Huawei Mate S review

Battery Life

Another relief is that the Mate S’s battery life is much better than Huawei’s abysmal P8, as its 2,620mAh battery lasted 10h 33m in our continuous video playback test when the screen brightness was set to 170cd/m2. This is much more in keeping with other flagship phones I’ve tested this year, although it’s still a little low compared to the LG G4, which lasted two minutes shy of twelve hours, and the Xperia Z5, which managed 11h 29m. Still, you’ll definitely get a day’s use out of the Mate S, even if you’re a particular heavy media user. 

Camera

As for the camera, this has been practically lifted wholesale from the P8, as it has the same 13-megapixel sensor and four-colour RGBW imaging module with optical image stabilisation. It does, however, get a sapphire glass lens cover for added protection and a new Pro camera mode which lets you customise the ISO, exposure compensation, exposure time and white balance via the onscreen slider wheel. It’s rather fussy to control, though, as the slider rarely landed on the setting I wanted, often sliding three settings down rather than stay on the one I was trying to select.

Generally, though, the Mate S can take some fairly decent pictures. Photos weren’t quite as sharp as I was hoping, as Huawei’s excessive smoothing often erased the finer details of each picture, but colours were rich and accurate and there was a decent level of contrast.

^ Photos look good from a distance, but zoom in and there’s a distinct lack of fine detail

Indoor shots were less impressive, though, as these became very overprocessed in lower lighting conditions, and object outlines continued to be a fraction too soft for my liking. The colour temperature was also slightly off when I turned on our external lamp, as whites became very orange and our wooden train track looked very oversaturated. I was able to rectify this somewhat by switching to the Pro mode, but even my best efforts still resulted in a rather pink-looking background.

^ With our external lamp turned on, the Mate S struggled with our white background

^ Turning our lamp off, however, made everything appear very grainy and ridden with noise

Conclusion

Ultimately, though, the Huawei Mate S just doesn’t do quite enough to stand out from the rest of its £400 competition. It’s beautifully made and has decent performance and battery life, but it’s trumped in almost every way by the Samsung Galaxy S6, which now costs just £400 SIM-free or as little as £27.50-per-month on contract. Huawei’s Emotion UI is another big turn off, as for me it just makes it very fussy to use on a daily basis. The Galaxy S6, on the other hand, is faster, has a longer-lasting battery, is just as well made and has an infinitely superior camera.