The latest Android smartphone from Chinese manufacturer Huawei is another version of the same tune: Impressive hardware, and software that overshadows its nice bits with instances of madness.
Brave is the Android publication that has its American contingent review a Huawei phone. While the company isn't exactly a stranger to top-shelf hardware, it's definitely fighting an uphill battle in this part of the world. That's (probably) going to change with the next wave of Nexus devices, and so it makes sense for us Yanks to take a good long look at the latest from Huawei, the Mate S.
First, a primer. There's Huawei proper, which comprises the Mate line (previously known as the "Ascend Mate" line), as well as the single-letter flagship phones, such as the recent P8 smartphone. (Think Galaxy Note vs. Galaxy S.) There's also Huawei's "Honor" brand, which is sort-of (but not really) separate, bringing the same sort of aesthetic under a more Western-friendly name. (Or so Huawei hopes.)
What we have in the Mate S isn't unfamiliar to Huawei fans. We've got some very solid hardware, coupled with frustrating (but at times also very impressive) software that gives Huawei's phones a distinct look and feel, for better or worse.
There's a good bit to like here. And a good bit to grumble at. Let's take a deeper look.
Huawei Mate S Hardware
If you're looking at the Huawei Mate S and thinking that it looks just a wee bit familiar, well, you're right. Curvy aluminum body with chamfered edges with breaks in the metal for antenna purposes. Sleek lines, solid build.
If the HTC One M7 had a larger twin sibling, the Mate S pretty much would be it. From the back, they're nearly identical save for the size and Huawei's fingerprint scanner. (The HTC One Max maybe would be a better comparison, but the removable metal cover and plastic inserts lessen that a good bit.) This similarity in and of itself isn't a bad thing, of course. The M7 still is one of our favorite Android smartphone designs.
So think M7, only bigger. We're talking a 5.5-inch display in tucked inside that metal body that's reminiscent of the LG G4, only with edges that aren't as sharp. It fits the hand well, and Huawei nailed the positioning of that fingerprint scanner just as LG's nailed the positioning of its rear buttons. Your hand almost instinctively knows where to grip it.
The Mate S design 'influences' are undeniable. Fortunately that makes for a really nice phone.
The bottom of the phone has a pair of speaker grilles that attempt to hide the fact that there's really only one speaker, and it's not all that great once you get things up to a volume where you can actually here them. But with the exposed screws and micro-USB (Type B — not the newer Type-C most of us are waiting on), it at least looks nice down there.
You'll find the power button and volume rocker on the right, and the 3.5mm headphone jack up top. The SIM card/microSD try is smartly tucked into the left-hand side.
For as much as we've enjoyed the overall build of the Mate S, though, the front of the phone leaves a lot to be desired. The AMOLED display is fine indoors — and Huawei does a nice job of using default elements that show off the colors and contrast. But get anywhere near sunlight — overcast even — and the display immediately washes out. After more than a week of using the Mate S, this has proven to be the bigger deal-breaker to me than even the software Huawei's inflicted upon us.
As for the internals, we've got a quad-core Hisilicon Kirin 935 processor, which as of the time of this writing means the phone won't be coming to North America anytime soon. This isn't a processor I'm familiar with in any real sense, but at the same time the phone behaves the way you'd expect a smartphone to behave in 2015. (The 3 gigabyte of RAM help, too.)
Battery life has been decent, getting me through a good 12 to 15 hours on a single charge. And that's saying something given that this isn't, strictly speaking, a North American device, and the battery tops out at 2700 mAh capacity. The banding of the L09 model I've got, however, is impressive in its own right. Consider:
- TDD LTE: B40
- FDD LTE:B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B12/B17
B18/B19/B20/B25/B26/B28 - UMTS:850/900/AWS/1900/2100
(B19/B8/B6/B5/B4/B2/B1) - DC-42M:B1/B2/B4/B5/B8
- GSM:850/900/1800/1900
That's 15 bands of LTE, folks. It's worked just fine here in the U.S., if you're thinking about importing.
More Huawei mate S specs:
| Operating System | Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, EMUI 3.1 |
| Display | 5.5-inch AMOLED ONCELL display, 1920 x 1080 |
| Processor | Hisilicon Kirin 935, Octa Core: Quad 2.2GHz + Quad 1.5GHz |
| Storage | 32GB/64GB or 128GB |
| RAM | 3GB |
| Rear Camera | 13MP with AF, BSI, F2.0, OIS, Dual color-temp LED flashes |
| Front Camera | 8MP, FF, BSI, F2.4, LED soft light |
| Sensors | Accelerometer, Compass, Gyroscope, ALS, Proximate, HALL |
| GPS | Compatible with GPS/ Beidou/ GLONASS/AGPS |
| Additional | NFC, FM |
| Battery | 2700mAh (Typ.) 2620mAh (min.) Lithium Polymer |
| Dimensions | 149.8 x 75.3 x 7.2mm |
| Weight | 156g |
ColorsHuawei Mate S Fingerprint scanner
So the bottom line on the Mate S hardware is that it's solidly done. But it's the fingerprint scanner that really stands out, for obvious reasons. I've used some really bad fingerprint scanners on Android phones. (Most notably, I guess, is what was on the HTC One Max.) Samsung's done really well with its scanners, built into the front home button of its past few phones. But I've never been crazy about having it down at the bottom of the phone. For me it's still awkward, even for the thumb.
Huawei's placement of the scanner on the back of the phone is perfect for me. My finger knows exactly where to go. Some of that is muscle memory after using the LG G4 for a good bit this year, but it's also where your index finger naturally rests.
There are trade-offs, of course. The rear placement means you have to pick up the phone to unlock it. (Though there is a double-tap option to wake the phone, and you can always just use a PIN unlock, which you have to set up as a secondary thing anyway.) You're also pretty much limited to your index finger, or maybe your middle finger.
But here's the important part: This is easily the best fingerprint scanner I've used. I don't even bother using Smart Lock with it — and normally I can't live without Smart Lock. The Mate S is just that fast. Pick up the phone, tap the scanner, and you're done. This bodes well for any (cough) upcoming Nexus from Huawei.
 But on the other hand, the novelty sort of wears off quickly. While it's great being able to unlock a phone this easily, I sort of want it to do more. Exactly what I want the fingerprint scanner to do? I'm not sure. I've turned on the option to use the scanner to expand the notification pull-down, and that's fine, but it just feels like something that works this well should be doing something else. Maybe that's an argument for LG's rear buttons instead. Or maybe I'll change my opinion as Android Pay really gets going — and I think that's going to be the real advantage.
Or maybe I just need to explore the other options more. You can answer a call via the fingerprint scanner. Or use it as a shutter button, or to silence an alarm. You also can swipe through the photo gallery. (And any thing that's not security-related can be done without actually enrolling a fingerprint, turning the scanner into a touchpad.)
So actually it can do quite a few little things. And it does all of them very well.
| Mystic Champagne, Titanium Grey, others vary by region |
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