Huawei has been teasing the upcoming Mate 10 line up since the end of last month. Since then, details have slowly been coming in thanks to various rumors and this has given us an idea of what we can expect from the upcoming flagship series from Huawei this year. Today, a new rumor from Evan Blass (better known as @evleaks) at VentureBeat has shed light on one of the smartphones in the Mate 10 series: the Huawei Mate 10 Lite.
Last year, Huawei launched 4 different variants of their Mate 9 device which included the regular Mate 9, Mate 9 Pro, Mate 9 Lite, and the Mate 9 Porsche Design Edition. This year we have only learned details about three devices that are said to be a part of the Huawei Mate 10 series, though. We first heard of these three devices through their codenames, but the retail names have since been revealed to be the Huawei Mate 10, Mate 10 Pro, and the Mate 10 Lite.
Today’s report from VentureBeat tells us just about everything we can expect to learn about the Huawei Mate 10 Lite. Although it is called “Lite”, it is not expected to be sold as a budget smartphone at all. Instead we’re looking at a device with a 5.9″ FHD+ (2160 x 1080 pixels) with a 2:1 aspect ratio. This display is said to be housed in a full-metal, unibody enclosure and looks to be carrying a price tag of €379 (so around $455).
Huawei is also said to be advertising the Mate 10 Lite as as the company’s premiere quad-camera smartphone. We have previously heard rumblings about this in a device released in China called the G10/Maimang 6 and that’s because the Mate 10 Lite is said to be a re-branded version of it. This means the device will have two cameras on the front and two cameras on the rear. The back will have a 16MP sensor while the front will be equipped with a 13MP sensor, and both sides will have a secondary 2MP camera.
Internally, the Huawei Mate 10 will feature the HiSilicon Kirin 659 SoC with 4 x Cortex-A53 @ 2.36GHz and 4 x Cortex-A53 @ 1.7GHz, 4GB of RAM, 64GBs of internal storage, and a 3,340mAh capacity battery. The expected official announcement of this device is during Huawei’s Munich event on October 16th.
According to a recent report from South Korea citing unnamed industry sources, CEOs of LG Display and Huawei will attend a top management meeting on October 3 in order to lay down the plans for a long-term collaboration on small and mid-sized OLED (organic light-emitting diode) panels. The need for this collaboration has apparently been partly fueled by Samsung Display’s inability to meet the high demand for OLED panels in China, which prompted Huawei to follow a two-way strategy and secure both South Korean tech giants as its main OLED suppliers.
Recent reports suggest that the possible collaboration between LG Display and Huawei should not only secure a stable supply chain for the Chinese smartphone maker but should also help in establishing a mutual growth strategy for both companies in the future. Next year, LG Display is said to supply Huawei with two to three million small to mid-sized OLED panels which will be manufactured at its E2 and E5 plants in Paju, but the company intends on increasing its OLED manufacturing capacity at its E5 and E6 plants as well. The transaction is supposedly worth between 200 and 300 billion won, which translates to between $176 and $265 million, and the amount of panels required from LG Display by Huawei will increase as the OEM continues to adopt OLED technology in more smartphone models moving forward.
The report also suggests that Samsung Display is currently experiencing difficulties with supplying OLED panels to its own smartphone branch as well as its largest client Apple and due to the company’s “clear supply priority,” some Chinese OEMs have had issues with receiving their OLED modules in time, according to industry sources cited by BusinessKorea. In any case, Huawei is expected to continue collaborating with Samsung Display, and the company’s upcoming Mate 10 smartphone will apparently be equipped with non-flexible OLED panels manufactured by LG’s closest competitor. Judging by recent developments, Huawei intends on adopting OLED technology for more smartphones next year, indicating that the demand for LCD smartphone panels could continue to decline, assuming that the increasingly high demand for OLED panels can be met by the industry’s biggest players, including LG and Samsung.
Huawei is set to unveil the Mate 10 flagship on 16 October at an event in Munich, but it now seems that’s not the only phone the smartphone manufacturer has for 2017. Photos of a G10 smartphone have appeared online via PhoneArena, which also claims the phone will be officially announced in a few days on 22 September.
The G10 is likely only destined for China, which is a shame, as not only does it feature an 18:9 display, a design element chosen by a fair few manufacturers in 2017, but it also sports four cameras.
That’s right, four; two on the back and two on the front. It will certainly be the first Huawei phone to sport such a high number of snappers, and possibly one of the first phones in general. We certainly haven’t come across a similar device before.
The images of the G10, which first appeared on Chinese site Weibo, show the front and back of the phone and it looks pretty big. PhoneArena says it’s expected to come with a 5.9-inch full HD display and considering there’s still a fair amount of bezel by 2017 standards, it will likely be tricky to operate one-handed.
