Huawei Mate 10 Pro Review UK

Huawei Mate 10 Pro Review: Overview & Price

In this Huawei Mate 10 Pro review, we will be looking at what Huawei got right with this phone, as well as showcase the best Huawei Mate 10 Pro contract deals.

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro was released in the UK in November of 2018, offering users a stunning phablet whilst not breaking the bank either.

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro is not waterproof, however it is IP67 rated, but we will get to this later in the post.

This phone aims to undercut the competition by offering a cheaper price with more attractive specifications.

Check out the best Huawei Mate 10 Pro deals in the UK…

Priced at £699 here in the UK, the phone gives users 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and the powerful Kirin 970 CPU, just a handful of what this phone brings to the table.

Let’s take a closer look…

Huawei Mate 10 Pro Review: Design & Display

So the first thing we noticed when pulling the Huawei Mate 10 Pro out of its box, is that it’s absolutely stunning.

The phone has very small bezels on the front, with a Gorilla Glass back panel combined with a metal frame.

Huawei has done an excellent job at making the phone feel premium in your hand, weighing in at 178g it’s not going to pull your jeans down either.

You may be wondering if the Huawei Mate 10 Pro is waterproof?

You’ll be glad to know that the phone is IP67 water-resistant, so don’t stress too much if you accidentally plunge the phone into the tub whilst soaking, as it can survive up to 30 minutes whilst under 1m of water.

There is also a screen protector and soft plastic case that comes with the phone in the box, meaning you don’t need to go out and purchase one, Huawei has got you covered.

We were lucky enough to review the Mocha Brown colour phone, if this isn’t your thing then you have; Titanium Grey, Midnight Blue or Pink Gold to choose from.

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro is extremely reflective when it catches the light and you will find it is blinding but it does look incredible when the rays bounce off the glass back.

You won’t find a 3.5mm headphone jack on this phone, as like many other providers 2017 was the year of removing this, for me and most music lovers alike this was a bit of a blow but not a deal-breaker.

On the right side of the phone is where you will find the power button and volume rocker, with a satisfying feeling when pressing the buttons.

The phone has a huge 128GB of internal storage, meaning the absence of a microSD isn’t too bad but it would have been nice to have the option when paying this price for a phone, there is still a SIM tray on the left side for.

Down at the bottom of the phone is where you will see the USB-C port, used for charging the device. You’ll also find the single firing speaker down at the bottom too, it’s decent but nothing too special, we will give you more on that later.

Then when flipping the phone over you will find the dual-camera setup, slightly raised meaning that when sat on a desk you will notice that it moves slightly and will wobble, however it looks extremely clean and compliments the phones design very well.

Just underneath the camera setup is a very well placed fingerprint sensor, your finger will naturally gravitate towards it when unlocking the phone, meaning no awful finger cramps or dropping the phone when trying to unlock the device.

The sensor is super fast and responsive and allows you to store passwords on the phone, allowing you to quickly log into your accounts without needing to frantically type your password in and get it wrong 3 times before getting access.

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro comes with a stunning 6-inch HD+ HDR 10 OLED display with a 2160 x 1080 resolution.

The display is undoubtedly one of the best on the market at the minute, even if your zooming in with a magnifying glass you will struggle to see any pixels coming from this display.

We found that the brightness levels of this display is excellent, it gets super bright so using it in direct sunlight isn’t a problem.

See Related:

*Huawei Mate 20 Pro Review*
*Huawei P20 Lite Review*
*Huawei Mate 20 Lite Review*
*Huawei P20 Review*
*Huawei P20 Pro Review*

Also, we noticed that it can get extremely dim too, meaning using the phone at night or whilst in bed isn’t going to singe your eyelids off.

We found that colours were bright and vibrant, offering plenty of contrast without feeling over-saturated.

We found the display to be better than what you will find in the Google Pixel 2, thanks to its great viewing angles and 80.9% screen-to-bezel ratio.

Also because the display doesn’t melt off around the edges of the phone, you will find that you get a better quality of display making for a superb media experience when it comes to watching Netflix and YouTube for long periods.

We loved the display of the Huawei Mate 10 Pro and had nothing negative to report here, we found ourselves immersed in World of Warcraft videos for long periods without batting an eyelid.

