HUAWEI MATE 9 REVIEW | SHOULD I BUY THE HUAWEI MATE 9?

Huawei has come leaps and bounds in the UK market in the past year and despite launching a number of smartphones this year, from the flagship Huawei P9 and P9 Plus to the mid-range Huawei Nova and Nova Plus, but it isn’t done yet. The company took to the stage in Munich today to show off the latest in the Huawei range, the Huawei Mate 9. We’ve spent some time with the Huawei Mate 9, and here’s what we think of it including design, build, features, spec, cameras and software. Read next: Best smartphones of 2016
Also see: Best Black Friday Phone Deals

HUAWEI MATE 9 REVIEW: UK PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

So, before we get into what makes the Huawei Mate 9 so impressive, it’s worth mentioning the pricing and availability of the latest smartphone. Surprisingly, the UK isn’t a launch market for the smartphone so may not be available to buy in the UK for some time, with Huawei not commenting on a release window at this time. It’s a similar story on pricing, as the company is yet to announce UK-focused pricing, although it’ll cost 699 euros for those in European countries where it will launch. The 699 euro price tag puts the smartphone in line with other flagship smartphones including the Samsung Galaxy S7, iPhone 7, Sony Xperia XZ and more.
(Update 10/01/2017): While there is still no word from Huawei, UK-based mobile provider Three UK has confirmed in response to a customer query on Twitter that the Huawei Mate 9 would be available to buy from the network this coming Friday, 13 January 2017. No word yet on pricing, but with a 699 Euro price tag, we imagine it'll be around the £500-600 mark. We've reached out to Huawei for confirmation, and will update this section when we hear more. 

HUAWEI MATE 9 REVIEW: DESIGN AND BUILD

The first thing you’ll notice about the Huawei Mate 9 is the impressive display, measuring in at 5.9in. While many will read that and instantly write off the phablet for having a larger-than-life display, Huawei has done what it does best and managed to fit a large display into a small body with tiny bezels surrounding the screen. What does this mean?
It means that in the hand the Huawei Mate 9 is similar in terms of dimensions to the 5.5in iPhone 7 Plus, measuring in at 156.9x78.9x7.9mm compared to 158.2x77.9x7.3mm respectively, and proving that it’s not as uncomfortable to hold as many of its 5.9in rivals. In fact, during our time with the Huawei Mate 9, we found that we could reach from one side of the display to the other with our thumb quite comfortably and easily – an impressive feat for a smartphone with such a large display.
Anyway, surrounding that large display is an aluminium body which, in typical Huawei fashion features an incredibly high-end finish, from the slightly curved edges that make the smartphone ‘sit’ in the hand more comfortably, to the subtle chamfers that run along the edges of the smartphone. The Huawei Mate 9 is gorgeous, there’s no doubting it, and is available to buy in two colours in the UK – Space Grey and Moonlight Silver. There are other options, including Ceramic White, Champagne Gold and Mocha Brown, but these won’t be available to buy in the UK.  
There are a whopping four microphones dotted across the device (2x at the bottom, 1x on top of the camera on the rear, 1x inside earpiece) for active noise cancellation when calling and for directional sound recording, along with an IR blaster to control your TV and other devices and, as specifically pointed out by Huawei, a 3.5mm headphone jack – take that, Apple.
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HUAWEI MATE 9 REVIEW: FEATURES AND SPEC

So, let’s delve a little deeper into the features and spec of the sleek and sexy Huawei Mate 9. The 5.9in IPS display is only Full HD resolution (1920x1080) which may seem slightly underpowered when compared to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S7, which features a resolution of 1440x2560, however we found the display to be bright, crisp and frankly gorgeous without the extra pixels. Besides, having a FHD screen has its benefits, mainly with regards to battery life: it takes considerable battery power to power the pixels on the display, which means that in theory, the QHD resolution of the Galaxy S7 draws four times the amount of power of the Mate 9 display. Not so bad now, is it?
Besides, it’s what is beneath the display that is most impressive. The Huawei Mate 9 features the newly released Kirin 960, an octa-core processor with four A73 2.3GHz cores and four A53 1.8GHz cores, and is the fastest processor built by the company. Along with the Kirin 960, users will find 4GB of RAM and the new Mali G71 GPU, which Huawei claims enhances mobile graphics by a whopping 400 percent – although we’ll have to confirm this once we get a sample back to the PC Advisor towers to put through our benchmark tests.
However, while we’re not currently able to back this up with stats, we found the Mate 9 to be blisteringly fast in general use. We’ve not seen this kind of responsiveness and speed from any Huawei smartphone in the past (even the flagship Huawei P9), so we’re very impressed with Huawei’s latest offering. Apps opened instantly, as did the camera, and we couldn’t produce the slightest bit lag - even when trying.
It’s not just faster, but it offers improved battery life. How? First of all, Huawei added an integrated sensor hub within the CPU that takes care of the suite of sensors on the device and should improve power consumption when using battery-intensive functions like Bluetooth and GPS.
Along with this, Huawei has packed a whopping 4400mAh battery into the device, which should provide the Mate 9 with more than a day of battery life, according to the company. It’s coupled with a new charging kit that supports ‘Supercharge’ functionality, allowing 58 percent charge in half-an-hour, with a full charge only taking 90 minutes. For such a large battery this is quite the technical feat, although it has its requirements – there’s special tech built into both the smartphone and plug that allows the supercharge functionality, and as such won’t work without the Mate 9 charger. It’ll still charge without it, but it’ll be a lot slower.
Other features include a rear-facing fingerprint scanner, which features a 4-level security system (like the Huawei P9) to make sure it’s blisteringly fast and accurate. It also features a whopping 64GB of built-in storage, with Huawei claiming it can be expanded to an incredible 2TB thanks to the Hybrid SIM slot, which offers 1x SIM tray and 1x MicroSD card slot.  