The dual-lens rear camera is clear to see on the back, in a vertical array, while the front-facing lenses could be either side of the top speaker, or both on the right.
Other specs for the Huawei G10 are said to include a Kirin 659 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage and a 3,340mAh battery. While the G10 may not ever come to European or US shores, it could shed a light on some of the features of the Mate 10.
We won’t hold our breath for a dual-lens front camera, but an 18:9 display would be well received.
Images have leaked for the Huawei Maimang 6 Android phone in three different colors, including Black, Blue, and what appears to be a Gold color option. Worth noting is that these are just dummy phones, which you will often see inside retail stores or at mall kiosks for wireless carriers. They show off the phone design but don’t have any of the internal components, which means the phones don’t power on, can’t be interacted with, and are essentially just an outside shell. Despite all that though they still do a good job at showing you what the phone looks like.
Even though these aren’t real models of the device that Huawei will be launching for consumers, the images show off the device from every angle needed to get the full picture of the device’s design, and the images do match up with previous leaks of the phone which also showed off the phone design. You get another close up look at the back of each phone, where you can see Huawei has gone with a sort matte look for the colors. The Mang 6 will come with a dual camera module and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, both of which are lined up with the center of the phone.
While many manufacturers seem to be getting rid of the 3.5mm audio port these days, Huawei has kept it on the Mang 6 it seems and it’s located on the bottom which is where you will also find the charging port, though it is micro USB and not USB Type-C. The speaker for the phone is also bottom-firing, and looking at the phone from the front Huawei has used dual front-facing cameras as well, giving this phone four camera sensors total, something which is much less common for smartphones. The phone is supposed to be announced at an event Huawei is having on September 22nd, which is this Friday, and it’s rumored to come running on Android 7.0 Nougat, though at this time there aren’t any rumored price points for this device. The Maimang 6 will more than likely be released in China only but it is possible that Huawei could launch it in some international markets.
The three big names in modems these days are Qualcomm, Qualcomm and Qualcomm. Some would say the chipmaker’s prominence and dominance has come to a legal impasse, but in any case, parallel competitors and smartphone manufacturers have their own ways of getting on the market: making their own chipsets and putting them to market in their own smartphones.
After introducing the HiSilicon-made Kirin 970, parent company Huawei has gone to brag about that chipset’s speeds. It conducted tests with telecom hardware testing firm Rohde & Schwarz and, with 4×4 MIMO and 256-QAM, was able to achieve LTE Category 13 upload speeds and Category 18 download speeds with a top rate of 1.2Gbps.
“A new milestone has been achieved to show that Huawei’s Kirin SoC is once again in a leading position in the LTE-[Advanced]-pro wireless communication industry,” said Ai Wei, HiSilicon Senior Vice President.
In addition to the above technologies, the chip can also support 5-carrier aggregation.
A similar speed was recently recorded with the Snapdragon 835’s modem on Verizon’s network and the upcoming Snapdragon 845’s modem on the T-Mobile network. The earliest we can expect the Snapdragon 845 on a device will be early next year. The Kirin 970, however, will almost certainly be in the Huawei Mate 10, to be released October 16.
The European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA) has now announced its mobile device awards for 2017-2018. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Samsung took home top honors, with the company’s Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ devices collectively winning the “Best Smartphone” award. According to EISA’s judges, who described the Samsung’s flagship devices as “formidable, do-it-all devices” that’s down to a great camera and camera features, the comfortable bezel-free Infinity display, and several other innovations. It’s worth noting that the award was provided to the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy S8+ that are powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 8895 S0C, as opposed to the Snapdragon variant of the devices
As to the other awards, Huawei snagged no fewer than three awards, starting with the Smartphone Camera award being granted to the company’s P10 and its Leica-branded dual sensor setup – which features a 20-megapixel monochrome sensor and a 12-megapixel color sensor, which enable enhanced portrait shots. EISA also cites the front camera as playing a role in the decision since the P10’s 8-megapixel selfie camera features Leica technology which automatically widens the angle to fit more people. Beyond the Huawei P10, the company also won in the best Wearable Device category with its Huawei Watch 2, thanks to its appealing aesthetics, battery life, and water-resistance. Meanwhile, the award for Best Consumer Smartphone also went to Huawei for its Honor 8 Pro. EISA judges referred to the device as a “seriously capable smartphone,” thanks to its 6GB of RAM coupled with 64GB of storage, backed by a Kirin 960 SoC and powered by a 4,000 mAh battery. They were equally impressed by Huawei’s generously proportioned 5.7-inch QHD screen.
