Huawei Mate 10 Pro: The artificial intelligence tested
According to Huawei, artificial intelligence is built into the Mate 10 Pro. But how does this affect everyday use? And what else can Huawei's latest device do? I tested the Chinese manufacturer's flagship and have the answers.
Until now, Huawei has been known more for affordable phones than for high-end devices. With the Mate 10 Pro, Huawei now wants to join the big players. At the keynote last October, CEO Richard Yu compared his flagship with the big players Samsung and Apple.
And rightly so, the Mate 10 Pro is not only well made but also well thought out down to the last detail.
The 178 gram Huawei Mate 10 Pro lies in my hand. Or rather, in my hands, because the Mate 10 Pro is a little too big for one-handed operation. The Mate 10 Pro clearly falls into the category of phablets. According to the world's most unreliable source, Wikipedia, the old-fashioned category of phablets includes any phone with a screen diagonal of 5 to 7 inches. That's currently 612 phones from our range, or a rounded 69 per cent. I think the term phablet should be redefined when the opportunity arises.
The Mate 10 Pro no longer has a physical home button. The phone is almost bezel-free, with only a slight edge at the top and bottom of the display. Only 19 per cent of the front does not consist of a display. The fingerprint scanner is located on the back below the cameras. It is well placed, I have never touched the camera instead of the scanner. When the phone is on, you get the so-called soft buttons.
Hello, Kirin 970
The processor installed in the Mate 10 Pro is probably of great interest to you. At least that's what happened to me. I wonder how the artificial intelligence will make itself felt? And what's different about the Kirin 970 processor?
And I'll be honest at this point: I didn't notice much of the artificial intelligence. But that's exactly the point!
In simple terms, the NPU, which stands for Neural Processing Unit, is responsible for the artificial intelligence in the Mate 10 Pro. It analyses your usage behaviour and then adapts the smartphone to you. This all happens offline and in your phone.
The system-on-a-chip, of which the NPU is a part, is designed in such a way that it is not noticed by the user. It takes over part of your thought process. This means, for example, that you don't even think about the fact that you should have changed the settings on your phone because the artificial intelligence does it for you. So because you didn't even think about it, you didn't notice it.
But maybe the artificial intelligence with the whole chip doesn't even exist. Who knows? Because we wouldn't notice the absence of "nothing to notice".
What strikes me is that the phone is simply fast. It opens apps quickly, websites don't take long to load and the fingerprint sensor responds immediately without any noticeable delay.
And the camera?
The artificial intelligence and the 20 megapixel dual camera are closely linked.
As I learned at the keynote, the Mate 10 Pro recognises thirteen different scenarios.
The thirteen scenarios are text, food, stages, blue sky, snow, beach, cats, dogs, night, sunsets, plants, portraits and flowers. The differentiation worked for me in practice.
Only with animals does the phone sometimes struggle. It recognises my dog as a cat and cats as dogs. My dog is now offended and barks. Cats don't bark. In the event.
But the Mate 10 Pro can be forgiven, because otherwise it really worked.
For people like me, who are not blessed with a particularly steady photographic hand, another camera feature is very practical: if you wiggle around, the phone waits until you hold it steady and then takes the photo a barely perceptible moment later.
But don't worry, you won't miss any snapshot moments because the phone only needs a very brief moment of calm and then quickly takes the picture itself.
In the editorial team, I'm the internal resident selfie queen. But I don't take many selfies now. David, Dominik and Luca simply never take selfies. One selfie makes me the queen of smartphone self-portraits.
And I was amazed because the selfies looked good and had a nice mix of colours. However, this was followed by a certain disillusionment for me: because if you take your selfies in portrait mode, you notice the artificial intelligence insulting you.
It insults me by automatically switching on a beauty filter with ten beauty levels. In my case, the filter was on level six out of ten possible levels. Well. So am I six levels ugly? Really now?!
Once I'd recovered from the insults, I wondered. Of course, you can also adjust the levels yourself. The automatic switch-on doesn't just have to do with the existing or non-existing beauty, it also depends on the lighting conditions. This may explain why only level 5 is switched on for my selfie with Dominik, as we were letting the sparse winter sun shine on our faces for the snapshot
The Leica camera on the Mate 10 Pro is equipped with an artificial bokeh effect, i.e. an artificially calculated depth of field. Bokeh is also available on the front camera. Thanks to Senior Editor Dominik Bärlocher for modelling the selfie. The circles around his eyes have completely disappeared thanks to chronic sleep deprivation, but he looks a bit like he's wearing make-up. A blemish on my forehead has been filtered out and my complexion looks more even.
