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- Improved performance
- Lengthier battery life
- Still a fantastic camera
- Brexit induced price hike
The Huawei P10 was released in early 2017, and at the time it offered fantastic performance and an excellent set of cameras. Fast-forward to 2018, and the P10 is now a lot cheaper. Originally reviewed at £550, last year’s flagship can now be found for under £350 a pretty tasty price for an excellent smartphone.
Our original review of the smartphone continues, below.
Huaweis P9 was a dual-camera marvel so good that it took us unawares last year. We were impressed, recommending it over some pricier flagship counterparts for those looking for a great camera phone on a budget. This years P10 improves on its Leica-branded forebear with a flashier design, speedier internals and Android Nougat, but is it worth the upgrade?
Lets address that Brexit-sized elephant in the room first. At launch, Huaweis P10 costs £100 more than its predecessor did back in May 2016. Thats a hefty price bump for a phone considering the same camera is exactly the same as the original.
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So what exactly are you paying for here? The biggest difference lies in the P10s improved physical appearance, which is uncannily iPhone 7-like in design. Huawei has tossed away that easily-scratched all metal silver back of the P9, in favour of a smooth, matte black rear thats far easier on the hands (and pocket). Whether that swanky redesign is worth the £100 price hike, though, is debatable.
Remember that fingerprint sensor on the back of the P9? Well, Its gone. Alas, Huawei has opted for a front-facing sensor embedded in the home button below the screen. Extra functions can be added with long presses returning you to the home screen and left swipes bringing up recent apps. Its a speedy means of navigation, but on-screen buttons can be enabled should you prefer.
Cast your eyes toward the right edge of the phone and youll spot the power button and volume rocker, while the left houses the SIM and microSD card tray. Theres nothing on top of the phone, but youll find a 3.5mm headset jack and USB Type-C charging port on the bottom. As for colours, the P10 is available in eight pretentiously-named colours: Ceramic White, Graphite Black, Dazzling Gold, Rose Gold, Prestige Gold, Greenery, Dazzling Blue and Mystic Silver.
Huawei P10 review: Performance and battery life
Huaweis latest handset also gets a healthy update to its internals, with the P10 packing an octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 960 clocked at 2.4GHz paired with 4GB of RAM. Theres a healthy 64GB of on-board storage and a microSD slot so you can add up to 256GB of extra storage.
That sounds impressive, but the really impressive thing is how much of a speed increase this represents. A Geekbench 4 single-core score of 1,940 sees a bump of 12.4% while its multi-core processing fared a little better at 6,299 for an improvement of 29%. For comparisons sake, this is about the same level of performance as the Huawei Mate 9, faster than the OnePlus 3T, Samsung Galaxy S7 in multi-core and the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. Its clearly no slouch.
Huawei clearly has its number-crunching game sorted out. Whats even more impressive is how much graphics performance has improved over the past year. Its night-and-day compared with the Huawei P9. A GFXBench Manhattan 3.0 on-screen score of 50fps is positively stellar, a far cry from the P9s meagre 12fps. With this, youll be whizzing around Asphalt 8s tracks with no problem at all, and blasting away enemy ships in Sky Force: Reloaded without seeing a single dropped frame.
Even with this boost in power, though, stamina hasnt suffered. In fact, battery life has seen a bit of a nudge up, though this is one area the Huawei P10 does lag behind its counterparts. In our video playback test, the P10 lasted 13hrs and 12mins, which isnt terrible, especially compared with the P9s 11hrs 24mins. Itll last a day on a single charge, as long as youre careful.
Huawei P10 review: Software
As you might expect, the Huawei P10 ships with Android 7.0 Nougat right out of the box. The bad news, though, is that Huaweis EMUI-laden overlay still gets in the way a bit too much for my liking.
Sure, the differences arent quite so polarising nowadays and EMUI doesnt look quite so bad. However, Huawei persists in replacing Googles pull-down notifications menu with its own space-wasting effort, and the lack of a proper app drawer is very irritating.
Huawei P10 review: Display
On the front of the P10 youre treated to a 5.1in, 1,080 x 1,920 resolution IPS display. Its bordered by seriously thin bezels on either side, and text and images looked perfectly sharp and crisp, despite the fact thats its a little down on pixel count compared with phones like the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. The P10s pixel density is still perfectly respectable, though at 432ppi.
That IPS display was able to display 99.9% of the sRGB colour gamut according to our X-Rite colour calibrator, and the contrast ratio of 1,219:1 does plenty of justice to the photos captured by the P10s dual-cameras. A maximum screen brightness of 497cd/m2 doesnt represent a meaningful improvement over the P9s 489cd/m2, but it will serve you well when its sunny outside.
Huawei P10 review: Camera
Now to the best bit, the Huawei P10s Leica-branded dual cameras. Youll be pleased to hear they still hold up. In fact, the rear cameras havent seen a lick of change. Not that this is a bad thing as theyre capable of producing some wonderfully detail-rich shots. That is of course, so long as you have plenty of natural light.
Take a look below at the picture I took in Barcelona at MWC. Those dual 20- and 12- megapixel cameras did a phenomenal job, producing some seriously bright and punchy colours with lavish detail. Intricate brickwork, something many smartphone cameras typically tend to struggle with, is incredibly well-defined, while the clear blue sky is wonderfully well-balanced with the shadowed streets below.
In good light, the P10s camera is a match for anything on the market. The trouble is that in low light the f/2.2 aperture on both rear cameras still holds them back. They simply dont let enough light in, and the P10 struggled in our low-light indoor still-life test. Objects were ill-defined, with noticeable blur around the stuffed bear and the head of the wooden mannequin, while noise could clearly be spotted in darker areas.
Despite that, colour production was still on point: take a look at those vibrant pens and colour swatch and youll see what I mean. The rear dual-LED flash did help quell some of these issues, but not massively so.
The only change lies in that 8-megapixel front-facing snapper. Its Leica branded this time around whereas with the P9 it wasnt, with a brighter f/1.9 aperture up from the P9s f/2.2. There doesnt seem to be much difference when it boils down to picture quality, but it did fare much better in low-light. Heck, it seemed to do a little better than the rear cameras in dim conditions.
Huawei P10 review: Verdict
With the P10, Huawei continues its tradition in offering one of the best smartphone cameras on the market. Those Leica branded dual-cameras are a real treat, and well worth the price of admission alone. Pair that with a serious bump in performance, slightly lengthier battery life, and a sleeker more hard-wearing design and you have a smartphone thats almost a match for the very best around.
The price hike is disappointing, and brings the P10 in closer contact with the Google Pixel (£599), iPhone 7 (£599) and Samsung Galaxy S7 (£523), and while its a decent phone with great performance and good looks, its camera and software arent quite as good as the opposition just yet.
Regardless, though, the differences are small, certainly on the negative side, and if you have your head turned by the physical design and slightly lower price of the P10 you will likely not be disappointed. The Huawei P10 rightly earns a Recommended award.
