The Huawei P series has been the company’s flagship phone for years now, and the P10 Plus really reiterates this fact. Unveiled at the annual Mobile World Congress, which was held in Barcelona in February 2017, this beautiful phone has now officially hit South Africa’s shores. And boy what an impression it has made.
KEY FEATURES
- 5.5-inch quad-HD display
- 165g
- Emotion UI 5.1
- Android 7.0
- HiSilicon Kirin 960
- 4/6GB RAM
- 64/128GB storage
- Dual 20MP + 12MP f/1.8 cameras
- 8MP f/1.9 front-facing camera
- 3,750mAh battery
Unboxing:
The Huawei P10 Plus is shipped in an elegant white box with a split lid. Opening up the box reveals the beautifully crafted piece of machinery just waiting to be taken for a spin. The rest of the box contains the Huawei SuperCharge Charging block, USB-C cable, earphones, sim eject pin and to my surprise a phone cover. The usual quick start guide is also included. See the below video from Huawei for the unboxing of the P10 Plus.
First Impressions:
The Huawei P10 Plus feels really solid in your hands, with a metallic finish on the back and Gorilla Glass 5 on the front, it really makes the phone feel like an extremely high quality and rigid design. I had the Mystic Silver as my review unit, but the phone is available in numerous other beautiful colours and three different finishes. See the below video for a showcase of available colours.
On first glance, it really seems like Huawei did not hold back with the design of this phone. On the back of the phone, you find the Dual Cameras co-engineered with Leica, this was first brought in with the P9 last year. The monochrome camera has a 20 Megapixel sensor with enhanced fusion algorithms and a 12 Megapixel RGB (colour) sensor. When you pair this with the dual camera Optical Image Stabilisation, the P10 Plus really excels at low light photography. The Studio quality portrait tools and illumination effects really adds to the appeal of this phone and really drives the slogan “Make every shot a cover shot” home. The phone has no camera bump which seriously annoyed me on my current phone which is a great improvement.
Just when I thought that this device cannot get any better I pushed the power button and switched the phone on. The familiar Android OS greeted me (after some first-time setup) with the clear upgrades of Huawei’s own Emotion UI 5.1 with numerous upgrades from the previous versions to make the P10 Plus super-fast and responsive. One of my favourite features that I enjoyed showing off is the P10 Plus’ fingerprint reader that is part of the Gorilla Glass 5 front panel. It has to be the fastest and most accurate fingerprint reader that I’ve seen thus far, unlocking the phone in a split second. The fingerprint reader also doubles as the navigation keys (there is an option to use the classic on-screen navigation keys if you really enjoy these). A normal tap to the reader works as a back button, a long tap takes you to the home page and a swipe across the reader takes you to your recently used apps where you can close apps opened in the background.
The P10 Plus comes with an IR blaster installed that you can use to control your TV, audio system or other appliances instead of their remotes. I set this up and it worked perfectly. Huawei really surprised me with the small additions on this phone with their Knuckle gestures. A double rap of the knuckle on the screen initiates a screenshot, you can draw a shape on your screen with your knuckle to screenshot that particular spot or drag your knuckle across the screen to initiate the split screen feature in supported apps. This was a great addition to the already numerous ways to interact with this phone.
The cameras… oh, the wonderful cameras. I really enjoyed playing around with the camera on the phone. They really packed this phone with a lot of cool camera features. From built-in filters to wide aperture capturing that gives you professional looking pictures, this phone really has it all. For the first time ever on a smartphone, Huawei partnered with Leica to bring us the 8 Megapixel selfie (front) camera that captures twice as much light for amazing selfies. The phone will even sense when there is more than one person and will switch to wide angle shots automatically to ensure everyone is captured.
The battery that has been upgraded to a high density 3750 mAh battery with Huawei SuperCharge technology. Huawei claims all you’ll need is a 30min charge to get a full day’s use out of the phone. As the charging is done at a low voltage and at a low temperature with a 5-gate protection mechanism, charging is not only fast – it’s also safe. I tested out the SuperCharge and I managed to charge the phone from empty to 100% in about 1 hour 40 min. Which is on par with Samsung’s fast charging technology. The only complaint I have here is the size of the SuperCharge charging block, I struggled to find space for the block on my adapters at home next to other plugs due to the block being slightly bulkier than normal travel adaptors.
Conclusion:
I really enjoyed working with this phone and it has surprised me in many ways. The phone is solid and packed with numerous features and gadgets that I love playing with and that really made my life easier. The cameras on the phone are amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute with this phone. Huawei has made a leap in the right direction with the P10 Plus, and it is a huge step for the manufacturer who wants to be the world’s number two phone-maker in two years’ time. The recommended retail price for the P10 Plus is about R13 999.00 which puts the Huawei just under the price bracket of the newly released Samsung S8. If you love taking pictures and you are looking for a solid built phone, get your hands on the Huawei P10 Plus now, you won’t regret it.
The Huawei P10 Plus was reviewed by Ruan Du Toit
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