Gadgetory

if you're in the market for a giant smartphone your first thought probably isn't huawei and with a bevy of great options out there today who could blame you but if speedy performance a premium design and a batterer you'll have to work to kill sounds like a winning combo to you then maybe it should be I'm high at so huesemann bringing you pocket now's better late than never coverage of the huawei ascend mate 7 when we first saw the ascend May 7 at FIFA last September we were taken aback by its all-metal design from chamfered edges to a seamless unibody enclosure this is a great-looking handset and every design aspect that we've praised Apple and HTC for in the past is present here the phone is relatively thin at 7.9 millimetres and an ever so slightly rounded back makes it conform to the palm of your hand it goes without saying that top-notch build quality means nothing if the phone isn't comfortable to hold and that's a problem further magnified with a larger screen like this six inch er but it's clear that Huawei plan ahead and took every measure towards making it manageable the tight bezels around the display and the on-screen buttons both work together to make the phone feel considerably smaller than the Nexus 6 of the same display size the only thing you won't find here is a replaceable battery because with the mates gargantuan 4100 milliamp hour sealed unit you'll rarely ever need it and in the likely event that the 16 gigabytes of internal storage here isn't enough for you there's a microSD slot for up to an additional 128 gigabytes of space with that space you'll want to download as much media as you can because this 1080p IPS display is made for viewing colors are pretty well balanced with bright whites and blacks just a touch great for our taste and always included a temperature slider in the settings get exactly the look you're going for the only real gripe we had with the phone's hardware was the speaker which is placed on the lower back right where the phone rests in your hand and tends to favor me it's pretty heavily in the mix there's a DTS toggle in the settings that's switched on by default but turning it off just makes the output sound more tinny so we just leave well enough alone here but the real showstopper on this device where Huawei spared no expense is in the fingerprint scanner where many have tried and failed in the past with strange gestures and awkward placement the ascent mate sevens biometric identifier is intelligently placed it's lightning fast and very accurate and it can even be used when the phone is on standby and in its multi finger memory and the ability to snap a photo by placing any finger on the scanner while in the viewfinder and you're looking at what's arguably the smartest implementation of a smart phone fingerprint reader out there the mate seven runs a skinned version of Android 4.4.2 with the third iteration of Huawei's in motion UI front and center you'd be forgiven for likening it to some other user interfaces that sport rounded icons and lack an app tray but comparisons out the door emotion UI is a slick and refreshing take on Android with plenty of customization options take the themes app which you guessed it lets you apply different themes to spice up your home and lock screens icons and font you can even mix and match specific parts from each theme and we especially liked the magazine style for its shuffling lockscreen wallpapers perusing through the settings menu you'll find some of huawei's twists to the Android experience most interestingly a section for tweaking the navigation bar you can rearrange the traditional buttons and even add two new buttons one to call down the notification shade and one to hide the buttons entirely we also appreciated some included apps on the phone like the built-in file manager and shortcuts like pulling down in the gallery to reveal the camera there's also one-hand UI which shrinks down the keyboard and other elements for easier use with a single thumb assuming you're using the default swipe for huawei keyboard sadly but predictably not every change to Android here benefits the user and emotion UI is app switcher is a prime example it's one of the slowest experiences on the phone by far and despite the typical 2 gigabytes of RAM we found that too often upon leaving an app the homescreen would have to completely reload its contents one more thing and this is a strange one if you listen to music using a streaming service like google play music or Spotify you'll have to stay in the app itself to play pause or skip tracks because any time you try to do so from the lock screen the phone instead starts playing songs from the built-in music player which in our case meant cycling through a few cheesy pre-loaded songs the 13 megapixel camera around the back is situated next to an LED flash and was a surprisingly good performer in most of our testing the viewfinder app is simple and clean and it packs most of the features you'd expect to find like HDR and panorama mode there's also a mortifying Beauty level slider when you're using a front-facing camera and what Huawei is calling all focus on the main camera this is similar to HTC duo focus and that it lets you refocus a shot after the fact but in a much more authentic way the software actually takes multiple shots in rapid succession each with its own focal point and intelligently lets you choose your favorite focus afterwards beyond these fun gimmicks the main sevens camera is actually very capable the shots in daylight look bright and vibrant I'll get a tab over exposed in most cases and even photos taken at night can look very good in the right circumstances don't expect as much from the front-facing camera though which we found to be well a front-facing camera 1080p video isn't half bad either though without OIS cliffs tend to be a little shaky and the audio starts breaking out pretty quickly in loud environments in general the mate7 performs very well throughout day to day use as any device with a whopping 8 cores at its disposal should but as we mentioned before there are some issues that permeate through an otherwise smooth experience and even typing this script in Evernote brought up some pretty significant keyboard lag it's important to note that by default the mate sevens power saving mode is enabled and turning it off makes for a noticeably faster experience especially in gaming we tested a few titles and with power saving mode enabled even threes was visibly choppy and just looked off once you free the phone from its own shackles games like asphalt 8 and Monument Valley start looking more like what we're used to seeing now it's no secret that demanding games take a lot of power and that's where the mate7 truly impressed us we tried to kill this thing in our week of testing we really really tried but no matter how many HD videos we watched on it or how many crazy games we played it refused to give in even after a 20-hour day with over 6 hours of screen on time call quality was above average as well and our unit held a solid signal over AT&T Mobile in the Indianapolis Metropolitan Area you can order your own ascend mate 7 stateside from Amazon for about 520 US dollars which puts it below the price point of most other large flagship phones but is it worth buying well if battery life and build quality are most important to you then yes we've tested very few phones that can outpace or even match the mate sevens longevity reports and though our unit has a few scratches from day to day use the aluminium frame might make you reconsider getting a case there are better options out there if you most value media consumption and the software experience has its quirks but the ascend mate 7 is a solid choice for all but the most demanding user and it leaves us excited for what hallway has in store next for a more detailed report on the huawei ascend mate 7 CRM review at pocketnow.com and be sure to subscribe here on YouTube for more videos like this until next time this has been Hayat a human putting the intern in Internet and thank you very much for watching