In the gallery under "Discover", your photos are sorted into categories, i.e. by people, places, objects and so on. Sure - Google Photos can do that too, you're probably thinking. But Google does this in the cloud. With the Mate 10 Pro, everything is stored locally on the phone. A big plus point for users with privacy concerns.
So this won't happen to you with the integrated beauty filter from Huawei. [[marketingpage:3530]]
No headphone jack but plenty of sound
The Mate 10 doesn't have a headphone jack - not a bad thing for me. Huawei supplies suitable headphones and a dongle. The headphones supplied by Huawei fall out of my ears. So I use my headphones with the dongle, which is also fine.
What I really liked was the stereo sound coming from the Mate 10 Pro's speakers. Even at full volume, the two speakers don't sound distorted. And I can also listen to music in the shower, it is IP 67 certified.
The 4000 mAh battery performs well and battery usage is optimised in the background. If I don't use it too intensively, the battery lasts for two days. Thanks to SuperCharge, the battery is also charged by almost 50% within 20 minutes.
Calling on a full bus
At this point, I'd like to apologise to my fellow commuters for my chattering and babbling on a full bus. But making calls with the Mate 10 Pro is a great thing, the people on the other side of the line can hear me all the time. Although Huawei explicitly advertises this, it surprised me in practice. It was loud on the bus and I was still able to speak normally. Even a phone call at the Christmas market with lots of other voices in the background was no problem. This is because the Mate 10 Pro gets used to your voice and recognises it. Then the ambient noise or other voices are simply filtered out and a clear conversation is established. .
Huawei says that they have increased connectivity. At first, I couldn't imagine much about it. Until I'm sitting on the train watching Netflix. On my commute to Winterthur in eastern Switzerland, it's always difficult to watch Gilmore Girls without interruptions and stuttering. With the Mate 10 Pro, I was finally able to watch Lorelai and Rory's latest action without any stuttering or loading times.
Protective case and protective film included from the start
The Mate 10 Pro comes with a plastic case and a protective film already attached to the display. On the one hand, that's nice of Huawei, but on the other, I wonder whether the tempered glass back might be susceptible to breakage.
I only dropped the phone once during the entire test period. The Mate 10 Pro survived the unspectacular drop, display first, onto the kitchen floor without any damage. However, I did get a scare. Fortunately, I had the supplied plastic cover on when I dropped it. Good thing I didn't destroy another test device.
I don't particularly like the plastic case that comes with the phone, which you can wrap it in. It hides the nice shiny back of the phone and most of the design with the stripe because it is matt. And it makes the phone look bigger and, above all, thicker. However, I didn't want to run the risk of scratching the phone in my pocket or breaking it if I dropped it. A compromise that I accept.
The Mate 10 Pro comes with a permanently attached protective film. Shortly before the end of my test period, it happened: the Mate 10 Pro got caught in the zip of my jacket pocket. Sounds stupid. And it is. On sale, the film got a small tear at the edge, which of course caused small air bubbles to form under the film. Quite unsightly, but according to our product manager, the film can be removed and replaced.
But I'm leaving the film as it is, because it really sticks to the screen. Even if it sounds unrealistic, I don't want to risk removing the display along with the film.
Conclusion
I had a lot of fun using the Mate 10 Pro. It is simply fast and works reliably. The camera takes great pictures in almost all conditions without much effort. In terms of design and finish, it's a really nice phone. Unfortunately, if you have the protective cover on it, you don't get the special shiny back. I think that's a real shame. It's a shame that Huawei has made the cover matt.
One question remains
One question that I can't answer even after my test is, what about the competition from Huawei's own company?
Honour recently unveiled a killer phone. The View 10 from Honor, Huawei's subsidiary or sister company, is a dead ringer for the Mate 10 Pro. And the specifications and price say a lot. The test of the v10 will follow soon. <p
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Testing devices and gadgets is my thing. Some experiments lead to interesting insights, others to demolished phones. I’m hooked on series and can’t imagine life without Netflix. In summer, you’ll find me soaking up the sun by the lake or at a music festival.