Gadgetory

smartphones are getting crazy powerful and companies are increasingly looking for ways to differentiate themselves from competition maybe that's an investment in cool new technology maybe a renewed focus on design and aesthetics for Huawei this year both tech and design feel somewhat iterative but does the collection of smaller improvements in total raise this phone up above to some of its parts let's take a look at the Huawei p10 if it feels like we've been discussing this Hardware for a while now it's because we have the v10 inherits a lot of what we liked from last year's mate 9 screen resolution chipset Ram storage all shrunk down and crammed into a smaller form factor for those of us with Hobbit hands it's a much easier size to use one-handed while on the go just to touch taller and skinnier than a galaxy s7 where the mate has a phablet is something of a big old truck always focus for the p10 is on aesthetics and design this phone draws some obvious inspirations from other popular handsets rounding corners and softening edges from last year's more angular p9 bolder color options though are appreciated as we'll be spending our review time with the dazzling blue model featuring this hyper cut back panel that shimmers and sunlight but remains fairly well resistant to fingerprint smudges one of the larger departures from previous Huawei phones the fingerprint sensor moves to the front bezel it requires more of a reach to unlock than rear mounted sensors but it also doubles as a one-stop-shop for navigation a single tap is a back button long press will take you home but the gesture swipes to use multitasking is the hardest piece of muscle memory to reprogram going on week 2 with this phone I still miss this gesture about half the time I try it at any time though you can just swap back to normal on-screen controls sacrificing a few pixels at the bottom of your display happily we get another improvement tool always custom software emui now in version 5.1 you get options to swap your home screen from apps to an app drawer and the general layout for notifications and settings is closer to stock Android there's still a lot of customization especially to things like confirmation dialog bubbles but all the pieces are generally where you would expect them to be new for the p10 Huawei is promoting a partnership with GoPro and the new photo gallery app delivers improved tools for editing and sharing similar to some of the filters and templates you might find in Google photos or Instagram it's a fun add-on for folks who like to share short clips we get the benefits of Android 7 split screening apps and alt tab style swapping alongside Huawei's aggressive resource management and garbage collection our mate 9 is aging well so we're optimistic that the p10 will also perform well over time speaking of performance we're still impressed with this chipset Huawei's Kirin 960 processor is a screamer just nipping at the heels of the Qualcomm 835 benchmarks we've seen leaked and easily vesting pixels and one plus three T's with the Qualcomm 821 this kind of horsepower is gross overkill for covering the communication basics but cranking up some graphics intensive games the p10 drives titles like Marvel future fight probably the smoothest we've seen from any Android we've reviewed at high quality radio performance is very competitive for a metal phone with antenna bands routinely saw LTE performance falling just slightly behind the galaxy s7 while the Wi-Fi regularly reached farther than the Samsung at the edges of my home network now we'd be hard-pressed to see any significant differences in camera performance between this phone and the may 9 know the module is Sun flush with the rear housing we still have the same dual camera system color and black and white sensors with hardware image stabilization on the color sensor we won't be using this phone to dig deep into a real camera review but for folks interested in a deep dive our main 9 camera review will cover those bases for you just fine we'll try to get our hands on a p10 plus to see how it might differ from this camera now on the whole these sensors deliver some of the best still photos we've ever seen from a phone and improvements to video like h.265 UHD files and image stabilization are greatly appreciated moving to audio headphone performance is adequate - good again similar to the mate 9 though with a wider frequency response on 24-bit files and very subtle improvements to noise floor and dynamic range though disabling the headphone DTS mode we see more EQ tweaking which the user is unable to completely disable the speaker performance is one of the weaker links on this gadget performing well for notifications but it's not going to break any records for music and movie playback it's unlikely the p10 will make our list of audiophile phones at the end of the year but it gets the job done well enough for most daily used situations bluetooth users might also be annoyed at how poorly this phone will hand off the connection between audio accessories a common gripe on huawei Hardware if I have headphones connected and I get in my car the phone doesn't automatically prioritize the car for hands-free calling battery life is very good for this capacity during our streaming test the p10 was well competitive against current flagship phones this translated to good daily run time making it to dinner with moderate use and room to spare for power users recharging during the day is made a lot easier with Huawei super charger a quick top off will easily deliver hours of runtime after a short stint plugged in so let's wrap this up where does that leave us with the Huawei p10 in a way this phone isn't really getting a fair shake as the most immediate comparison people make is against the bigger brother mate which only just made it to the United States about a month ago remembering that this is an update to the p9 nearly every aspect of this phone is noticeably better than last year's fashioned flagship streaming performance better battery life significantly faster charging an involved camera system it's admirable that Huawei was able to package these improvements while also playing with some new design elements and focusing on fresh color options there are precious few compromises to make now we're expecting more phones to arrive this year with rated enhanced water resistance for example and it's about time Huawei disclosed IP ratings for their phones but while we wait for Samsung to eat up the first batch of new smartphone processors you can get that power now in the p10 the toughest competition this phone might face is likely to come from Huawei sister brand as we all wait to see what the next honor might bring using these parts and pieces until then the p10 offers a compelling solution for folks looking to shop something a little different personally it's just nice getting these features in a phone I can use with one hand as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for our full p10 coverage including reviews and comparisons and help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks for PocketNow i'm juan carlos bag else I'm gadget guy on Twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next review