Huawei P10 Review: Plans | Pricing | Specs

Name: Huawei P10
Brand: Huawei

Alex Kidman

Last updated: Jan 5, 2021

Huawei’s P10 proves that you can deliver a premium phone experience for well under $1,000.

5.1 inches

Display size

1080 x 1920px

64GB

Internal storage

12MP + 20MP

Rear camera

3,200 mAh

Battery size

Finder rated as Average vs similar phones

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Display

Display Size

5.1 inches

Resolution

1080 x 1920px

Pixels per inch (PPI)

432 ppi

Camera

Rear camera megapixels

12MP + 20MP

Rear camera aperture size

f/2.2

Video recording

Front camera megapixels

8MP

Front camera aperture size

f/1.9

Physical Dimensions

Dimensions

145.3mm x 69.3mm x 7mm

Weight

145g

Connectivity

NFC

Yes

Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

Network category speed

Category 12

Power, storage and battery

Processor

Kirin 960

RAM

4GB

Operating system

Android 7

Internal storage

64GB

External storage support

Up to 256GB

Battery capacity

3,200mAh

Device features

Headphone jack

Yes

Fingerprint sensor

Yes

Water resistance rating

N/A

Wireless charging

Launch price (RRP)	$899
Launch date	2017-05

Go to Huawei's site More info

Alex Kidman

A multi-award winning journalist, Alex has written about consumer technology for over 20 years. He has written and edited for virtually every Australian tech publication including Gizmodo, CNET, PC Magazine, Kotaku and more. He has also been the Editor of Gizmodo Australia, PC Mag Australia, CNET.com.au and the Tech and Telco section at Finder. Alex has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New England and a serious passion for retro gaming.

Where to buy

The good

Superb camera
Good performance
Clever fingerprint sensor
Competitive pricing

The could-be-better

Limited colour choices for Australia
No water-resistance rating
Only a full HD display

What's in this guide?

Design
Camera
Performance
Battery life
Verdict
Pricing and availability
Compare SIM-only plans for the Huawei P10
Huawei P10 specs

Huawei’s 2016 P9 handset was something of a surprise to the mobile market because while it combined a dash of premium style with lenses co-developed by Leica, the Chinese company didn’t charge you a fortune if you wanted to own it.

Huawei followed up the P9 with the much larger Huawei Mate 9 before launching the Huawei P10 at 2017's Mobile World Congress, alongside the P10 Plus and Huawei Watch 2. It’s a slightly more expensive prospect than the P9 was, with more of a focus on style but Huawei has largely made improvements in the P10 that make it a very compelling handset.

Design

A refreshingly-compact design that doesn't compromise on quality
Takes a lot of inspiration from Samsung and Apple, but that's a good thing