Finally, and rounding out awards given to the best of the best among mobile devices, the comparatively unknown NOA Element H10Le won the award for Best Buy Smartphone because of its exceptional “price-to-performance ratio” thanks to its ten-core MediaTek Helio X27 SoC, coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The EISA also points to the device’s 7.1mm thick “sleek metal unibody finish,” 5.5-inch AMOLED display, and cameras as justification for the award. Awards were also handed to manufacturers for other categories, including Best Mobile Audio Player, Wireless In-Ear Headphones, Mobile Speaker, Mobile Headphones, and Portable DAC/Headphone Amplifier.
Motorola recently announced the launch of a special version of Moto G5, the Moto G5S Plus. The G5S Plus was launched alongside the Moto G5S at an event in Delhi on 29 August.
The key highlight of the G5S Plus is the unibody metal design carved out of a single block of metal, in addition to the dual camera setup on the back. The Moto G5S, despite its dual rear camera feature still falls in the relatively budget segment of devices.
However, Moto G5S Plus isn’t the only game in town. Offlate, a lot of companies such as Xiaomi and parent company for Motorola, Lenovo, Huawei, and Coolpad have launched the Xiaomi Mi 5X, Honor 6X, Coolpad Cool Play 6 and Lenovo K8 Note in the market. To be fair, Xiaomi has not launched the Mi 5X in the Indian market but the smartphone is expected to launch in the coming week.
Dual camera setup may or may not result in an improved quality of images that users shoot using the camera. The implementation of dual camera setup may vary depending from device to device and from manufacturer to manufacturer. Usually, the configuration of the camera depends on the pricing of the device and what features the smartphone manufacturer is promising. Smartphone makers are capitalizing on buzz words like ‘Dual camera’ as more and more people may think that Dual-camera setup is much better than a single-camera setup.
With the launch of Moto G5S Plus after the launch of Coolpad Cool Play 6 and upcoming launch of Xiaomi Mi 5X on the horizon. We thought that this is the right time to compare all the budget smartphones with dual camera setup available in the Indian market. So for our comparison, I choose the Moto G5S Plus, Xiaomi Mi 5X, Lenovo K8 Note, Huawei Honor 6X, and Coolpad Cool Play 6. All these smartphones are around the same price point and target the budget smartphone buyers. We wanted to check out which is the best smartphone with a Dual-camera setup. One thing to note here is that the comparison here takes into account, the specifications of the smartphones on paper which may vary from the real world performance of the devices. You can check all the specifications of the smartphones that are part of this comparison below.
So for our comparison, I chose the Moto G5S Plus, Xiaomi Mi 5X, Lenovo K8 Note, Huawei Honor 6X, and Coolpad Cool Play 6. All these smartphones are around the same price point and target the budget smartphone buyers. If you are in the market to buy an affordable smartphone with a dual-camera setup, then this story is for you. One thing to note here is that the comparison here takes into account only the specifications of the smartphones and we are yet to do a full review to talk about the real world performances of these devices. You can check all the specifications of the smartphones that are part of this comparison below.
Conclusion
Comparing the specifications of the smartphones in this comparison, the hardware in almost all the devices is very similar to each other. No device stands apart from each other in terms of processor and the Dual-camera setup. However, comparing just the specifications of the smartphones does lead me to believe that Coolpad Cool Play 6 edges past the others. Mind you, I am purely speaking from the comparison chart above. The real world performance may be very different for the phone and we still have to test that.
The reason for this is because the device matches the competition in the base-line specifications but it does hold its own offering Snapdragon 653 and 6 GB RAM for a price of Rs 14,999 in comparison to Snapdragon 625 in G5S Plus and Mi 5X, Helio X23 in K8 Note and Kirin 655 in Honor 6X. The competition offers 4 GB RAM when compared to Cool Play 6. However, there is no option to expand storage on the Coolpad Cool Play 6.
Honor 6X is the only device that offers a variant with 6 GB RAM and it is priced at Rs 15,999. Cool Play 6 also offers the largest battery life with USB Type-C. Mi 5X is the only smartphone in the list that is expected to pack a USB Type-C port. One thing to note here is that almost all the devices in this range sport a camera setup where one camera sensor captures images in RGB while the second camera sensor captures images in monochrome mode.
LG will reportedly manufacture OLED displays for Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo. The OLED displays are said to be shipped by early 2018.
LG is the second largest manufacturer of OLED panels in the world and according to a report by Business Korea, the South Korean company will soon start supplying its OLED panels to Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo. We can hope to see the above-mentioned companies using LG’s new OLED panels in their upcoming flagship smartphones.
