With a 6” screen flanked top and bottom by
some proportionately sized bezels, the Huawei is most certainly a looker.
There is nothing but the Huawei logo on
the bottom bezel, a speaker, front facing camera and sensor on the top.
One great thing on the front is that there are virtually no side bezels
meaning that the screen takes up a quoted 83% of the device.
The top of the device has the headphone
socket and a microphone, the bottom holds the USB charging port with another
microphone, the left hand side has the SIM card slot and the Micro SD card
slot. The SD slot is only accessible using a SIM removal tool which I’m not
too sure is a good idea and is certainly not handy for swapping cards quickly.
The right hand side houses the power and volume controls.
The back is where the magic happens.
As well as the camera and LED flash there is a fingerprint sensor.
The model that we had is silver and white
whilst a black and white and a gold model is also available.
Make no mistake, the Ascend Mate 7 is a
good looking device. It feels pleasantly weighty, the rear is finished in
an attractive silver and the aluminium unibody design certainly feels sturdy.
Underpowered this device certainly is
not. Whilst the RAM could be a little bigger (2GB is the default)
the processor is a behemoth.
The full specs are as follows:
- Size: 157mm x 81mm x 7.9mm
- Weight: 185g inc battery
- IPS LCD Capacative touchscreen
- Display: 6” FHD screen, 1080p (1920 x 1080), 368PPPI, 16M colours
- Corning Gorilla Glass 3
- Processor: Octo-core Hasilicon Kirin 925 (4×1.8GHz + 4×1.3GHz)
- GPU: Mali 628
- OS: Android 4.4.2 / Huawei Emotion UI 3.0
- RAM: 2GB
- Onboard Storage: 16GB
- Connectivity: LTE / GPS / Wi-FI / Bluetooth 4.0 / MicroUSB / GSM / UMTS
- NFC
- Bands: LTE 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/20/28, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, UMTS 850/900/1900/2100
- Camera: 13MP rear camera, 5MP front facing, 1080p video recording / playback
- Battery: 4100mAh
- Colours: Silver / Gold / Black
- Accessories supplied: Headphones / Charger / USB cable
The Ascend Mate 7 is certainly a fully loaded device with every
type of connection that you could wish for. 16GB onboard storage does
seem a little measly but the inclusion of a MicroSD card slot makes up for that
however swapping cards whilst out and about is a virtual impossibility due to
the fact that you need a sim card removal tool to access it. There is a
total of 9GB free out of the box.
The speaker placement is on the rear
however this doesn’t detract from the aural experience and is actually quite
loud whilst maintaining clarity at high volumes. Bass is a little lacking
however this is after all a phone speaker.
The outstanding feature of the Huawei is
the screen. Bright even in sunlight, clear and vibrant it really is a joy
to behold. Viewing angles are excellent and of course as it is so large
detail is abound when watching movies or television streams. The lack of
bezels along the sides really does mean that screen real estate is maximised.
The fingerprint sensor seems to be growing in popularity and the one
included on the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is excellent. A small setup process
whereby each finger that you want recognised is scanned several times means
that 360 degree recognition is available. The sensor itself does a superb
job and is backed up by PIN code access should there be any issues (I had none
in all the time I had the device).
The Ascend Mate 7 runs Android 4.4.2 which for a premium device
is a bit of a disappointment as I would expect the latest version. This
is then overlaid with Huawei’s Emotion 3.0 interface which to be blunt feels a
bit of a mess.
Confusingly there is no app drawer which
means that every app installed has to appear on one of up to 9 homescreens.
There are many pre-installed apps and games, some of which are
useful, some not so. The pre installed themes are frankly awful and
whilst you can download more none are too appealing.
Despite only running Android 4.4.2,
Huawei have seen fit to include the Nav buttons from Lollipop, these can be
reconfigured in an order that suits the user and also in what Huawei calls one
handed mode. In reality it makes little difference as unless you are Big
Daddy or Giant Haystacks (if you know who I am talking about then you are
showing your age) then your hands will simply not be big enough.
All of the usual Google apps are bundled
along with Huawei’s additions. In short, Polaris Office, Bitcasa,
Todoist, Zinio, Asphalt 8, Bubble Bash Mania and Real Football 2015 are all
included as well as Huawei’s phone manager, music player, gallery, file
organiser, contact manager and notepad.
he notification bar has 2 sections, Notifications and Shortcuts.
Notifications does exactly what it says whilst Shortcuts offers a
shortcut toggle to many of the settings and includes a Screenshot button, a
restart button, a multi screen option and an ultra battery toggle. These
buttons can be edited and removed if you so desire.
The settings menu is vast leading to a
massive array of configurable options that could be confusing to someone that
is inexperienced with Android. Even after a couple of weeks I am finding
options within the settings that I didn’t know existed. You really do
need to spend a great deal of time playing in order to find all the nuances and
settings that will get this phone exactly the way that you like it.
The camera on the Huawei Mate 7 is a 13MP with LED flash
offering and it does rather well. Whilst very few handsets will ever be
capable of replacing a dedicated stand alone camera the Huawei is more than
able to provide some good shots and offers up a large range of effects and
functions.
There is a beauty mode which smooths out
the skin and enlarges eyes when taking pictures of faces, a panorama mode, the
standard HDR and a best photo mode (similar to ZOE on the HTC handsets).
The ability to take a photo with the fingerprint sensor is
offered as well as voice control. As with other areas of the Mate 7,
there are multiple functions here including manual ISO adjustment, manual White
balance, exposure settings, saturation settings, contrast and brightness
settings and the ability to add an audio note.
There is also the option to add a
pre-defined filter a la Instagram, modes include Nostalgia, Childhood, Dawn,
Dusk, Pure and many many others.
The front facing camera is a 5MP affair
and adds the ability to video call using Skype or Hangouts in 720p resolution
and offers up a more acceptable image quality.
