Tag: Huawei

Huawei P20 Pro Review and Specs

The Huawei P20 Pro is a typical Chinese phone in that it has an overwhelmingly rich spec sheet and an eye-catching design. But it’s different in how effectively it capitalizes on its high specs and in how subtly beautiful it is. Instead of one color, Huawei has given this phone an iridescent gradient paint job that exudes sophistication. The combination of beauty and brawn here is topped off with IP67 certification for water and dust resistance. Every phone company wants to imbue its devices with a premium feel, but few succeed as well as Huawei has done with the P20 Pro. You can buy it through Lazada via Cash On Delivery.

Design and Display

The P20 Pro sports a huge 6.1-inch FullView OLED display, similar to the one they had with the Mate 10 Pro, with a resolution of 2240×1080 pixels. This brings the screen aspect ratio to an uneven 18.67:9 (rounded off to 18.7:9), a bit off from the usual 18:9 or 19:9 aspect ratio common to many other phones. In a way, it’s closer to the 18.5:9 aspect ratio of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones.

The notch found in the P20 Pro is noticeably narrower and only houses the 24MP camera, a circular loudspeaker and a hidden sensor module in between. If you don’t fancy the sight of the notch, that can be easily fixed in the Display Settings and completely masked by darkening the strip of display on both sides. It’s a clever trick actually and gives the impression that the bezels are thicker along that side but retains its usefulness by still showing notifications and status icons (somewhat similar to how LG did it with the LG V10 and V20).

Software

The device comes with Android 8.1 Oreo right out of the box and customized with EMUI 8.1. The default layout of EMUI is a flat home screen with all the apps scattered across multiple home screens. To organize, you can just group the icons into folders. If you want the default layout with an app drawer, that can be easily done in the Settings.

EMUI 8.1 comes with options for a floating navigation dock, Smart Split screen to allow 2 apps sharing a single screen, and Smart Multi-Column Display for certain apps when oriented horizontally.

For navigation, you can choose from 3 options – an Off-Screen navigation button that relies on the fingerprint as some sort of trackpad; an On-Screen Navigation Key that floats just below the last row of icons/apps; or a Virtual Navigation Bar that’s normally found in Android navigations. Just pick one which you’re most comfortable with and stick with it to avoid confusion.

With EMUI 8.1 Huawei also introduced a new Face Recognition feature to quickly unlock your phone. Suffice it to say, face unlock is very fast in daylight or well–lit environments but tends to slow down to about 1 to 2 seconds in low-light scenarios. You have to option to automatically unlock the screen upon recognition or add a slide-up action on the screen first, just like in the iPhone X.

Performance

The P20 Pro is powered by the same HiSilicon Kirin 970 first introduced in the Huawei Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro. This is composed of a high-performance, quad-core ARM Cortex A73 processor running at a max speed of 2.36GHz and a power-efficient quad-core ARM Cortex A53 running at 1.8GHz.

This is paired with a Mali G72-MP12 graphics processor and a dedicated Neural Processing Unit that handles AI-specific computational tasks. Standard memory option is 6GB of RAM and 128GB UFS 2.1 internal storage. Huawei intentionally skipped the microSD card slot.

The Huawei P20 Pro scored a high of 206,099 points in Antutu benchmark which is a huge jump from the 170k points we got with the Mate 10 Pro. This is attributed to better optimizations in Android 8.1 and the newer version of Antutu (v7 vs. v6) that we used. Multi-tasking is a breeze, gaming performance is very good and not once we’ve noticed the device is slowing down or lagging.

Camera

The Huawei P20 Pro, with its 3 camera setup at the back, is a first in any commercial phone. The primary 40-megapixel sensor is also the biggest in the market today.

The 3-camera setup works in conjunction with each other – the 40MP RGB sensor takes the primary colored image then combines it with the 20MP monochrome sensor for added detail and contrast. The 3rd camera is an 8MP telephoto lens that, when combined with the 40MP+20MP image, can produce up to 5x hybrid zoom. The built-in optical image stabilization and Huawei AIS helps minimize shakiness keeping the images crisp and blur-free for most of the time.

