Huawei Mate 10 Pro Review: A solid winter flagship that cribs from the best

Huawei Mate 10 Pro
  • Huawei Mate 10 Pro
  • Huawei Mate 10 Pro
  • Huawei Mate 10 Pro
  • Expert Rating

    4.25 / 5

Pros

  • Outstanding battery life
  • Exceptional camera

Cons

  • Pretty conventional flagship form-factor
  • Lacks wireless charging

Bottom Line

If you’re not swayed by Samsung’s return to form, Apple’s ultra-expensive iPhone X or Google’s funky Pixel 2, then the Huawei Mate 10 Pro is a pretty solid alternative.

Would you buy this?

  • Price

    $ 1,099.00 (AUD)

Battery Life

After a few weeks with the Huawei Mate 10 Pro’s downright heroic 4000mAh battery, we honestly don’t know if I can go back to using devices that doesn’t come with such impressively long-lasting battery life. There's no wireless charging here but, with a few exceptions, I found it could easily make it to a second day of regular use with the Mate 10 Pro before I needed to top it up.

Credit: Huawei

Even then, the fast-charging in the Mate 10 worked to ensure I never needed to put the device down for long. Leveraging Huawei's own SuperCharge tech, it's capable of going from 0 to 20% capacity in ten minutes and 58% in just half an hour. With the Mate 10 Pro's jumbo capacity in mind, this means it cleanly outranks pretty much every other flagship out there without too much hassle. I can only hope 2018 sees more flagships hit this benchmark.

The Bottom Line

As a flagship smartphone, the Mate 10 is an outstanding proposition. On paper and in practice, it’s clearly the best device that Huawei have ever brought to the market. However, as a brand-builder, it feels like it will struggle to win out over Samsung, Apple and Google’s domination landscape of the 2017 holiday season. Even if every aspect of the device delivers, it just doesn't have the same magnetic appeal or sense of identity to it.

Still, if you’re not swayed by Samsung’s return to form with the Note 8, Apple’s ultra-expensive iPhone X or Google’s funky Pixel 2, then rest assured that the Huawei Mate 10 Pro is a pretty solid alternative. A great one even, though I still can't quite get over how strikingly similar the pitch for it is to HTC’s U11.

Credit: Huawei

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Read more on these topics: Huawei, Huawei Mate 10 Pro, Huawei Mate 10, HTC U11
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