Huawei Mate 10 Review – The Big and Powerful

Software and User Interface

Software and User Interface

Huawei always releases new and updated software with its Mate flagship launch. That’s not uncommon now as well as the updated software is later rolled out to other recent Huawei devices. If you were familiar with the manufacturers software cycle, before Mate 10, it was running Android 7 Nougat on its flagship devices. On top Huawei’s EMUI 5.1 was the latest. But with the launch of Mate 10 smartphone, Huawei has skipped the a couple of version numbers and jumped straight to EMUI 8.

Why would the company do that, is not known but the key reason could be the alignment with Android 8 Oreo. It’s obvious indeed that Huawei has now chosen to match its EMUI releases with the core Android version. There is no issue with numbering but this change is actually good apparently.

Android 8.0 Oreo with EMUI 8.0

The new EMUI 8 comes with some features which are powered by the dedicated NPU (Neural-Network Processing Unit) in the new Kirin 970 processor but not so exclusively limited to Mate 10. Huawei has promised to ship those machine learning features to Mate 9 and Huawei P10 with EMUI 8 update. Don’t expect them to be as efficient on those devices as on the Mate 10, due to the lack of on-board NPU.

Starting over with the user interfaces, home screen works more like previously, but Huawei has added the Google feed on the left most screen that you can turn on/off now. Default home screen style is just old without the app drawer but you can turn it by going through Settings > Display > Home screen style > Drawer. Huawei must move this option to the home screen customize settings, it will be more quick and easy that way.

Although Huawei hasn’t adapted all the Oreo features and may be shipping those in later updates, the major and most prominent impression you will have is the settings interface. It’s now more compact and grouped into categories. Search settings feature is still there which is already the best thing to have.

Split-screen can be managed easily from recent tasks view where you just have to tap & hold a task until a placeholder is appeared on top edge. You just need to drag and move the held task into the placeholder. It will instantly initiate the the split-screen mode with the selected task set in one window while the recent tasks view in the other window. The split-screen can also be initiated with a Knuckle gesture of line through the mid of the screen.

In addition to common on-screen navigation buttons, and the fingerprint scanner swipe gestures for navigation, Mate 10 provides another navigation control – Navigation Dock. When enabled, a dock is appeared floating on the screen which you can simply tap, tap & hold, hold & stretch and drag to respectively navigate to back, home, recent tasks view or move the dock itself.

Even though the Mate 10 features WQHD resolution of 2560×1440, the system by default is set to 1080p resolution to keep the power consumption at normal. Switching the resolution will only sharpen or soften the elements on the screen, but will not change the size of the elements. You can change the system wise text size and other elements size separately from the resolution. I actually liked that way to keep the resolution at 1080p while having the view size and text size as small. That also gimmicks higher resolution.

One of the many features that involve the on-board AI of Mate 10, include the live translation. Huawei has partnered with Microsoft and the Microsoft Translator app comes pre-installed in Mate 10. The new and improved Microsoft Translator app already has may features including machine learning. With Mate 10’s on-device NPU, the app is now more faster to work with translations. Google Translate app is in pipeline that will work accordingly on Mate 10 with support of the NPU.

Talking about the machine learning and NPU on Mate 10, it leads to many elements within the phone. Such as when taking photographs, it comes into action, identifies objects and adjust the settings. Likewise the system keeps working with its abilities and also arrange your photos in gallery categorically.

It identifies the subjects, faces and scenes in the photos and arrange them accordingly. Such a thing Google’s Photos app already do at some extent however. Likewise in gallery, the deleted images now go into trash and stay there for 30 days before permanently deletion.

EMUI Desktop / Huawei Projection

Huawei calls it projection. It allows you to connect your phone to a monitor or a TV that makes up a kind of PC. The feature has been there for quite a while after Microsoft introduced continuum with Lumia 950 XL smartphone. But all variations after since, required some kind of dock station which is not the case with new Huawei Mate 10. You can buy any USB Type-C to HDMI cable adapter or dongle and directly connect the Mate 10 to a large screen. I used this cable, available from AliExpress for $16 (Rs. ~1600).

Note: Each adapter cable may have different internal design of wiring and may not work as expected. This applies to both; one-to-one interface adapter cable and one-to-many interface adapter hub.

Huawei offers EMUI Desktop UI on the connected large screen while on the same time your phone can work as Virtual keyboard and mouse. Connections via Bluetooth is also supported so you can connect your traditional Bluetooth mouse or keyboard as well.

The interface is simply straight forward with a desktop having a set of icons and task-bar along that a start button, system tray and standard Android navigation keys on the right corner. However, only a few apps seem to be compatible to run on desktop mode which are Files, Chrome browser, Notepad, Galley,

and Videos.

Chrome browser still thinks that you are running it on a mobile device, well you are actually. The viewport is large though and HTML5 based responsive website work seamlessly as they would on a PC browser. However the browser seems to be reporting with mobile based user agent, hence the websites with non-responsive special versions respond with the minimal and limited mobile versions. The example is mobile version of YouTube.

You can open gallery and have a look on the photos you’ve taken with the phone among your friends and family. Videos are also there to watch.

There could be some apps (specially third-party ones) which might not be compatible on projection but your favorite facebook, WhatsApp and twitter were there. Additionally for office work, you have access to PowerPoint, Excel and Word apps including many others.

Multitask switcher interface is most likely the one in Windows 10 with (win+tab). If you are thinking about how notifications will work in projection mode, then you should not. Notifications will not show up on the large screen to prevent the system interrupts you while showing something to your family, friends or colleagues. You can, however find them in the system tray that is also much like in Windows 10.

Games also work on the large screen but you won’t bother to play them because they are not that much good in interaction when running on projection.

Huawei Projection is not kind of something that replaces a desktop PC but it can be a good medium to project your phone’s content on large screen to share your moments with your friends and family or give a presentation to your co-workers.