The front-facing camera of the P20 Pro has a 24-megapixel sensor with f/2.0 aperture and uses AI-driven 3D facial modeling to help in taking the best-looking selfies. The AI of the P20 Pro detects the scenes and automatically adjust the mode to adopt the right image processing. This produces better contrast and saturation like bluer skies or greener fields. Most of the time it’s spot on but sometimes, the results might not be what you expected. Needless to say, there’s a lot of post-processing done with photos in Auto mode.

Nevertheless, the camera is very powerful, images are sharp and capture a lot of details. The sensors can even go as high as ISO102,400 which is something we only see in professional dSLRs. The Pro Mode allows for granular control of the camera from auto/manual focus, shutter speeds of 1/4000 – 30secs and ISO 50 to 3200.

Battery

The Huawei P20 Pro packs a huge 4,000mAh Li-Ion battery, one of the biggest in its class. With Huawei’s track record in battery performance, we expect nothing less with the P20 Pro.

In our PC Mark Battery Test, the P20 Pro clocked in at 10 hours and 9 minutes at 50% brightness, zero volume and in airplane mode. Using our standard video loop test, the P20 Pro managed to last 17 hours and 45 minutes playing a full HD video at 50% brightness, zero volume and in airplane mode. These results are significantly better than many other smartphones we’ve tested before under the same conditions.

With Huawei SuperCharge, the battery can go from zero to full in just 90 minutes. Sadly, there’s no wireless charging support on the device. The charger that came with the box is the standard Huawei SuperCharge switching power adapter that has an output of 5A (4.5V) or 4.5A (5V).

Full Specifications:

  • 6.1-inch 18:9 OLED FullView display @ 2240 x 1080 resolution, 408ppi
  • 3D Glass
  • HiSilicon Kirin 970 octa-core processor
  • 4 x ARM Cortex A73 2.36GHz + 4 x ARM Cortex A53 1.8GHz + i7 Co-processor
  • Mali G72-MP12 GPU
  • 6GB LPDDR4 RAM
  • 128GB internal storage
  • 40MP f/1.8 RGB sensor + 20MP f/1.6 monochrome sensor + 8MP f/2.4 telephoto lens triple Leica cameras w/ Huawei AIS, 5x Hybrid Zoom, AI Image Stabilization, LED flash
  • 24MP front camera with AI beautification and 3D portrait lighting
  • 4K and 960fps video recording
  • AR support
  • 4G LTE Cat. 18 (1.2Gbps)
  • Single/Dual-SIM
  • GPS with aGPS support, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO|
  • NFC
  • WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, DLNA
  • USB Type-C
  • Bluetooth 4.2
  • IP67 certified
  • Fingerprint scanner
  • Infrared Remote Control
  • Android 8.1 Oreo (EMUI 8.1)
  • 4,000mAh Li-Ion battery with SuperCharge and AI battery management
  • 155.0 mm x 73.9 mm x 7.8 mm (dimensions)
  • 180 grams (weight)
  • Twilight, Pink Gold, Black, Midnight Blue

Huwei Y9 2019 Review and Specs

Huawei’s had a big year in 2018, and they’re capping it off with the release of their refreshed lower mid-range offering, the Y9 2019. The new phone dangles the promise of quad-cameras, powerful mid-range processor and modern styling at a price that’s hard to ignore. Here in the Philippines you can buy it through Lazada via Cash On Delivery.

Display and Design

The Y9 2019 features a 6.5-inch 19.5:9 IPS display with 2340 x 1080 resolution. This gives a vibrant and great viewing experience with good viewing angles. Contents are still viewable even at direct sunlight with just at least 70% brightness which should take care of some people’s brightness woes.

There are a few material changes to the Y9 2019 compared to the Nova 3i though, most notably the material used on the rear of the phone. While the frame of the device is metal (more specifically, aluminum) Huawei says that the rear is made from plastic.

