The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is one of IFA 2014's best surprises.
Huawei delivered a very impressive phablet that we'd love to tell you
more about. Ready? Here we go!
Design
The
Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is an unmistakeably premium device, and this is
the exact first impression you get when you get the chance to try it
out. It has a full-on aluminium unibody construction with extremely slim
bezels and very thin sides. It's a beautiful phone, and another example
of Huawei's level of attention to design, which is rare in the Android
realm. The phone might be thin, but its on the heavier side at some 6.53
oz (185 g) of pure mass, and there's no getting around the fact that
it's a huge phone. Slim bezels and thin sides can only go so far!
Display
Huawei's
phablet has a massive 6-inch 1080p LCD display that looked very good
when we saw it. We'll reserve our final judgements for the time we take
appropriate screen measurements, but we're definitely pleased with what
we saw. As the industry is inching towards QHD as the de-facto high-end
standard, 1080p still remains a terrific resolution for all screens
above 4.7 inches - including those on the wild 6-inch side! The pixel
density on the Mate 7 dials up to a Retina-satiating 367ppi. There's no
pixelization of any kind, and the viewing angles are great.
Interface
To
get the Ascend Mate 7 going with a bang, Huawei introduced EMUI 3.0 -
the latest version of its custom Android interface. It is distinguished
by an extremely sleek, modern style that looks like it was put together
by Western designers. Clean lines, moderate translucency, impressive
animations, and a wide selection of software features are the bullet
points to EMUI 3.0. There's nothing too flashy, though - in fact,
Google's Material Design principles have been honored to some degree,
resulting in plenty of white, and many soft buttons and rounded corners.
In terms of functionality, Huawei has added a privacy protection layer,
a cloud service, a customer support service, an optimization app, and
more bells and whistles that we're looking forward to experiencing for
ourselves in a more intimate setting (now quiet your subconscious).
Processor and memory
The
Ascend Mate 7 sports an exotic hardware profile - it has an octa-core
HiSilicon Kirin 925 1.8GHz processor designed by Huawei itself, paired
with a Mali-T628 MP4 GPU and 3GB of RAM. Not long ago, the Chinese mogul
boasted that the Kirin K295 outplays the mighty Snapdragon 805 in
benchmarks, which, theoretically, means this configuration is quite
future-proof. In our hands-on time, we couldn't notice slowdowns or
hickups. To add to the positive impression, chances are the Mate 7 was
running a final version of EMUI 3, since the ROM is already available to
download for select Huawei devices. If the phablet keeps us as good
when it hits retail, then you will have a fine everyday performer on
your hands. We're yet to see how this configuration fares with heavy 3D
gaming, though.
Camera
The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 has a
13-megapixel camera with a single LED flash, F2.0 aperture size, and a
lively camera experience typical of Chinese smartphones. We're talking
about features such as Beauty Mode, Ultra Snapshot, All-Focus, and Audio
Note. The front camera is a 5 megapixel unit that's very capable of
taking selfies with its 88 degree-wide angle lens and 4th-generation
Sony sensor technology. We didn't have the time to put the Mate 7
cameras through their paces, but the potential is undeniably there.
Conclusion
The
Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is a big, beautiful phablet! The slim metallic
build, the huge 1080p display, the speedy configuration, beautiful
interface, and promising cameras all contribute to one of the best, and
most surprising competitors to smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy Note 4
and LG G3 we've handled recently.
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