Gadgetory

these phones aren't about value big bold beautiful beasts gadgets which push the envelope with price tags to match pitting two of the world's top manufacturers against each other comparing two very different flavours of power user hardware this is gonna be fun I'm Juan Carlos bag nail for Pocket now and it's time for a showdown Huawei mate 10 Pro versus Samsung Galaxy Note II kicking things off with design Samsung has been a consistent favorite this year adopting a taller form factor thin bezels against hard rectangular corners Samsung is one most of our design fights in 2017 but not today Huawei has dramatically cleaned up its act the may 10 delivers a wonderful blend of familiar accents with a shiny new backplate and against Samsung Huawei delivers the more symmetrical handset you gotta love that fingerprint scanner position but switching to the tech inside few companies can face the onslaught of hardware crammed inside the note and everything in the kitchen sink approach to building a phone both devices have top-tier internals and enhanced water resistance Samsung just has more stuff wireless charging iris scanning security upgradable storage and of course the Mighty S Pen Huawei fights back with dual SIM card support stereo speakers and the niche favorite IR blaster but Sami just plain packs more in with fewer hardware omissions display size and resolution just reinforced that debate there's nothing wrong with rocking a 1080p screen it's more than adequate to get you through your day so much so that Samsung ships their phones down scaled to 1080p out of the box both are rockin juicy amyloids sporting that fantastic contrast ratio and very good outdoor readability when you need more dots though like say you're firing up a VR headset Samsung has that quad HD panel at the ready these two companies aggressively customize their hardware and that philosophy extends to the software running on each device neither would ever be confused with stock Android Huawei ZM why has evolved nicely over the last year providing some great under the hood performance and optimization but the design is still a bit rough around the edges samsung's aesthetic manages to land closer to stock Android but on top of those more familiar elements the note also tacks on two additional customizable interfaces edge controls for one thumb interactions and the s-pen air menu for stylus control anticipating three distinctly different usage methods it's flexible but that means there's more stuff running on your phone at any given time and we do have to give them eight props for arriving with android oreo out of the box samsung not known for delivering the fastest updates even on pricey devices both phones are top-tier performers comparable raw power between the cura 970 and qualcomm 835 when looking at benchmarks though in my experience Huawei manages to age better over time marketing machine learning optimization and better garbage collection after using the mate nine nearly every day since its launch we're inclined to believe those marketing claims and I'm already experiencing the occasional concerning twitch or stutter on my note that I might need to wipe it out soon and just restart fresh one of the more nuanced aspects of this comparison both phones sporting dual cameras on the back but the philosophy behind those cameras could not be more different Samsung opting for their first standard lens plus zoom option Huawei further evolving the Leica matched lenses with color and monochrome sensors sami delivers the better all-rounder in our tests lightning fast autofocus smoother video and crowd pleasing color saturation huawei solution by contrast is the better specialist camera the more photographic solution and with a more camera like layout for controls and settings the mate ends matched sensors can deliver some significant benefits for the fun features we all demand on flagships now a portrait mode for example Huawei doesn't crop in the photo and the effect can be applied from a broader range of distances the Samsung followed Apple's lead here using the smaller zoom sensor with the smaller aperture which is pretty terrible at soaking up light when indoors or at night Huawei has no problems using these software blurring features in any lighting conditions where the cameras would work normally the audio conversation is also something of a split decision we certainly appreciate the dual speaker setup on the mate / the mono bottom firing speaker on the note but the note easily wins for headphones Huawei is playing the dongle game in Samsung's built-in Jack produces higher quality output not to mention Samsung includes a better set of earbuds in the box the battery comparison though is an easy win for huawei we don't fault Samsung for staying conservative with the capacity and fast charging on this year's note but the mate packs a bigger power pack and this year's Kirin is more power efficient than last year's you'll just plain get more runtime on the mate and Huawei charges faster one plugged in the Samsung's wireless charging is an excellent convenience feature and we wish the mate included it well when you only have a couple minutes to top off Huawei super charger will deliver significantly more run time per minute plugged in so let's wrap this up where does that leave us between the huawei mate 10 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 we're missing one key point in comparing these phones in the United States and that's the price the note is the more feature complete device but we're not entirely sure how to judge those extra features against any disparity in cost is an s-pen worth $100 premium might the price gap be even wider looking at European markets Samsung still lists the note 8 unlocked for 999 Euro against the 799 euro may 10 pro that's a pretty significant margin but it's also not that difficult to shop a little online and find closer prices that puts Huawei in a more difficult position for a recommendation even when prices are closer I still believe there is an audience for the mate empro but it makes the huawei more of a niche player rather than the terrific value all-rounder which was last year's mate 9 now we're all waiting to see what price tag this phone arrives with when it finally lands in North America and which fun would win your cash drop us a comment down below let's chat as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more comparisons like these and help us out with the share on your favorite social networks for PocketNow i'm juan carlos bag now some gadget guy on twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next video