirin 950 is a big.LITTLE SoC with the first mobile implementation of ARM’s Cortex A72 cores in a quad-core configuration clocked in at 2.3GHz, accompanied by a quad-core Cortex A53 at 1.8GHz acting as the little cluster. Graphics is powered by a Mali T880MP4 GPU with a frequency of 900MHz. Past Huawei devices’ major weak-points were related to the choice of SoC and as we’ll see shortly in the dedicated SoC section we’ll see that HiSilicon was able to fulfil and even exceed some of our expectations of both ARM’s new Cortex A72 as well as the Kirin chipset as a whole.

In terms of memory the Mate 8 comes in either 3 or 4GB RAM variants, depending on whether one chooses the 32 or the larger 64GB and 128GB NAND storage models. Expandable storage is par for the course as we have a combo-dual SIM slot with the choice of either employing a second (2G only) nanoSIM or to use the slot as a microSD card expansion.

Going over the design we see a front exterior that doesn’t change all that much when compared to the Mate 7, with only subtle details being able to give hints that this is a new model. Keeping the same form-factor, the Mate 8 maintains a fairly large size coming in at 157.1 x 80.6 x 7.9mm. Even though the device is large, it’s able to sport a very good screen-to-body ratio for the large 6” 1080p JDI Neo-IPS screen. The top and bottom bezels particularly make the Mate 8 quite short compared to other devices of similar screen size.

 
Mate 8 vs Mate S - Mate 7 vs Mate 8

A rather disappointing continuation of the Mate 7 design is the reintroduction of a ~2.5mm thick inactive black border around the screen that is found on all colour-variants of the phone. This creates a quite distracting window-frame effect on the lighter coloured models. I wish Huawei had been able to get rid of the distracting feature or at least chosen to keep the front all black for all colour models.


Mate 7 vs Mate 8

It’s on the back and sides where we see the Mate 8 diverge from the Mate 7’s features as there are several design language changes for the various components. First of all the square trio of camera lens, LED flash as well as fingerprint sensor have now become circular. The finger-print sensor saw the biggest design change as the is no longer a visible metal rim around it and is now similar to the one found on the Mate S and Nexus 6P. Previously the feature on the Mate 7 was described as being used to detect one’s finger while the device and fingerprint sensor were asleep, something the new models either are able to camouflage away or outright no longer require. The Mate 8 also was able to dispose of the small gap above the camera which served as an antenna line for the NFC coil, all while still keeping NFC funtionality.

The main camera is now powered by a Sony IMX298 16MP sensor module with OIS and an F/2.0 aperture optical lens system. This is a normal Bayer RGB sensor as opposed to last year’s main usage of the RGBW IMX278. Huawei also drops the usage of an external Altek ISP and instead relies on the Kirin 950’s new ISP capabilities. The front camera remains the same IMX179 F/2.4 8MP module as found on the P8, Mate S and Nexus 6P which I found to take excellent front-facing shots.

The top and bottom of the phone is no longer wholly composed of plastic covers that go over the sides of the device, but is now composed of aluminium separated by antenna lines on the sides and with a plastic lid on the back side. In a sense this design stands out less than the antenna lines on the Mate S and may be the rationale behind the choice. On all sides we find a coarse brushed metal finish (actual brushed metal) that gives the device much firmer grip than other devices but is also harder to clean if dirtied by fine elements.

The speaker is moved from the back of the phone onto the bottom, much in the same layout as found on the P8 and Mate S. Also the same as the previous designs who introduced this new layout, there’s only one speaker to be found as the other grill only serves for aesthetical symmetry and the main microphone.

A large ergonomic improvement is found on the sides of the device as the new 2.5D glass screen is no longer surrounded by a raised plastic edge but instead uses the same hard compound filling between the glass and metal body. The back also has a curvature of a larger radius, which together with the 2.5D glass gives the impression of a thinner device although the Mate 8 isn't any thinner than the Mate 7 at its maximum thickness.

My sample was a 32GB silver variant, so I can only comment on the finish of this model; I found that the new anodized aluminium finish to be quite hard to clean as dirt was very easy to stick to the grain of the metal. The positive side of this characteristic was that the device was much better to grip than the comparatively smoother finish of the silver Mate 7, with the gunmetal grey of the Mate S representing a happy medium between both designs.

Software UI - EmotionUI 4.0
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  • syxbit - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link

    Despite only using the MP4 variant of the Mali-T880, I wish Google had used this SoC in the Nexus 6P.
    The Snapdragon 810 is garbage, and the only bad thing about my phone. It gets very warm when simply browsing webpages.....
  • jjj - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link

    Page 2 you do 810vs 820 FP comparison, wrong paste.
  • tuxRoller - Tuesday, January 5, 2016 - link

    Unless your browsing includes js/webgl heavy games, out benchmarks something is wrong with your phone.
    The only time I've noticed my gf's n6p getting noticeably warm was during benchmarks.
  • IanHagen - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link

    Is your girlfriend using her phone outdoors in Winnipeg, by chance?
  • tuxRoller - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link

    Oymyakon. Why do you ask? Do you think that's significant?
  • IanHagen - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link

    Well tell her to be careful! The ground might be slippery with all this ice and fish laying around, she might slip and drop her brand new phone. That would be a problem. Erm... what was it we were talking about again?
  • tuxRoller - Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - link

    Oh, don't worry! The fish aren't a problem any longer. It's really the roving superpacks of wolves you need to watch out for...also, her phone has a case:)
  • Ethos Evoss - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link

    Ppl never learn that ShtDragon is epic fail..
    Now SD 820 is going to be tested on LeTV on purpose in case of ignite..
    LeTV not realising qualcom used them as experiment and others manufs. will be watching.. bcos nobody wants to implement SD anymore..
  • syxbit - Wednesday, January 6, 2016 - link

    SD800 and SD801 were brilliant chips, and SD805 was pretty good, but came out when others were further along with 64-bit. People have hope that SD820 will bring them back on track. However, if SD820 is bad, QCOM will risk losing permanent trust with everyone. They really have to nail SD820. Even Google was rumoured to be so unhappy with QCOM after SD810 that they began looking into designing their own SoC designs.

    SD810 was so horrifically bad, that they really owe everyone an apology. SD810 singlehandedly caused most flagship 2015 devices to suck, overheat, and have bad battery life. Worse still, QCOM denied the problems, claiming that people were just just spreading FUD about overheating SD810.
    Just look at QCOM's stock. They're at almost half their value from a year ago. All attributable to SD810. They need to apologize, and admit that SD810 was awful before people will believe their claims for SD820.

    However, most people believe that QCOM's custom SoC were great, so there's hope for SD820.
  • extide - Thursday, January 7, 2016 - link

    Well, the benches for the 820 are out ... and they look pretty good so I am pretty confident that the 820 will not be a disappointment.

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