HUAWEI MATE 9 REVIEW: CAMERAS AND PHOTOGRAPHY

Along with the impressive internals, the Mate 9 is the second Huawei smartphone to feature a dual-camera setup – and much like the Huawei P9, the Mate 9’s rear-facing camera setup has been developed in conjunction with high-end camera manufacturer Leica. Huawei has made a few changes to the setup, including an increase in resolution of the monochrome sensor, now up to 20Mp from 12Mp, and the introduction of OIS, although the colour sensor stays the same at 12Mp.
One new feature of the Mate 9’s dual-camera setup is its ability to provide “lossless zoom” according to Huawei, allowing you to zoom in on your subject without worrying about degrading the quality of the photo. While the claim is impressive, we’re going to properly test the feature out once we get a sample back to PC Advisor towers. Along with the Huawei P9, the Mate 9 also offers the bokeh effect which blurs out the background of an image, although it offers a significant change – the ability to zoom in. It also features 4K video, a confusing omission from the flagship P9 earlier this year, and a front-facing 8Mp camera.
We were impressed with the quality of the photos produced by the rear-facing camera setup during our limited time with the Mate 9, producing clear and crisp photos even when zooming in. However, we found that the UI had changed when compared to the P9, and the new manual mode is a little more confusing to use this time around. It’s the same story with the shallow depth-of-field mode, which we found much more confusing to use and, more importantly, get decent results with. Like we said above, we’ll hold our final opinions until we get the device in to thoroughly test ourselves.

HUAWEI MATE 9 REVIEW: SOFTWARE

So, let’s move onto software – an area that has seen quite a change with the introduction of the Huawei Mate 9. First of all, the Mate 9 comes with the latest iteration of the Android operating system, Android N. However, the bigger announcement comes in the form of Emotion UI 5.0, a completely overhauled version of Huawei’s UI overlay which has polarised its customers in the past. While some love Huawei’s EMUI, others absolutely hate it, with the biggest issue being an omission of an app tray, offering an iOS-esque Android experience with all apps on the home screen.
That has all changed with EMUI 5, which offers the choice between having an app tray or having all apps displayed on the home screen, along with a myriad of other changes. It offers a unified colour scheme throughout the operating system with a rather attractive white and blue combination, apparent from the redesigned notification centre to the settings menu. It’ also much easier to use, with Huawei priding itself on the ability to access more than 50 percent of the features within two taps.
However, the most impressive part of EMUI 5 is the ability to improve the performance of the smartphone over time. Traditionally, smartphone performance starts to decrease after a year of use but Huawei claims that by implementing five core technologies, it can speed up the Mate 9 by 80% after 10,000 hours (average yearly use) of usage. How? It features a combination of AI based machine learning algorithms, the ability to intelligently allocate CPU resources to apps you use frequently, improve memory optimisation with automatic cleaning when idle and finally, improvement to the I/O storage speed.
Along with this, Huawei introduced App Twin, a feature that allows you to log into both professional and personal apps at the same time, and is ideal for business users. Say, for example, you use Facebook for business and for pleasure, but across two different accounts – App Twin will let you use both side by side. It also offers the option to split the display and run two apps side by side, although we feel that this feature is overrated and we’re not quite sure how many people use the feature in the myriad of Android smartphones available.
Read next: Best new phones coming in 2017

OUR VERDICT

Huawei’s Mate 9 has the potential to be the best in the Huawei line-up, boasting an impressively large battery alongside powerful internals, an improved dual-camera setup and a sleek, gorgeous design. EMUI 5 makes a huge difference to the overall experience too, and we can’t wait to see whether Huawei’s new technology will actually improve the performance of the smartphone over time. We’ll give a more thorough verdict once we get the Huawei Mate 9 back to PC Advisor towers, so make sure you check back in the coming weeks for an update.