Software

Just like with the Nova 3i and Honor 8X, the Y9 2019 runs on EMUI 8.2 based on Android 8.1 Oreo. There’s nothing special with this OS if you’ve been reading reviews on recent Huawei devices here on our website. But if this is the first time you’re seeing this, then expect that its user interface is simple, clean, and organized with a visible touch of Huawei’s own unique style of design.


As usual, there are Google apps pre-installed, as well as Huawei’s own native apps: Phone Manager, Health, HiCare, Huawei App Gallery, Tips, Party Mode that features multiple devices outputting the same music, Game Suite, Facebook, Booking.com, and Ride mode. Out of the 64GB of storage, there’s a plentiful 52.5GB storage.

Performance

The Y9 2019 runs on 4GB RAM, the same Kirin 710 chipset as the Nova 3i and Honor 8X, and Mali-G51 MP4 GPU. Expect that tasks such as file transfers, video streaming, multi-tasking, and social media browsing will run smoothly. The fingerprint scanner works well and is very fast as it can unlock the phone in less than 0.3 seconds. The face unlock, on the other hand, has a respectable unlocking speed.


My gaming experience was above average as I can play Asphalt 9: Legends, PUBG Mobile, and Mobile Legends with decent frames per second. Not much frame drops happened during my game testing which is pretty cool given that the Y9 2019 is an affordable device. Warming can be felt at the back part of the phone but it didn’t reach a temperature that’s uncomfortable.

Camera

The Y9 2019 comes with a quad-camera setup, meaning, it has dual rear and front lenses– both secondary lenses are meant for depth-of-field effect. The user interface of the camera is straightforward as the QR code scanner, flash, moving picture, AI camera, and settings can be found on top for the rear camera. There are five main modes for the rear camera namely Aperture, Night, Portrait, Photo, and Video while other modes like Pro mode, Panorama, AR lens, Light painting, HDR, Time-Lapse, Filter, and Watermark can be found on the “More” tab.

The rear cameras are composed of a 13-megapixel f/1.8 snapper and 2-megapixel f/2.4 rear sensor with PDAF. The lower aperture of the rear camera means that it should be able to perform better in low light.

And it does, somewhat. Images taken with the phone in less than ideal conditions are good, though it’s not going to match the performance of more expensive phones. Colors are vibrant, and there’s plenty of detail to be had.

Like Huawei’s recent offerings the Y9 2019 has AI-enhanced shooting capabilities, which basically means the phone has scene recognition that adjusts contrast, exposure, and saturation depending on what you’re shooting. Unlike their other phones, you’ll have to turn it on yourself and it isn’t on by default. 

As far as selfies go, you’ll be enjoying enhanced bokeh effects thanks to the secondary camera, though the phone is a little aggressive when it comes to beautifying your face.

Battery

The Y9 2019 packs a 4000mAh battery, PCMark’s battery benchmark puts the Y9 2019 at 11 hours and 32 minutes with their standard battery drain test. That translates to around a day’s worth of usable battery life with heavy use, with plenty left over. The only thing we don’t like about the phone is the fact that it doesn’t have fast charging thanks to the lack of a USB Type-C connector.

Full Specifications:

  • Android 8.1 Oreo, EMUI 8.2
  • Dual SIM, Dual Standby (Hybrid, 2 nano or 1 nano+microSD)
  • 6.5-inch Full HD+ IPS 19:9 Display, 2340 x 1080 pixel resolution, ~396ppi
  • 2.2GHz HiSilicon Kirin 710 octa-core processor
  • 4GB RAM
  • 64GB internal storage, expandable up to 256GB
  • Mali-G51 MP4, GPU Turbo Technology
  • 13-megapixel + 2-megapixel front cameras with f/2.0 aperture
  • 16-megapixel + 2-megapixel rear cameras with f/2.2 aperture, dual LED flash
  • Fingerprint scanner, Face unlock
  • WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi hotspot
  • HSPA+, 4G VoLTE
  • Bluetooth v4.2
  • GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS
  • Colors: Midnight Black, Sapphire Blue, Aurora Purple
  • Dimensions: 162.4 x 77.1 x 7.9 mm
  • Weight: 173g
  • 4,000mAh Li-Ion non-removable battery