Huawei’s pitch for its P-series phones is that they’re all about style, with gently-curved edges around a relatively restrained front bezel, at least at the sides. This isn’t a Galaxy S8 in bezel terms, but it’s equally not cursed with much in the way of excess bulk.
We live in an age of increasingly large and tall premium smartphones, where the smaller models are often those with serious compromises, so it’s genuinely pleasant to see Huawei bringing the internal processor goods in a phone that comes with a 5.1-inch display. That smaller display allows the P10 to have dimensions of just 145.3x69.3x6.98mm with a carrying weight of just 145 grams. It’s been a while since I’ve tested a phone that’s as small, light and pleasant such that I could forget it was in my pocket until it started ringing.
A very large part of the Huawei P10’s appeal is in the extensive colour range that Huawei produces the phone in. No, you’re not going to love every single colour choice, but some of them are truly striking if you like ostentatious behaviour while still leaving a few more sedate choices for the more conservative phone buyer. I personally can’t see the appeal in the green-coloured (sorry, Pantone "Greenery") P10, but to each their own.
The P10 also has a few more subtle design notes that make it stand out. The power button is ridged (a trick Huawei seems to have *ahem* “borrowed” from the HTC 10) and also very subtly ringed in red. This stands out on some handset colours more than others, but it’s a lovely touch nonetheless.
The dual-lens camera array on the rear of the phone sits perfectly flush with the phone body, so there’s no camera bump at all. Like the iPhone 7, the Huawei P10’s front button isn’t a button at all, but instead a tiny motor sitting behind a flat plate. They’re not all original touches, but they’re handled well and with a good sense of style.
Huawei has similarly lifted the idea from Apple of a fixed fingerprint sensor that pretends to be a button, but even that’s licensed technology anyway. What Huawei has done that’s remarkably smart is to use the one button to cover all the standard Android interface basics.
It’s a fine and fast fingerprint sensor of course, but beyond that, if you tap lightly it acts as a back button, while a tap-and-hold takes you back to the home screen. Swiping across the button from the left brings up your recent apps list.
The one mystifying aspect here is that this rather wonderful feature is disabled by default, so if you don't know it's present, you might only use onscreen navigation elements and curse the fingerprint sensor as a waste of space.
There are only a few aspects of the P10 that left us wanting. For one, while the larger P10 Plus sports a WQHD display, the P10 makes do with a 1080p display instead. Ridiculously high resolutions are perhaps overkill on smaller screens, but you can get 1080p on true budget phones these days, and it’s not a great compliment to the P10’s excellent camera either.
It's also a little disappointing that the P10 doesn't include any sort of water resistance. It’s clearly a cost-saving measure that would otherwise tilt the P10’s pricing up unacceptably, but we're seeing it increasingly as a key feature for premium phones. Without it, you get the P10 wet at your own risk.

Camera

Improves on the already impressive camera of the Huawei P9
Best suited to portrait photography rather than landscape shots

Huawei really has pushed hard its association with premium camera maker Leica since the P9’s debut, and with the P10 it’s improved only incrementally, but well. The P10 features a dual-lens array on the rear of the phone that, like the P9 and Mate 9, uses one full colour lens and one monochrome lens. The monochrome lens is a 20MP f/2.2 sensor, while the RGB lens drops a little to 12MP f/2.2.
They’re using the same Leica Summarit lenses as the Mate 9, where the larger Huawei P10 Plus differentiates itself with a higher grade Summilux lens. Both rear lenses feature optical image stabilisation as well as the same hybrid zoom feature as found in the Mate 9.
On the P10's front you’ll find an 8MP f/1.9 single lens that Huawei claims is particularly fine-tuned for low light situations. The P10’s party piece when it comes to selfies is what Huawei calls “adaptive selfies”, where the camera detects if there are any additional faces in the frame and automatically widens the frame if you’re trying to get a group shot. This works well enough, although obviously it could also bring stranger’s faces into frame if you only want a tight selfie shot.
There are plenty of dual camera options for consumers to pick from in the premium space, and it’s a great way to enhance the flexibility of your photography. The monochrome lens on the P10 can capture some really fine black-and-white shots, and while that’s often an over-used shortcut for actual photographic style, it’s one that’s also well worth exploring if you’re keen to enhance your photography skills.
Like the P9, the Huawei P10 performs best when you’re essentially shooting portrait-style shots. Huawei provides a range of post-processing tools, including the predictable beauty modes for further fine-tuned shots. Here’s a range of untouched straight shots from the Huawei P10:
If there’s a weakness in the P10’s camera arsenal, it’s that it’s much better suited to portrait than landscape photography, like the P9 before it. On the video front, it will shoot at up to 4K resolution with just a slight amount of judder if you’re shooting in a handheld style at higher resolutions.

Performance

Snappy and responsive, with similar performance to 2017's most powerful premium smartphones
Huawei's memory management tools promise consistent performance over the long term

The Huawei P10’s internals are more or less what would happen if you put the Huawei Mate 9’s innards into a shrink ray. It’s running on the same Kirin 960 processor as the Mate 9, along with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage. Based on our experiences reviewing the Mate 9, we were expecting good performance out of the Huawei P10, and that’s precisely what we’ve seen.