Huawei Mate 10 Pro Review: Performance

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro uses Huawei custom interface, EMUI 8.0. This interface lays over the top of Android 8.0 Oreo, giving you the latest features on your smartphone.

The EMUI is pretty loud and in your face, however, when you get used to it, the overall experience gets so much better. The first thing to note is that right out of the box there is no app drawer, so your home screen will look a little erratic to say the least.

You will also find some bloatware pre-installed on the device, this cannot be removed and you will need to tuck it away in a folder.

Thanks to the phone being Android, it is very customisable and you can easily change a lot of the things you don’t like in the settings tab.

Themes can be changed, home screens and there is an app drawer which can be turned on in the settings to keep everything nice and tidy.

The EMUI does offer some pretty cool features, video recording is built-in allowing you to capture some epic gaming montages, there is a full-screen app button, allowing you to get the most out of your applications.

Things like double-tapping the volume rocker will open the camera quickly and take a shot for you, overall though the EMUI is great once you get used to it, everything you don’t like can be changed easily and it does look extremely similar to IOS.

Now onto the performance of the phone, so the Huawei Mate 10 Pro packs a whopping 128GB of storage, giving you plenty of room for music, photos and allowing you do download a ton of games.

There is no slot for a microSD but the average user really won’t need this thanks to the huge amount of onboard storage.

The Mate 10 Pro also has an Octa-core CPU and runs from the Kirin 970 chipset, it also has AI features that allow it to pre-determine what apps you will load.

For example, if your using Instagram for 4 hours a day it will recognise this and the next time you load it, things will be a lot smoother as it will dedicate more memory to this app.

6GB of RAM is also present in this phone, allowing you to breeze through even the most graphically intense games out there.

We did try out one of our favourite games Runescape, this is a demanding MMORPG and we found that the phone ran the game smoothly without any lag or stutter, impressive.

Gaming on this phone is great and the overall experience is pleasant, navigating through the phone is seamless without a single sign of any slowing down.

One thing we did notice though is when gaming for long periods the phone did overheat slightly, nothing to be overly concerned about but we did notice it got rather hot after an hour or so of PUBG.

Huawei Mate 10 Pro Review: Camera

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro has a 12MP f/1.6 aperture with OIS, and a secondary 20MP f/1.6 with OIS, this sounds great thanks to both lenses having the same aperture.

Huawei camera’s are big on AI, as is this Huawei Mate 10 Pro, Huawei claims that the phone can recognise what you are taking a picture of an automatically jump mode to suit the situation.

We loved this feature, as it would often enhance our photos, even more, making them look immediately ready for the gram.

It really is a matter of whether you agree with the AI or not, the settings can be adjusted manually in the settings and we found ourselves doing so after we got to grips with the camera.

Images look great with bright colours and plenty of contrast, dynamic range is strong too resulting in some awesome images.

We noticed that the speed of which the camera shoots a photo, is extremely fast, meaning that there is no shutter lag and you’ll easily be able to take a shot of a flying bird without missing target.

The phone does a great job at producing quality images in low-light too, we found shots to be consistent although contrast does become a bit of an issue when there’s not much light.

We also noticed that colours begin to look a little bit distorted too, there is a dedicated ‘Night-Mode’ that helps to combat this though and it works really well.

Portrait mode works well too and blurring out the background can result in some amazing shots, overall we were extremely impressed with the rear cameras of the Huawei Mate 10 Pro.

The 8MP-selfie-cam with EIS is strong too, resulting in some clean selfies that are exactly what you would expect from this device.

There is a ‘beauty-mode’ which works well to smooth over your selfies and chisel in your jawline, it also helps get rid of any blemishes you might have either allowing you to take a great selfie with minimal effort.

When it comes to video recording, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro can shoot in 1080p that allows you to get some fantastic video footage. Overall the camera side of this phone is really impressive and one of the main highlights of this device.

Huawei Mate 10 Pro Review: Battery Life

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro has a powerful 4000mAh battery that will easily last users a full day.

This battery is larger than any of the phone main competitors, the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Google Pixel 2; it does need it though to power that huge display.

The phone will even last the average user for 2 full days, depending on usage, if your not a huge gamer or someone who’s going to be using that big OLED display all day then you will easily be able to squeeze a lot of juice out of this thing.