Huawei Nova 3i Review and Specs

The Philippines is one of the first markets around the world to get their hands on the new Huawei Nova 3i. Unsurprisingly, this country is one of Huawei’s top priorities, considering the local success of the Nova 2i last year which packs a capable processor, good display, feature-packed cameras, all of which are housed in a sturdy and premium body for an affordable price. With it’s successor Huawei Nova 3i you can buy it here in the Philippines through Lazada for ₱15,990 via Cash On Delivery.

Display and Design

The Nova 3i is equipped with a 6.3-inch FullView Display 2.0 with FHD+ (2340 x 1080) resolution or equal to 409ppi. Given the notch design, it now has a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and boasts an 81% screen-to-body ratio. Users also have the option to lower the resolution to HD+ (1560 x 720) or switch on Smart resolution so it can do it automatically to help save power. There’s also an option to adjust color modes from Normal to Vivid, as well as color temperature from Default to Warm to Cold. In addition, there’s split screen support and you can also hide the notch if you’re not fond of it. The quality of images and texts are sharp while the colors are punchy. Viewing angles are great without showing any color shifting. These are good indicators that it can provide users with a good viewing experience when browsing, watching videos or playing games. When it comes to audio quality, the Nova 3i’s single speaker is loud and crisp enough for casual listening to music, videos, and gaming, as well as hands-free voice calls.

Software

The Huawei Nova 3i runs on Android 8.1 Oreo, which isn’t the very latest version of Google’s OS, but it’s the latest major release. Note that the exact version of Android doesn’t majorly matter as it comes with EMUI 8.2.0 skin on top. 

In all honesty, the EMUI has improved a lot over the years. Although it’s not the best custom skin, it still reasonable fluid and stutter-free on the Nova 3i. It is easy to operate, and despite a different icon pack and other tweaks, it still sticks to the principles laid by Google. 

The EMUI is heavily built skin, which comes with its own advantages and flaws. It packs a lot of neat tricks hiding inside the phone, so if you buy it, you will end up spending a lot of time discovering all its features. My favorites are pick up to reduce the ringing volume or wake your phone, raise to ear to make calls, smart screen resolution, private space and app cloning.

Performance

Powering the Nova 3i is Huawei’s new mid-range chipset, the Kirin 710 octa-core chipset clocked at 2.2GHz and Mali-G51 GPU. So far, it performed great when it comes to ordinary tasks like navigating the UI, launching and switching between apps. The fingerprint scanner and face unlock is fast and responsive that is comparable to the P20 series, and can unlock our device almost instantaneously.

Running multiple apps in the background is not an issue thanks to the 4GB RAM. It also proved to be capable when it comes to gaming as it was able to run Asphalt 9 and Mobile Legends smoothly. PUBG Mobile is also very playable, although you’re limited to Smooth and Medium Frame Rate graphics settings.

Camera

Just like its predecessor, the Huawei Nova 3i’s claim to fame is its quad-camera setup. There’s a 24-megapixel front camera and a 16-megapixel shooter on the back. Both of them  are partnered with a depth-sensing, 2-megapixel sensor.

The 16-megapixel primary camera can take good pictures. However, despite the Artificial Intelligence (AI) mode turned off, there are times where the images Huawei Nova 3i captures still feels like it passed through tons of automatic software post-processing.

The details feel a little soft and the colors look unnatural. But other than those few instances, it can surely take Instagrammable photos. They look sharp, has vibrant colors, and good contrast.

On the other hand, the 24-megapixel front camera takes even better pictures, which isn’t surprising since it boasts a more pixel-packed sensor. It has good colors and contrast, although the quality will be put to waste once you use its novelty features. 

