Huawei P10 review: the all-rounder?

I had a few weeks Huawei P10 to test for you in detail. The Huawei P10 does not differ much from the Huawei Mate 9. But: is it worth switching to the P10?

When the new smartphone was released, I was already excited to hold the little P9 successor in my hands. With the P10, Huawei promises the user great performance, good hardware and very high quality cameras at a good price. Is this really the case? My test report.

The outer

Workmanship and design

As known from Huawei, the P10 is also of very high quality. Despite the rounded edges and aluminum body, it sits very comfortably in the hand. I never felt like it would slip out of my hand during the test. In addition to headphones, a charger and the like, our model also came with a case. You can purchase these as accessories from Huawei or other retailers. This also looks very well made and, in addition to protection, also provides better grip. The volume keys and the power button on the right side sit very well in the case and are very easy to reach.

Not a lot of accessories. (Picture: TechnikNewsnet)

In contrast to its predecessors, Huawei uses a fingerprint sensor on the front of the P10 for the first time, which also serves as a home button. This can only be found on the back of the slimmed-down P10 Lite model. Also, despite the new position of the sensor, there are no soft buttons - a shame. You can only switch between buttons on the display or gesture control using the home button. Personally, I didn't like the gesture control very much because it didn't work reliably in most cases. Otherwise there is really nothing to complain about here. The Huawei P10 is also dust and waterproof with the IP68 certification.

Display

The display of the Huawei P10 has a display diagonal of 5,1 inches with 1920 x 1080 (Full HD) pixels. All content looks very strong on the display and the color temperature is set very well by default. The brightness can also be regulated very well - at night it even looks too dark on the lowest level. It is also very easy to read in the sun, as it can be adjusted to be very bright. In addition, the touchscreen reacts very well and it is easy to swipe across the display. However, compared to the OnePlus 3, I noticed more fingerprints on closer inspection - but by no means annoying in everyday life.

Camera

In the camera sector, Huawei hit the jackpot with the P10. Thanks to the dual cameras, which each have a resolution of 20 and 13 megapixels, the image looks even stronger and more contrasty compared to the Mate 9 and P9. In cooperation with Leica, Huawei has once again placed itself at the top of the list for smartphone cameras. The colors look very strong and the contrast is also perfectly coordinated in my eyes. However, in some pictures the colors were a bit too strong and therefore looked a bit unnatural. Unfortunately, due to the f / 2.2 aperture, the image quality decreased significantly in the dark and the images looked very noisy. Both cameras also support hybrid AF, OIS and record videos in 4K at 60fps. I took the opportunity and took the Huawei P10 on a short trip to the beautiful capital of Austria, Vienna. It's best to make your own impression.

Photos

Software

The software of the camera is very clearly structured. A swipe to the left takes you to the settings, where you can also set the resolution individually, among other things. Swipe right to access all the different modes. Here you can switch between photo, video, HDR and much more. Portrait mode can also be activated here. This highlights people in selfies and photos with the main camera and brings a special depth of field effect. If you want to adjust more, you can ProActivate fi mode by swiping up. Here you can adjust ISO, white balance, automatic and manual focus, aperture and shutter speed.

The inner parts of the Castle

Performance

Probably the most important feature of a smartphone: fast loading times and smooth games. In the Huawei P10, the in-house Kirin 960 tinkers under the hood, this 4GB RAM stand aside. The internal memory of 64GB can also be easily expanded with a microSD card. In our Antutu benchmark, our P10 achieved a score of 131 596 points. It is currently in 7th place after the Galaxy S35 Edge and iPhone SE. In Geekbench 4, the P10 achieved 1844 points in single-core and 6524 points in multi-core.

Mediocre result at this price. (Image: TechnikNewsnet)

However, a benchmark says little about the performance of the smartphone in everyday life. In my test, apps started very quickly, menus and the camera also started without waiting. The fingerprint sensor also unlocks really quickly. As soon as the finger touches the sensor on the front, the device is unlocked. Top. Unlocking the Huawei P3 is also a bit faster compared to the OnePlus 7 and the iPhone 10.

Operating system

When it comes to software, Huawei uses the latest Android operating system 7.0 Nougat as an example. While some smartphones already run on Android 7.1, there is no update for the P10 yet. Huawei's user interface, EMUI 5.1, offers some handy features, such as app cloning. We have how that works shown in this guide. By default, a theme is preselected to match the selected color, but this can be individually adapted to suit every taste. If you don't quite like the EMUI launcher, you can always get third-party launcher such as the Nova launcher, to install.

Battery

The battery comes with a capacity of 3200mAh. Compared to the P9, that's 200mAh more - so there isn't a noticeably longer runtime. During my test, I got through the whole day with a full charge – even if I used the device intensively. When playing games, the battery is drained by the hungry Proprocessor but quickly empty again. Thanks to the special "Huawei Super-Charge", the smartphone review reached fifty in half an hour Procent charged.

Conclusion

The Huawei P10 offers an excellent camera, a compact design with a good grip and very good workmanship. Compared to its predecessors, the camera offers stronger colors and better dynamics. The portrait mode didn't really convince me - it often looked unnatural and not fully developed. However, this should be fairly easy to fix with a software update. The Chinese have also done a very good job of design. The good grip in the hand and the aluminum body show the good workmanship and make the smartphone look quite classy. Unfortunately, I only had the opportunity to test the white version - strong colors like Greenery are sure to give the P10 that extra kick.

However, the P10 has to outperform other smartphones in this price range in terms of battery and camera in poor lighting conditions. The battery is a bit small compared to the Galaxy S7 and Plus model of the P10 with its 3200mAh. Here I would opt for the larger battery in the P10 Plus: it has a capacity of 3750 mAh. The not so reliable gesture control with the home button is also a shame. I don't understand why Huawei doesn't use soft buttons here. The fingerprint scanner or home button otherwise reacts very quickly and always worked reliably.

Is it worth the change?

Finally, is it worth switching from the P9 to the new P10? Even if I don't own a P9 myself, the new design wouldn't encourage me to switch. However, those who like to take pictures have definitely made a good decision with the P10. If you are looking for a cheaper smartphone, you can here are more details about the Huawei P10 Lite look at.

• Buy the Huawei P10 from Amazon

Finally, thanks go to Huawei, who made the device available to us free of charge for three weeks. Thanks for that!

Source of the pictures: All pictures used in this article “Huawei P10 review: the all-rounder?” Were copyrighted by TechnikNews.NET photographed.

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