Here’s how the P10 compares using Geekbench 4’s CPU test:

Handset	Geekbench 4 CPU Single Core (higher is better)	Geekbench 4 CPU Multi Core (higher is better)
Samsung Galaxy S8+	2020	6690
Samsung Galaxy S8	1989	6628
Huawei Mate 9	1925	6068
Apple iPhone 7 Plus	3374	5649
Huawei P10	1922	5633
Apple iPhone 7	3452	5599
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge	1359	5333
Samsung Galaxy S7	1378	4718
Oppo R9s Plus	1466	4415
LG G6	1810	4228
Apple iPhone SE	2449	4171
Google Pixel XL	1629	4051

It’s not quite as solid a story for straight up 3D performance, though. Here’s how the Huawei P10 compared at a benchmark level, using 3DMark’s Ice Storm Unlimited test:

Handset	3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited Result
Apple iPhone 7 Plus	37956
Apple iPhone 7	37717
HTC U Ultra	29968
Apple iPhone SE	29276
Samsung Galaxy S7	28903
Google Pixel XL	28458
Huawei Mate 9	28457
Samsung Galaxy S8	28409
LG G6	28344
Apple iPhone 6s	28171
Samsung Galaxy S8+	28120
Huawei P10	25168

However, outside direct benchmark comparison, the Huawei P10 is a very nippy performer indeed. One feature that Huawei pushes as part of the P10’s arsenal of tricks is the ability for it to manage memory over the long term so that you don’t see a gradual performance decline in your handset. Typically we can’t test handsets long enough to assess that kind of claim, but having had a handset in constant use since early March, it’s a promise that seems to bear some fruit, with the P10 still just as responsive in day-to-day use now as it was when we took it out of the packaging.

Battery life

Surprisingly long-lasting for a 3,200mAh battery in such a powerful smartphone
Easy all-day battery, plus quick charge capabilities

A big part of the reason why smaller phones often have lesser processors in them is so that manufacturers can eke out the most of their often meagre batteries. In a smaller frame you can only pack so much battery storage, so that’s to be expected.

We didn’t expect the Huawei P10 to dethrone the much larger battery behemoth, the Samsung Galaxy S8+, and indeed it didn’t. However, what it did manage to do was impress us overall with its 3,200mAh battery.

Here’s how the Huawei P10 compared in benchmarked battery performance using Geekbench’s older Battery test:

Handset	Geekbench 3 Battery Test Duration	Geekbench 3 Battery Score
Galaxy S8+	14:55:30	8955
Samsung Galaxy S8	11:47:50	7078
Apple iPhone 7 Plus	11:11:20	6713
Huawei P10	9:31:30	5523
Google Pixel XL	9:14:20	5543
LG G6	9:09:30	5495
Huawei Mate 9	9:00:30	5330
Apple iPhone 7	7:50:10	4701
HTC U Ultra	7:25:40	4456
Apple iPhone SE	4:27:10	2671

It is possible to run the P10 down in a single day if you’re a heavy user, although the inclusion of Huawei’s supercharger in the box means it’s a doddle to top its battery up very quickly if you have a power point to hand.

Verdict

An excellent compact smartphone that doesn't skimp on quality or performance

The rise in screen sizes has been a boon if you’re a fan of the phablet form factor, but less so if you want a smaller but powerful phone. There simply aren’t that many options to choose from, and what’s available tends to be hobbled either in terms of performance or battery life.
Huawei’s P10 skips merrily past both of those obstacles, and what’s more, it does so at a price point that puts the rest of the competition on notice. As such, it’s a genuinely compelling prospect if you’re after a smaller phone.
If you wanted the P10’s essential feature set in a larger handset, there’s obviously the P10 Plus, but also Huawei’s own Mate 9, which rocks in with a considerable price premium over the P10 itself. You could also consider any number of mid-range smaller phones, where you’d save on the purchase price in some cases to a considerable degree, although you wouldn’t get the same mix of performance, camera and battery life that you get with the P10.

Pricing and availability

Price: RRP $899
Where to buy: Amazon Australia | eBay | Kogan

Compare SIM-only plans for the Huawei P10