The Huawei Nova 3i also has the AR Lens features. There’s the 3D Qmoji, which is Huawei’s take on Apple’s Animoji. It’s fun to use, but its facial tracking is not as accurate as the iPhone X. There’s also the Snapchat-like effects that add random elements in your face and changes the background. It also comes with a dedicated background music per effect. Probably the most interesting novelty is the 3D Objects. This is the most common exhibition of AR technology. The system can add 3D animations in the on the frame, which moves dynamically as if it’s actually in the real world.

Clearly, one of Huawei Nova 3i’s strongest suits is its cameras. Not just because of the hardware itself, but also because of its intelligent software and capable AI processor.

Connectivity and Battery Life

The Huawei Nova 3i comes with a standard connectivity suite like dual 4G with VoLTE support, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. NFC is absent but not really a deal breaker. Calls are loud and clear while mobile is fast as long as the signal is good in the area. GPS works well with navigation apps like Grab, Google Maps, and Waze.


It packs a 3340mAh battery which can suffice most users with basic day to day tasks like phone calls, streaming content, music and scrolling through long social media pages periodically.


Of course, if you are a smartphone gamer and have a weakness for demanding titles like PUBG Mobile, the one-day battery claim doesn’t apply. The GPU Turbo technology does optimize the battery life, but that’s not enough to stretch the battery life to one day with 3-4 classic PUBG matches and given that you survive for at least 20 minutes. 


The charging speed is a little disappointing on the Nova 3i. The Kirin 710 does not offer Huawei’s 22.5W SuperCharge and instead, it has 10W charging via micro USB. It takes around 2 hours to charge from 0-100%, which is slow considering what competition has to offer. And with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge, a lot of Android users are accustomed to fast charging. 


If you are less smartphone dependant throughout a day, even 80% of the battery can sail you through without needing a charger. So, the battery life is quite good, which would have been sweeter if it had fast charge support.

Full Specifications:

  • Android 8.1 Oreo, EMUI 8.2
  • Dual SIM, Dual Standby (Hybrid)
  • 6.3-inch FHD+ IPS display, 2340 x 1080 pixel resolution, ~409ppi
  • 2.2GHz HiSilicon Kirin 710 octa-core processor
  • Mali-G51 GPU
  • 4GB RAM
  • 128GB internal storage, expandable via microSD
  • 24-megapixel + 2-megapixel dual front camera
  • 16-megapixel + 2-megapixel dual rear cameras
  • 480fps slow-motion video recording
  • Fingerprint scanner, Face Unlock
  • HSPA+, 4G LTE
  • WiFi, WiFi hotspot
  • Bluetooth
  • GPS, A-GPS
  • FM Radio
  • microUSB
  • Colors: White, Black, Gradient Blue
  • 3,340mAh non-removable battery

Honor 8X Review and Specs

Honor has released a number of smartphones in 2018 — perhaps too many depending on who you ask — but they all aim to offer exceptional value and build quality that punches well above their price tag. Honor are not known to be flagship-killing mid-range devices, but they have built a steady reputation as solid mid-range, mid-performing devices for the everyday user. With the 8X, Honor has taken its closest step towards offering a phone that looks like a 2018 flagship, at least on the surface. The Honor 8x is available here in the Philippines for ₱12,990 in Lazada which offers Cash On Delivery and Nationwide Shipping.

Design and Display

The Honor 8X looks like the quintessential Honor smartphone, featuring a glossy textured glass back finish with its dazzling light reflecting properties, metal trim, notched display, and eye-catching looks all around. The 91 percent screen to body ratio and minimal chin is undeniably impressive. The standout feature of the Honor 8X, or at least the one that I think is going to sell these phones, is that large 6.5-inch display that adorns the entire front of this device. It’s a 19.5:9, 1080 x 2340 pixels LCD and it looks a lot more expensive than it is. That means that the 8X offers slightly more than Full HD and a pixel density of 397 ppi. The notch is quite wide but it can be hidden in the software.