About 20 to 30 percent of the small and mid-sized LG OLED displays have already been ordered by the above-mentioned companies and the company is said to start shipping the OLED displays in early 2018. LG has been using its OLED panels on its smartphones for quite some time now. Both of LG’s flagships this year, the LG G6 and LG V30 will come with FullVision OLED screen
With the launch of the iPhone X, Apple has also adopted the OLED display whereas Samsung has been using OLED panels in its smartphones from quite some time. Samsung’s flagships Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus and the recently launched Galaxy Note 8, all featuring an AMOLED display.
A recent report confirms that Google’s upcoming flagship smartphone, the Pixel 2 XL will be manufactured by LG.
OLED displays are less power consuming than traditional displays and result in longer battery life for smartphones. OLED displays have significantly better refresh rate compared to LEDs or LCDs. OLED panels also support the Always-On feature as seen on the Samsung Galaxy S8.
Apple’s 2017 iPhones will inevitably influence the top end of the smartphone market. Here’s how it looks at the moment, with a number of key launches expected soon.
Smartphones are the focus of most people’s digital lives these days, and are likely to remain so until computing becomes truly ‘ambient’ — probably involving some seamless combination of wearables (particularly augmented reality [AR] goggles), IoT devices, cloud services and artificial intelligence (AI).
Following the launch of the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X, it’s a good time to take stock of the current state of the smartphone market by examining the vital statistics of leading vendors’ flagship handsets.
Apple‘s new iPhones, and Samsung‘s Galaxy S8/S8+ and Galaxy Note 8, show the general direction in which top-end smartphones are heading: powerful, attractive (and expensive) handsets whose user experiences increasingly leverage AI and AR, integrated with an ecosystem of add-on devices and services in various sectors including gaming, AR and VR, smart home, healthcare, shopping and office productivity.
Following last year’s well-publicised Galaxy Note 7 debacle and strong fourth-quarter performance from Apple, Samsung briefly ceded first place to its main rival in the Q4 2016 smartphone market. However, the Korean company swiftly returned to the number-one spot in 2017 (see chart). Apple‘s new iPhones face stiff competition from Samsung, Huawei and other top-five vendors, and from several manufacturers in the ‘Others’ category — including Google, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, OnePlus and Sony — that also offer premium smartphones.
“Despite some key launches in the second quarter from some well-known players, all eyes will be on the ultra-high-end flagships set to arrive this fall,” said Anthony Scarsella, research manager with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, when the Q2 2017 figures were released at the beginning of August. “With devices like the iPhone 8, Pixel 2, Note 8, and V30 in the pipeline, the competition will be fierce come September. We expect all the key players to promote their latest and greatest flagships with an assortment of deals, bundles, and trade-in offers across a variety of channels in most key markets,” he added.
Here’s how the flagship smartphone market looks following Apple‘s 2017 iPhone launch, presented as far as possible in graphical form. (Note: we’ll update this article as new handsets from Google, Huawei, LG and any other leading vendors are released.)
DESIGN
Screen size & Pixel density
Screen size — measured in inches across the diagonal — is a smartphone’s defining design characteristic, and the range on offer from leading vendors is now very wide. BlackBerry‘s 4.5-inch keyboard-equipped KEYone is the smallest, while Samsung‘s Galaxy Note 8 currently leads the field at 6.3 inches, with 16 out of the 25 handsets covered here falling between 5.5 and 6 inches. Display technologies are split between IPS LCD (Apple, BlackBerry, Huawei, HTC, LG [G6], Sony) and various species of OLED (Apple [iPhone X], Google, HP, Huawei [Mate 9 Pro], LG [V30], Motorola, OnePlus and Samsung).
Recent developments in smartphone displays include curved minimal-bezel screens with on-screen home buttons, 18:9 aspect ratio, Gorilla Glass 5 screen protection and — in the HTC U Ultra — a small secondary screen for notifications and other useful information (an idea recently dropped by LG when updating the V20 to the V30). Samsung‘s Note 8 is the only handset covered here that offers a stylus (the S-Pen). Apple‘s 2017 iPhones add True Tone technology (first seen in the 2016 9.7-inch iPad Pro) that automatically adjusts colour temperature and intensity to the ambient light, while the iPhone X made more space for the screen by removing the home button (and Touch ID) altogether.
The other key statistic here is pixel density, measured as pixels per inch (ppi), which factors in the display resolution. The graph below shows that Samsung (Galaxy S8) and LG (G6) lead the mainstream field with pixel densities of 567 and 564ppi respectively. The outlier is Sony‘s 5.5-inch Xperia XZ Premium, which offers a maximum 4K resolution of 3,840 by 2,160 for a massive 807ppi. This looks extremely impressive, but note that, for much of the time, the Xperia XZ Premium works at 1,080p resolution to save battery life, resulting in a much more mundane 403.5ppi.