Huawei has implemented some pretty impressive power-saving modes on this phone too, allowing you to make the most out of that last 10% charge.

Unfortunately there no wireless charging on this device even though it has a glass back, however, it does have fast charging capabilities, meaning you’ll get from 0-50% in half an hour.

Huawei Mate 10 Pro Review: Summary

So should you buy this phone?

Well if your looking for a stunning smartphone with a solid design, performance and a good camera too then this might be the phone for you.

The phone has plenty of onboard storage for those who like to download movies and play lots of games; it also has a world-class battery life that will get most users through 2 full days of usage.

Now, unfortunately, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro is not fully waterproof, but it is IP67 water-resistant, meaning it will survive a small dunk in water.

That being said it does have some flaws, it doesn’t have wireless charging and we would have loved to see an easier to set up UI.

Huawei Mate 10 Pro (Single-SIM) 128GB Android 8.0 UK version SIM-Free Smartphone -Titanium Grey 

Now we found it rather hard to find many Huawei Mate 10 Pro deals, so at the top we have listed the best SIM-free options for the phone.

The phone is easy to recommend to those who love to be different, this phone is bold and offers just as much as what those big players do.

That being said before making any purchase decisions we definitely recommend checking out our Huawei Mate 20 Pro review, as it’s now 2019 and Huawei has brought even more cool features to the updated version of this phone.

We hope you have enjoyed our Huawei Mate 10 Pro review and feel free to leave a comment and check out the best Huawei Mate 10 Pro contract deals at the top of this post.

Huawei Mate 10 Pro Review: Full Specification

Launch: 2017, October

Body:

• Dimension: 154.2 x 74.5 x 7.9mm (6.07 x 2.93 x 0.31 inches)
• Weight: 178g (6.28 oz)
• Build: Front/back glass, aluminium frame
• Sim: Single SIM (Nano-SIM) or Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
  – IP67 dust/water resistant (up to 1m for 30 mins)

Display:

• Type: AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colours
• Size: 6.0 inches, 92.9cm² (-80.9% screen-to-body ratio)
• Resolution: 1080 x 2160 pixels, 18:9 ratio (402 PPI density)
• Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass (unspecified version)

Platform:

• OS: Android 8.0 (Oreo), upgradable to Android 9.0 (Pie); EMUI 8
• Chipset: HiSilicon Kirin 970 (10nm)
• CPU: Octa-core (4×2.4 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A53)
• GPU: Mali-G72 MP12

Memory:

• Card slot: No
• Internal: 128GB, 6GB RAM or 64GB, 4GB RAM

Camera:

• Primary:
  – 12MP, f/1.6, 27mm (wide), OIS, PDAF & laser AF
  – 20MP B/W, f/1.6, 27mm (wide), 2x lossless zoom, OIS, PDAF & laser AF
• Features: Leica optics, dual-LED dual-tone flash, panorama, HDR
• Video: 2160p@30fps, 1080p@30/60fps
• Single:
  – 8MP, f/2.0, 26mm (wide), AF
• Video: 1080p@30fps

Sound:

• Loudspeaker: Yes, with stereo speakers
• 3.5mm Jack: No
  – 32-bit/384kHz audio
  – Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic

Comms:

• WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
• Bluetooth: 4.2, A2DP, aptX HD, LE
• GPS: Yes
• NFC: Yes
• Infrared Port: Yes
• Radio: No
• USB: 3.1, Type-C 1.0 reversible connector; USB Host

Features:

• Sensors: Fingerprint (rear-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, barometer, compass

Battery:

• Non-removable Li-Pro 4200 mAh battery
• Charging: Fast battery charging 4.5V/5A 22.5W (58% in 30 mins)

Misc:

• Colours: Midnight Blue, Titanium Grey, Mocha Brown, Pink Gold
• Price: As seen in the above post

Tests:

• Performance: Basemark is || 2.0: 3425 / Basemark X: 40232
• Display: Contrast ratio: Infinity (nominal), 4.096 (sunlight)
• Camera: Photo / Video
• Loudspeaker: Voice 70dB / Noise 73dB / Ring 84dB
• Audio Quality: Noise -93.5dB / Crosstalk -93.4dB
• Battery life: Endurance rating 85h