Software

The Honor 8X launches with Android 8.1 with Huawei’s EMUI 8.2 customization on top of it. It will be familiar to anyone who has had an Honor or Huawei phone in the past. EMUI still has it opponents, but I am a big fan of the level of customization and utility control that is baked into this OS. You have the ability to switch between an iOS-style format with multiple home screen or a stock Android-like app drawer. You can also change the layout of your home screen to have either smaller or larger icons, which impacts how many apps you can fit onto each homes screen. There’s a fair amount of bloatware on the device out of the box including Huawei’s own apps such as HiCare, AppGallery and Health. There’s also a handful of quirky features that we have come to expect from Huawei and Honor. A Party Mode app lets you create a hotspot to share music with other Honor phones users, syncing the music that comes out of all the linked phones’ speakers. There is also a karaoke feature that will play your singing voice back through your headphones for blasting out your favorite tunes.

Performance

The Honor 8X features a Kirin 710 octa-core processor with up to 2.2 GHz. The version I tested had 4GB of RAM. It’s fine for daily usage. Apps launch quickly, and I had no problems with multi-tasking with 2-3 things on the go at once.

This is not a high-performance phone though, and when pushed to the limits, you start to see some of the cost-cutting measures that were required to get the 8X down to this price point.

In terms of audio performance, there is nothing much to report. The sounds quality isn’t amazing, not terrible. Fine for watching videos at low volume, but I wouldn’t want to listen to music out of it. The speaker is on the right-hand side so it’s easy to avoid covering it with your hand in landscape mode.

Camera

Camera performance is usually the first sign of economy in the smartphone business, but it’s not as obvious here as on a lot of mid-range devices. The dual camera on the back, featuring 20MP and 2MP sensors.

The ultra-low light mode is back as is a synthetic wide aperture feature for those bokeh shots that everyone wants these days. You also get the same AI camera tech in the 8X that you’ll find on Huawei’s flagships phones. The camera can identify 50 different objects from 22 categories and will automatically optimize a variety of settings according to what you’re shooting. The recognition part works great, and you’ll get a text flash up on your display while you point the camera so you can check that the AI is seeing what you are. When it comes to actual results, however, I found mixed results. AI camera tech tends to be a little too strong in my experience. It’s almost like the software wants to make it obvious that it has changed something. You’ll often find over-saturated, overly-punchy images. You can always deactivate it with a single tap, though. The maximum resolution for shooting video is 1920 x 1080 at 60 fps.

Battery Life

With a 3,750mAh battery, the Honor 8X has no problem surviving a full day with even the most demanding user. A second day of full use will be on the cards for most, although taking lots of pictures and gaming will knock a couple or so hours off the total on time. Lighter users could well extend usage well into a third day, as was the case when I only used the phone for some web browsing and music streaming. 

If for some reason you find yourself short of juice, the Honor 8X packs in two power saving modes. The regular power saving mode limits background activity, reduces visual effects, and turns off email syncing to save on power. The more extreme ultra power saving mode limits the phone to just a selection of apps to greatly extend battery life up to several days.

Honor 8X Specifications:

  • 6.5-inch 19.5:9 Full HD+ (1080 x 2340) IPS display, 397ppi
  • HiSilicon Kirin 710 2.2GHz octa-core CPU
  • Mali-G51 MP4 GPU
  • 4GB RAM
  • 64GB/128GB storage
  • microSD up to 256GB (dedicated slot)
  • 20MP f/1.8 PDAF + 2MP rear cameras, LED flash
  • 16MP f/2.0 front camera
  • 4G LTE
  • WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
  • Bluetooth 4.2
  • GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
  • Fingerprint scanner
  • micro USB, OTG
  • EMUI 8.2 (Android 8.1 Oreo)
  • 3,750mAh battery
  • 160.4 x 76.6 x 7.8 mm
  • 175 g