Not everyone is comfortable with a large-screen handset, but if you want a leading-edge device, that’s increasingly what you’re being offered. If you’re happy with a large screen (>5.5in.) and also want high pixel density (>500ppi), you should be looking at Samsung‘s Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy S8+, LG‘s V30 or, if you’re happy to run Windows 10 Mobile, the HP Elite x3. If your hands are on the small side, the 5.3-inch Nokia 8 offers a good combination of moderate screen size and high resolution (550ppi).
Screen-to-body ratio & Thickness
Another key smartphone design metric is the screen-to-body ratio, which measures how much of a handset’s fascia is occupied by screen compared to non-display elements like bezels, camera lenses and control buttons.
If low screen/body ratios are ‘old-fashioned’, then Apple’s 2016 iPhone 7 and 7 Plus were showing their age at 65.5 percent and 67.5 percent respectively — and their 8 and 8 Plus successors have done nothing to change that. Apart from BlackBerry‘s KEYone, only four other handsets have sub-70 percent ratios: Google Pixel, HTC U Ultra, Nokia 8 and Sony Xperia XZ Premium. The 4.5-inch KEYone is an outlier at 55.9 percent because, of course, it has a hardware keyboard, which decreases the screen-to-body ratio (and also increases the thickness compared to touchscreen-only handsets — see below).
At the other end of the scale, Samsung‘s Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note 8 handsets, with their curved Infinity Display screens and on-screen home buttons, lead the field with screen/body ratios of 83-84 percent. LG‘s V30 and Apple‘s new iPhone X are the only other flagship handsets with screen/body ratios over 80 percent.
Smartphone vendors often make much of the slimness of their handsets, and it’s clear from the chart below that Huawei is particularly keen on this design feature. Conversely, Samsung and Google (and BlackBerry) deliver notably thicker handsets:
Motorola‘s modular Moto Z2 Force, at 6.1mm with no Mods fitted, is the thinnest handset here. There are trade-offs though: the camera lens housing protrudes from the rear, and the device’s body is too thin to accommodate a 3.5mm headset jack. With the increasing use of glass on both the front and back of premium handsets (to accommodate wireless charging), most people immediately put their expensive and shiny new handset in a protective case, which renders the quest for extreme slimness somewhat pointless.
Volume & Weight
As you’d expect, there’s a clear relationship between a smartphone’s physical volume and its weight, although the variation around the trendline is interesting.
For example, the handsets that are thick for their screen/body ratio — notably the HTC-designed Google Pixel and Pixel XL, HTC U Ultra and U11 — are also relatively light for their volume, suggesting that there’s plenty of room for components inside the case. Another handset that’s below the weight/volume trendline is Samsung‘s Galaxy Note 8 — evidence, perhaps, of design changes following the Note 7 debacle (especially as the Note 8 also packs a smaller-capacity 3,300mAh battery than its ill-fated predecessor, which ran on a 3500mAh unit). Conversely, it’s noteworthy how Apple‘s iPhone 8 Plus is particularly heavy (at 202g) for its volume, that the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are slightly bulkier and heavier than their predecessors, and that the 5.8-inch iPhone X is considerably lighter and more compact than Samsung’s 6.3-inch Galaxy Note 8.
Dust and water resistance
Another key smartphone design factor is resistance to the ingress of foreign matter, as commonly indicated by a two-digit IP rating: the first number describes dust resistance on a 1-6 scale, while the second describes water resistance on a 1-8 scale. The highest rating among the flagship handsets covered here is IP68, where ‘6’ indicates that the device is ‘dust tight’ and ‘8’ signifies that it can withstand immersion in water (usually at least 30 minutes to depth of at least 1m).
An IP rating of 5 for dust means the device is merely ‘dust protected’, while 7 for water means it can withstand immersion in up to 1m for 30 minutes, 4 means it can resist ‘splashing water’ and 3 means it can handle ‘spraying water’, both of the latter for at least 10 minutes.
IP ratings are not available for the BlackBerry KEYone, Huawei (and Honor) handsets, HTC U Ultra, Motorola Moto Z2 Force (although it does claim a ‘water repellent nano-coating’) and OnePlus 5. However, two of the flagship smartphones — the LG V30 and HP Elite X3 — also boast a military-grade MIL-STD 810G ruggedness certification.
Somewhat surprisingly, Apple‘s 2017 iPhones did not bump up their IP ratings from IP67 to IP68, to match Samsung‘s Galaxy S8/8+/Note 8. Looking ahead, it will be surprising if Google‘s second-generation Pixel handsets don’t move beyond IP53.
