Gadgetory

20:16 has proven to be an interesting year for phablet fans where we used to experiment with a number of large screen phones now displays above that 5.5 inch diagonal are becoming a bit of a rarity Huawei is wrapping up the year with a beast of a phone so let's see how it stacks up to the competition and first for you Hardware junkies you can pause the video here to check out what this slab is packing and with that wrapped up there's no way around it the mate 9 is a big phone but we need to start with praise as Huawei has done a fantastic job of minimizing bezel sizes on the front face there's little else to look at just this big old screen this layout does a respectable job of keeping the phone in your hand the rear mounted fingerprint sensor is appreciated controls both on the right-hand side though I mostly kept the plastic cover on to help provide just a touch more grip it is attractive hardware especially these glossy sides with an almost jewel like faucet running around the display edge though these traditional Huawei cutouts on the back could be cleaned up it's an abrupt stop for these antenna bands ultimately though it's a premium price device and it definitely looks the part approaching mini tablet sizes you're apt to use the phone a little farther away from your face but we still would have preferred moving up to a quad HD display on this device 1080p is more than adequate for getting your daily tasks done but switching to smaller text it's not quite as sharp for fine detail when I do get the phone closer to my face it's also not the best screen resolution for diving into a little virtual reality but it will easily be pentile AMOLED screens under magnification its respectably bright decently readable outdoors in auto mode it falls just a fraction behind the LGV 20 but it's easier to get the hallway up to that maximum brightness where LG all what requires using the phone in direct sunlight we do appreciate this quick toggle for the iComfort mode we just wish the screen got dimmer for late night reading and just a quick mention this phone does have an IR blaster to use the mate as a universal remote we're big fans of this feature especially with the small child in the house who loves hiding our TV remote now moving over to software we're running emu i5 on top of Android seven Donegan it's a much-improved combo over previous wall ways and honors we've used in the past emui five defaults to the home screen only view where all of your apps are just on your home screens but it's an easy toggle to return the app drawer a lot of these menus have been cleaned up where we used to have to dig through more options now key settings are a little easier to find and we're also happy to see this new shade no longer the iOS style split between settings and notifications it's a more traditional Android layout and Huawei continues to use the fingerprint gesture as a way to pull that shade down it's not all roses though some folks will likely chafe at some of these settings confirmation dialogs the main settings menu still has an iOS flair to it and can we talk about notification icons because there aren't any nope you just get this little number if you don't want the number then you get nothing literally nothing this is terrible designed for those at a glance moments when you just want to see what's going on we're really hoping this has changed in a future build of emui and we also have a little bloat I mean pre-installed value added software news Republic booking.com todoist and WPS office if these apps aren't your cup of tea they can be uninstalled we can't fault the performance here though the karin 960 chipset does a wonderful job driving this phone you'll rarely encounter stutters or lags even digging into features like split-screen multitasking for CPU intensive tasks this phone is a screamer and takes a significant step up in graphics performance over the mate 8 in benchmarks it falls between 10 and 15% behind the Qualcomm 821 but running through games like Marvel future fight and implosion we're maintaining fluid frame rates at high graphics quality while Wei is showcasing on device machine learning to better predict your behavior and to better allocate resources to the services you use most over time Huawei claims this should maintain fast performance when other androids start to slow down in our limited time using the phone we can't quite comment on that feature so we'll have to revisit that at a later date Wi-Fi performance is solid hanging directly with phones like the LGV 20 and just slightly behind glass and plastic back phones but we were pleasantly surprised by the LTE radios on the mate 9 it was often within 2 decibels of our galaxy s7 active around town and it absolutely shamed our HTC 10 using androids Network reporting we've produced a separate video detailing audio performance but as a brief summation the story here is a bit mixed these are the best speakers we've heard on Huawei falling just behind some of the better stereo options available unfortunately headphone performance is just okay this isn't the loudest amp and quality numbers punched below this phones price tag you can hit the link in the description below for our full reel audio review to get the full scoop we are happy with this camera performance though the second generation like the dual camera shooter features some nifty tech and can produce some of the best looking images we've ever seen from a phone now rocking a 20 megapixel monochrome sensor paired with a 12 megapixel color sensor and optical image stabilization leica is really showing off their processing prowess contrast and clarity are terrific white balance tends to err on accuracy over representing the color of the light in your scene but color has a nice pop to it and the phone utilizes a number of slick software tricks to improve zoom or to beautifully blur your backgrounds video is also improved as the mate 9 joins the Nova and being only the second Huawei phone able to shoot UHD video oh is is definitely appreciated but you'll often arrive at shake your footage than on many competing devices overall there's a lot to like here for folks who prefer having manual options to control but we'd be remiss if we didn't acknowledge that this camera comes with one of the steepest learning curves we've yet reviewed it's not that it's particularly hard to use if you've ever handled a camera before but users will need to spend time familiarizing themselves with where every option lives and what settings you can use in which modes like not being able to zoom when you're shooting and manual and capturing RAW images also like as involvement on image processing means output won't feel like other phones like it Engineers prefer a particular look for photos for example no really isn't a deal breaker if it adds to the feel of the capture a color processing also has a very distinctive look to it if you've handled an iPhone in the last four years you can be pretty confident what your photos will look like the mate nine will be very unfamiliar in operation and output to most users just picking it up with a little practice though this camera is capable of absolutely stunning output and we'll have more to say about camera performance as we wrap up our real camera review shortly Huawei has also improved the microphone array on the mate nine in the camera and in the audio recording app the phone can focus the onboard microphones to adjust for the directionality of your audio subject a certainly handy for folks who record meetings or want to do some casual interviewing or podcasting lastly packing a larger than average battery onboard retreated to some pretty stellar daily performance running our media test streaming 30 minutes of HD video over Wi-Fi at 190 Lux the mate drained 4% of its battery making it one of the best Android performers we've run on this test falling just behind the more power-efficient iPhone 7 plus we just might have a new champion for recharging however using the supplied charger for a half hour the may hit an incredible 58 percent recharge while only getting slightly warmer to the touch after one hour we hit 87% Huawei claims the phone will charge fully in ninety minutes and we're seeing faster performance than advertised so let's wrap this up where's that leave us with the huawei mate 9 this is a damn fine phone see there's this big gaping hole in the phablet offerings this year because of one device which will remain unmentioned that left fewer options for folks who like truly bigger displays the mate 9 fits this niche nicely it's a killer all-rounder big phone great performance very good battery life and one of the most unique cameras we've ever reviewed the few compromises here like headphone audio and screen resolution we wouldn't consider them outright deal-breakers more a personal preference decision for folks shopping a premium phone it's a big bold brassy offering from a company looking to turn the heat up on the competition as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for our full mate 9 coverage reviews and comparisons help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks for pocket now I'm Juan Carlos bag now some gadget guy on Twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next review you