Huawei P10 Review: Plans | Pricing | Specs

Huawei has priced the P10 to sell, but that doesn’t mean it has skimped on either features or style.

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

• Read more on the Huawei P10's design

  

  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

• Read more on the Huawei P10's camera

  

  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

• Read more on the Huawei P10's performance

  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

• Read more on the Huawei P10's battery life

  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

• Read our full Huawei P10 verdict

  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

Huawei P10

A compact powerhouse

Enjoy all the features of a top-of-the-line smartphone in a pocket-friendly package with the Huawei P10.

Buy Now

• The Huawei P10 retails for $899, but can currently be found for around $600 from online retailers like Catch and Mobile Citi.