PLATFORM
Chipsets, CPU & GPU performance
A flagship smartphone should do its job — launching, running and switching between apps, and displaying on-screen content — quickly and smoothly, without any delays or glitches that would mar the user experience. It shouldn’t become uncomfortably hot in operation either — or, of course, burst into flames.
Chipsets from four main vendors power the handsets covered here:
Apple‘s 4-core A10 Fusion (iPhone 7/7 plus) and 6-core AI- and AR-optimised A11 Bionic(iPhone 8/8Plus/X)
Samsung‘s 8-core Exynos 8995 in the Galaxy S8/S8+/Note 8 (worldwide versions)
Qualcomm’s mid-range 8-core Snapdragon 625 (BlackBerry KEYone); 4-core 820 (HP Elite x3) and 821 (Google Pixel/XL, HTC U Ultra, LG G6); and top-end 8-core 835 (HTC U11, LG V30, Moto Z2 Force, OnePlus 5, Galaxy S8/S8+/Note 8 [US/China versions], Sony Xperia XZ Premium)
HiSilicon’s Kirin 960 in the Huawei and Honor handsets.
Here’s how these platforms shape up in terms of processor and graphics performance, as measured by the Primate Labs’ multi-core Geekbench 4 (Gb4) and Futuremark’s 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited (ISU) benchmarks respectively:
The top-performing chipset — on these measures at any rate — is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, with Gb4 and ISU scores of up to 6500 and 40000 respectively. Note that the Exynos 8995 versions of the Samsung S8 and S8+ deliver better CPU results but weaker GPU performance (benchmarks are currently only available for the Exynos 8995 version of the Galaxy Note 8).
Apple‘s A10 Fusion-powered iPhone 7 and 7 Plus were strong performers, with scores of around 5400 (Gb4) and 37000 (ISU), and the new A11 Bionic-powered iPhones are sure to see a significant speed bump when benchmarks appear (here’s a leaked report). At the 2017 launch, Apple claimed that the A11 Bionic’s two performance CPU cores are 25 percent faster than the A10, while its four high-efficiency cores are 70 percent faster. Apple‘s 2nd-generation performance controller is reportedly 70 percent faster for multithreaded workloads, while the A11’s GPU is 30 percent faster and delivers A10-level performance at half the power, according to Apple.
Also prominent are the Kirin 960-powered handsets from Huawei and Honor, which cluster around the 6000 (Gb4)/27000 (ISU) mark. Again, we expect to see a performance boost when the AI-optimised Kirin 970 chipset becomes available in the Huawei Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro in October.
The remaining Snapdragon 821-powered smartphones on this chart — notably Google‘s Pixel and Pixel XL — are well behind the 2017 curve, and will certainly be updated with the 835 chipset in due course. Very much in last place in this company is BlackBerry‘s KEYone, which is powered by Qualcomm’s mid-range 8-core Snapdragon 625 SoC.
RAM & Storage
When it comes to memory, the clear leader of the pack is the OnePlus 5, which is currently unique in offering 8GB or 6GB of RAM. Next come seven flagship handsets with a maximum of 6GB, all of which bar the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 also have a 4GB variant. The most common RAM complement is 4GB, which is the only choice with 11 handsets and the maximum for BlackBerry‘s KEYone (which also comes with 3GB).
Apple has always fitted less RAM in its iPhones than the Android competition, and that hasn’t changed with its 2017 handsets: the iPhone X and 8 Plus have 3GB (like the iPhone 7 Plus), while the iPhone 8 has 2GB (like the iPhone 7).
As far as internal storage is concerned, Apple‘s 2017 iPhones stand out with their maximum complement of 256GB — a feature that betrays the company’s disdain for external storage expansion via a MicroSD card slot. Samsung‘s Galaxy Note 8 also offers a maximum of 256GB (in some territories), but has a MicroSD card slot too, making it the top choice for the data-hungry.
Google‘s Pixel handsets and the OnePlus 5 also lack MicroSD expansion and, like the previous-generation iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, provide up to 128GB rather than 256GB of internal storage.
The most common maximum internal storage complement is 128GB, which is offered by 13 of the 25 handsets covered here.
CAMERAS
Rear cameras
Cameras have become a key battleground for smartphone makers, and several approaches are currently on view among the flagship population. Although it wasn’t the first to do so, Apple kick-started a trend last year by offering dual rear cameras on the iPhone 7 Plus: a primary 12-megapixel (MP) camera with an f/1.8 wide-angle lens and optical image stabilisation (OIS), and a secondary camera with an f/2.8 telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom but no OIS.
