Huawei P10 Plus Review

Huawei P10 Plus Review

We reviewed the Huawei P10 earlier which is the “younger brother” of the more beefier Huawei P10 Plus. The Huawei P10 Plus comes with a larger display of 5.5 inches and the display is upgraded to a Quad-HD (from the Full HD display found on the regular P10). The phone is noticeably larger in size but other than that the differences are found internally. The Huawei P9 of last year was the companies last flagship device. The P9 is highly regarded as an excellent phone that can compete against big league rivals from the likes of Apple, Samsung, HTC and Sony.

Huawei P10 Plus Specs Sheet:

• Dimensions:
  • 153.5 x 74.2 x 7 mm (6.04 x 2.92 x 0.28 in)
  • Weight: 165 g (5.82 oz)
• Display:
  • 5.5 inch IPS-NEO LCD (2560 x 1440 resolution ~ 540 ppi pixel density)
  • Curved Edge Screen
• System:
  • Android OS, v.7.0 (Nougat)
  • CPU: HiSilicon Kirin 960 (Octa-Core 4 x 2.4GHz Cortex-A73 & 4×1.8GHz Cortex-A53)
  • GPU: Mail-G71 MP8
  • RAM: 4 GB
  • Storage: 64 GB (microSD support up to 256 GB)
• Camera:
  • Dual 20 MP + 12 MP, f/1.8 OIS, Leica lens’
  • Front: 8 MP f/1.9
• Hardware:
  • Battery: 3,750mAh capacity

Design

The P10 Plus is the regular Huawei P10’s older brother. It is a beefier, higher spec’ed device with more RAM, and a bigger, better display panel. Despite the new hardware we still found the P10 Plus to be more of an evolution from the older P9 than a revolution. The build is a full metal construction with the home button found on the front which doubles as a fingerprint sensor and a hub for various gestures which replace on screen navigational buttons. This means users can swipe to go to your recent apps, tap once to go back and tap and hold to activate your “home” button.

The design of the P10 Plus reminds us of the iPhone 7 in many ways including the antennae bands and the curve of the edges. In collaboration with a company called “Pantone” the P10 will be released in various colors including: Dazzling Blue, Rose Gold, Prestige Gold, Ceramic White, Mystic Silver, Dazzling Gold and Graphite Black. A new color called “Greenery” will be offered as well.

As mentioned, the P10 Plus will come in an all metal build with various color options available. Even though the P10 Plus is found to be the larger phone it still manages to sit comfortably in the hand and it does not feel to cumbersome. The dual camera does not stick out from the body and sits flush at the back. With a smooth chamfered edge all the way around, it was comfortable to play with. The USB-C Port and 3.5mm headphone jack is found at the bottom.

Performance

 

The phone is runs on Android 7.0 but also has Huawei’s own custom skin called EMUI 5.1 on top. The usage response was smooth and there were no notable lags. General tasks should not be an issue in high end phones at this point in time of fast advancing technology.

The P10 Plus is loaded with the new HiSilicon Kirin 960 chipset. This is also found in the younger brother the Huawei P10. Huawei also engineered a new memory optimization instruction set into the phone which offers machine learning methods. This method enables your phone to properly optimize memory functions based on usage patterns over time. For the average user this may not be obvious at all as it involves gradual micro adjustments by the system contributing to an overall better usage experience into the future. In addition the memory optimization tool integrates a memory compression algorithm which reduces the size of apps and other software materials into a smaller size to maximize your RAM.

Huawei is offering a 4 GB RAM and a 6 GB RAM option.

Camera

This year, Huawei and Leica is continuing on their strategic partnership together in the Leica branded dual camera module. The Imaging set up has some notable changes in both the hardware and software front. A portrait mode was implemented which is similar to the “super bokeh” portrait mode found on the iPhone 7 Plus. This mode blurs the background behind your subject to create that artificial “bokeh” effect.

The difference from the iPhone 7 Plus is that the Huawei P10 Plus will not have a “zoom” lens as its second camera. Rather the dual camera works together per image to process lighting on the subject’s face and reduce issues found on the photo. The colors are also made to “pop” a bit more compared to iPhone portraits. Interestingly the same features are found on the 8 megapixel selfie camera as well which has a bright aperture of f/1.9.

The selfie camera on the front now comes with face detection that also calculates how many faces are found on the image. The Portrait mode will then defocus the background based on this given information. This will bring into focus all the faces available and defocus the rest of the background.

The dual camera on the back feature dual f/1.8 Leica Summilux lenses. This is significant as this means that the P10 Plus will have two bright lenses available. Low light photography will be more feasible thanks to this. This brings the P10 Plus super close to the Pixel and G6 night shots. The P0 Plus overall proivdes a great camera experience thanks to the better lens found on it.

Early Verdict

The P10 Plus did not fail to impress many attendees at MWC 2017. The phone showcased high end products inside with an advanced chipset, new software that optimizes memory storage, and a fancy design language. The array of colors made available are quite interesting to see as well. We look forward to the officially released version of the hand set and to see its real world performances as reported by us and by users world wide.