Huawei Mate 8 Review: Big and bold

Huawei’s positioning in the mobile phone space is pretty well established, with the vast majority of its phones fitting in the budget and mid-range spaces. The Mate line is Huawei’s stab at a "premium" phone, but like its siblings it keeps a focus on affordability relative to the rest of the premium pack.

Upsides: Why you’d want the Huawei Mate 8

• Nearly bezel-free: The Huawei Mate 8’s design doesn’t rely on having a thick bezel around its 6 inch screen. Instead, the display wraps to just about the edge of the phone itself. This is visually pleasing, but also means it’s easier to grip the Mate 8 in one hand while in use, which isn’t always the case for 6-inch screen phones.
• Good application performance: The Huawei Mate 8 uses Huawei’s own Kirin 950 processor rather than a more stock processor from MediaTek or Qualcomm. Running on Android 6.0, the Mate 8 is generally highly responsive, and this is also reflected in benchmarks. Using Geekbench’s cross-platform benchmark suite, the Mate 8 shows solid performance against a range of premium handsets:
  

  Handset	Geekbench 3 Single Core (higher is better)	Geekbench 3 Multi Core (higher is better)
  Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge	2169	6446
  Samsung Galaxy S7	2156	6240
  Huawei Mate 8	1738	6092
  LG G5	2305	5243
  Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+	1492	4893
  Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge	1324	4626
  Google Nexus 6P	1251	4597
  Samsung Galaxy S6	1347	4569
  Apple iPhone SE	2538	4455
  Apple iPhone 6S	2540	4410
  Apple iPhone 6S Plus	2491	4391
  HTC 10	1942	4191
  Sony Xperia Z5	1358	4134
  Samsung Galaxy Note 5	1111	3686
  BlackBerry PRIV	1196	3396

• Great battery life: One of the advantages of larger phone bodies is that you can cram more batteries in the body of the phone. Like other unibody phones like the HTC 10 or iPhone 6S, the Mate 8’s battery is non-removable. However, it’s a hefty 4,000mAh unit, so testing using Geekbench’s battery test with screen dimming enabled, the Mate 8 showed itself as a very capable performer:
  

  Handset	Geekbench 3 Battery Test Duration	Geekbench 3 Battery Score
  Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge	11:55:00	7150
  Huawei Mate 8	11:14:40	6659
  Samsung Galaxy S7	10:01:20	6013
  Samsung Galaxy Note 5	9:18:00	5580
  Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+	8:24:10	5041
  LG Stylus DAB+	8:11:40	3278
  Apple iPhone 6S Plus	7:48:10	4681
  LG G5	7:36:10	4561
  Alcatel Go Play	7:21:10	2941
  iPhone 6s Smart Battery Case	7:21:10	4407
  Google Nexus 5X	7:14:20	4062
  Oppo R7s	7:00	2800
  HTC 10	6:54:30	4145

  Only the exceptional Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge outperformed the Huawei Mate 8 in battery life, and that’s a phone with a specific asking price much higher than that of the Mate 8.

• Fast fingerprint sensor: The days when the good fingerprint sensors were only found on Apple products are well and truly over. The Mate 8’s circular fingerprint sensor resides on the rear of the phone, and it responds very quickly indeed.
• Decent camera: The Huawei Mate 8’s 16MP camera performs well for most photographic situations. Predictably it does suffer in low light, and it’s not quite the best camera we’ve tested on a smartphone this year, but for most purposes it will respond quickly and with generally pleasing results.

Downsides: Why you might not want the Huawei Mate 8

• Display is mid-range at best: 2016’s premium phones all tend towards QHD display screens, but the Huawei Mate 8 sticks with a plain old 1080p display instead. That probably saves it some battery power, but put it side by side with a richer display and the differences are quite noticeable.
• Ordinary gaming performance: For general processing tasks the Kirin 950 performs well, but where it stumbles somewhat is when you throw games its way. We noticed some stuttering in gameplay compared to other premium handsets, and this was borne out by the Mate 8’s anaemic 3DMark scores. Here’s how it compares against a range of handsets:
  

  Handset	3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited Result
  LG G5	29597
  Apple iPhone SE	29276
  Samsung Galaxy S7	28903
  Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge	28402
  Apple iPhone 6s	28171
  HTC 10	27392
  Google Nexus 6P	24703
  Sony Xperia Z5	19197
  Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus	17981
  Huawei Mate 8	17947

• Emotion UI is an acquired taste: Most Android phone makers have been shifting towards very light makeovers of recent Android OS releases, but that’s not Huawei’s way. It’s not quite the full rework of Android that Oppo applies to its phones, but it’s pretty close, with no app drawer and a range of shiny effects overlaid on common UI elements. Some may find these cute, but heavier Android users will most likely find them annoying.

Who is it best suited for? What are my other options?

The Huawei Mate 8 isn’t without its drawbacks in the fiercely contested premium space, but the essential core of what Huawei’s offering here is essentially solid. If you’re interested in a premium experience without the $1,000+ price point that other premium handsets attract, it’s well worth considering.

In the larger screen phone arena you do have quite a lot of choice. Currently we’d say that Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Edge sits on top of the pack, although if you’re more budget constrained its large screen Galaxy Note 5 is also worth consideration. If you’re in a more constrained budget space, consider LG’s Stylus DAB+ or Oppo’s R9 Plus.

Where can I get it?

Local retailers no longer stock the Huawei Mate 8, but you can still import the handset from overseas retailers like eBay and Amazon.

Alex Kidman

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Alex Kidman is the tech and telco editor at Finder. He's been a technology writer with experience spanning more than 20 years, writing and editing at Gizmodo, CNET, PC Magazine, Kotaku and many more. Alex has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New England and a serious passion for retro gaming.