As well as adding telephoto capability, Apple‘s dual-camera system allowed depth information to be calculated, enabling features like bokeh — sharp foreground and blurred background — to be supported on portrait shots that were previously the province of expensive digital SLR cameras with high-end optics.
Apple‘s 2017 dual-camera phones, the iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X, remain at 12MP but the sensors are bigger, faster and deliver better low-light performance, according to Apple. The iPhone 8 Plus has the same basic lens specs as the 7 Plus (f/1.8 wa + OIS, f/2.8 tele), while the iPhone X has an f/2.4 aperture on the telephoto lens and implements OIS on both cameras. Apple also takes advantage of A11 Bionic chip’s machine-learning optimisation and custom ISP to deliver a (beta) Portrait Mode feature called Portrait Lighting: here, depth sensing and facial mapping are combined to deliver real-time analysis of the light on a subject’s face and provide alternative lighting schemes — either pre- or post-capture.
For dual-camera handsets, the top bar is the wide angle or colour camera, while the bottom bar is the telephoto or black-and-white camera.
Huawei‘s Leica-branded camera system pairs 12MP RGB and 20MP monochrome sensors with 27mm f/2.2 lenses (f/1.8 in the P10 Plus), supporting OIS on the primary colour camera. As well as enabling true monochrome shooting and adding detail to blended RGB/mono shots, the 20MP secondary camera supplies depth information for bokeh-style images. The Honor 8 Pro has a similar (non-Leica-branded) system, but the secondary mono camera is 12MP rather than 20MP and there’s no support for OIS.
LG uses two 13MP sensors on the G6, one coupled with an f/1.8 autofocus lens with OIS and the other with an f/2.4 wide-angle lens lacking both OIS and autofocus. The LG V30 takes a similar approach, but uses a 16MP primary sensor with an f/1.6 lens (with AF and OIS) and a 13MP secondary sensor with an f/1.9 lens (no AF or OIS).
Both Motorola and Nokia take the Huawei approach, with colour and monochrome cameras: the Nokia 8’s Zeiss-branded system supports OIS on the colour camera, but the Moto Z2 Force does not offer OIS on either.
OnePlus and Samsung (Galaxy Note 8) go for the wide-angle/telephoto dual camera design, OnePlus with 16MP (wa) and 20MP (tele) cameras and electronic image stabilisation (EIS) rather than OIS, and Samsung with two 12MP cameras, both with OIS. Samsung also introduces a couple of neat dual-camera features: Live Focus lets you adjust the bokeh effect pre- and post-capture, while Dual Capture simultaneously captures photos from both the wide-angle and telephoto cameras.
Single rear cameras are an increasing rarity among the flagship population, but are headed (in resolution terms) by Sony and HP, with 19MP and 16MP units in the Xperia XZ Premium and Elite x3 respectively.
Front cameras
The fashion for ‘selfies’ and authentication via face recognition means that front-facing cameras, once something of an afterthought with a nod to video calls, have seen significant recent evolution.
Samsung, for example, offers both face recognition and iris scanning on its Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note 8 handsets, as well as a capable 8MP camera, while the Nokia 8’s Dual Capture feature lets you take pictures with the front and rear camera simultaneously (a.k.a. ‘Bothies’). Even more recently Apple more than matched Samsung’s functionality with the front-facing TrueDepth camera system and Face ID on the new iPhone X:
Apple’s True Depth camera system occupies a notch at the top of the iPhone X’s OLED screen.
To analyse your physiognomy, the flood illuminator detects your face, the infrared camera takes an IR image, and the dot projector places than 30,000 IR dots on your face. These data are fed into a neural network (in the A11 Bionic chip) to create a mathematical model of your face, which is then checked against the stored model on the handset — all in real time. The True Depth camera also enables Portrait Mode selfies with Portrait Lighting, and animated emoji called ‘Animoji’.
Here are the front camera megapixel counts for the 25 handsets under consideration, 12 of which are 8MP units:
Video
Video capture is becoming an increasingly important smartphone camera feature — witness the fact that all bar one of the handsets covered here can record 4k (2160p) video with at least a frame rate of 30fps. The exception is BlackBerry‘s KEYone, which doesn’t support 4k video capture at any frame rate. Apple‘s new iPhones just upped the ante by supporting 4k video at 60fps, which will doubtless kick off another round of feature catch-up.
Slow-motion video is another popular feature, and Sony‘s Xperia XZ Premium leads the field here, supporting HD (720p) video capture at a startling ‘super-slo-mo’ 960fps. The current ‘standard’ for slo-mo video is 720p at 240fps, although Apple has again pushed the boundary by supporting full HD (1080p) video at 240fps in the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X.
As resolutions and frame rates rise, image stabilisation — either optical or electronic — will become ever more important. It’s noticeably absent from Motorola‘s Moto Z2 Force, for example.
BATTERY
Battery capacity
As flagship smartphones pack in faster processors, more memory, larger and higher-resolution screens, and ever more functions, so the toll on the handset’s battery increases. There are multiple trade-offs here: no smartphone user wants to have to recharge during a typical day’s usage, but manufacturers cannot simply fit ever higher-capacity batteries into designs that need to be as lightweight and elegant as possible in order to keep buyers interested. Get it wrong and a vendor can have a Galaxy Note 7-style debacle on its hands.
The state of the art in smartphone batteries is currently around 4,000mAh, while 14 of the 22 handsets charted here have battery capacities between 3,000 and 4,000mAh. Apple has not divulged the battery specs for the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X, and we’re awaiting the teardown analyses that will supply them.
Battery life
A bigger battery obviously means longer battery life, as the chart below clearly shows. But given that design and safety constraints preclude the shoehorning of big batteries into tight-fitting cases, manufacturers also need to make it as convenient as possible for users — especially ‘power’ users who subject their devices to heavy workloads — to recharge their handsets.
Following LG‘s decision to drop the removable battery when updating the V20 to the V30, this feature is now absent from all of the top-end smartphones covered here. Fast charging is supported on all but the now-outdated iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, while wireless charging is available on Apple‘s new iPhones (8, 8 Plus and X), HP‘s Elite x3, the LG G6 and V30, and Samsung‘s Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note 8.
PRICES
High-end smartphones are never going to be cheap, but Apple‘s newly launched iPhone X has broken new ground — the combination of Apple‘s historically high margins and a significant amount of new technology have seen to that. The entry-level 64GB iPhone X configuration costs $999, and if you must have the top-end 256GB model, be prepared to part with a princely $1,149 (and the same figure in UK pounds).
That’s a record for a mainstream flagship handset, although you can spend even sillier money on specialist secure/luxury devices like Sirin Labs’ Solarin if you really want to (although, as it turned out, few did).
Here are the list prices in US dollars for most of the premium handsets covered in this feature:
Notes: the LG V30 prices are converted from Korean won; the Nokia 8 price is converted from euros. The following handsets are not officially available in the US: Honor 8 Pro, Huawei Mate 9 Pro, Huawei P10 and P10 Plus. Where available, prices for entry-level and top-end configurations are shown.
Outlook
Recent launches from Samsung and Apple have highlighted the increasing importance of artificial intelligence and augmented reality in high-end smartphones, with the underlying chipsets and developer resources evolving appropriately. At least for now, the smartphone will remain the portable hub for your digital life, and the flow of new devices will continue apace.
We aim to keep this roundup updated as new products, specification details and benchmarks appear. The next big launches expected are Google‘s second-generation Pixel handsets, Huawei‘s Mate 10 and 10 Pro, and LG‘s G7. Check back for updated information on these and other devices.
Huawei is taking its time to do more damage to the heavyweights of the mobile market with its new Honor Pad 2. It’s got the looks and specs but is it good?
The Huawei announcement came as no surprise as the Huawei Honor 6X didn’t go out alone on the unveiling of Huawei’s new devices at its latest hardware launch event. It came with some affordable wearables and tablets which are pretty specced out for their prices.
Quick price list for new Huawei releases are as follows:
Honor Watch S1 – $103
Honor Pad 2 – $148
Honor 6X – $150
The Honor 6X definitely is the star of the show as a mid-range phone with full HD, 5.5-inch screen. It also has dual cameras at the back.
In the case of the Honor Watch S1, it would be only marketed for China just for now. However, with the 6-day battery life, it would surely wow some international market who are in need of a new smartwatch. It’s not on the premium tier of the market but with some soft-lit screen and awesome energy-saving software, the Honor Watch S1 is definitely worth to be checked out.
More of the the Honor Watch S1, it obviously doesn’t run full Android Wear, and like the Honor Band Z1, focuses on a robust set of activity tracking features, this time even including its own heart rate monitor. Plus, up to 50-meter water resistance, and all you need in terms of connected smartphone notifications at a measly 700 Yuan.
Huawei Honor Pad 2 is even more impressive on its price to value proposition. The specs are as follows:
1,920 x 1,200 resolution
8-inch IPS display
octa-core Snapdragon 616 processor
3GB RAM
16/32GB storage options
8 MP and 2MP cameras
4,800 mAh battery
Android 6.0 Marshmallow
For just $148 price tag, the Honor Pad 2 can definitely go solo rivaling the likes of the iPad Mini.
