Huawei P10 hands-on, first impressions

Huawei unveiled their new P10 and P10 Plus here in Barcelona just in time for the Mobile World Congress 2017. The P10’s design remained almost the same as its predecessor, the Huawei P9, though a lot of the improvements were made under the hood.

You can check out our quick unboxing of the Huawei P10 below:

The review unit we got is the one in Graphite Black and there is an uncanny resemblance to the iPhone 7 especially that the edges have become more rounded.

At 5.1 inches, the Huawei P10 is perfect on the hands, fits right well and gives you a solid yet comfortable grip.

The entire front panel is covered with glass that slightly curves toward the edges. It’s also very surprising that Huawei would put the fingerprint scanner at the front when all these time it has always been placed at the back. The scanner is also embedded beneath the glass panel so there’s no physical/mechanical button to speak of.

The power button and volume controls are found on the right side. Even the minutest details are carefully done, like the chamfered edges of the buttons and that classic red trimming of the power button that’s closely associated with Leica.

The SIM card slot is on the left side which supports dual SIM with the second one doubling as a tray for the microSD card. This hybrid dual-SIM was re-introduced with the Mate 9 so we’re not that surprised that the P10 also got the same.

The 3.5mm audio port is at the bottom end together with the USB Type-C port and the speaker grills. There’s nothing up top except for the noise canceling microphone.

The 5.1-inch IPS LCD display has a full HD resolution which is an upgrade from the P9. At this size, a 1080p resolution is already pretty good with a 431ppi pixel density.

The P10 will come with Android 7.1 Nougat right out of the box along with Emotion UI 5.1. It’s a simpler and cleaner UI just like in the Mate 9.

At the back is the flat all-metal body in matte black finish. While it’s nice and clean to look at, it is also very prone to fingerprints and smudges. That’s the same problem we encountered with the matte black iPhone 7.

At the upper section is the strip of glass that houses the two rear cameras with the dual-LED flash. It uses the same optics as the one in the Mate 9 with an f/2.2 aperture Summarit lenses.

Here are some sample photos we took:

We’ll do some side by side comparison with the P9 and Mate 9 once we get back in Manila.

We’ve also seen how well the Kirin 960 chip fares in terms of performance and benchmarks so we expect the same from the P10. This is paired with a 4GB of RAM and 32GB starting storage capacity.

Huawei P10 specs:
5.1-inch full HD display @ 1920×1080 pixels, 431ppi
HiSilicon Kirin 960 2.4GHz octa-core processor
Mali-G71MP8 GPU
4GB LPDDR4 RAM
32GB, 64GB internal storage
expandable via microSD card (hybrid — uses SIM2 slot)
Dual-SIM, Dual Standby
4G LTE
20MP monochrome + 12MP color f/2.2 dual rear cameras with dual-LED Flash, OIS
8MP f/1.9 front camera
WiFi (2×2 Mimo)
Bluetooth
GPS (Huawei Geo Technology)
NFC
Fingerprint Scanner
Android Nougat with EMUI 5.1
3,200mAh battery with Super Charge

The Huawei P10 will be available in Ceramic White, Dazzling Blue, Dazzling Gold, Prestige Gold, Graphite Black, Mystic Silver, Rose Gold, and Greenery colors. It’s initially priced at €649 (roughly Php34,400USD 586INR 49,694EUR 558CNY 4,269 when converted) and is launching in the Philippines this March.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

5 Comments

wilde says:

8 years ago

The thing with Huawei is, their price is very premium
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The OC says:

8 years ago

That’s a lovely room–is it a library? Love the lighting on the shelves. And the photos are great, especially the last one, which looks like it was taken with very expensive camera equipment for an interior design magazine. No flash was used for the interior photos, right?
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Abe Olandres says:

8 years ago

This was taken in our hotel here in Barcelona. No flash was used.

Micah Hill says:

8 years ago

Dear Yugatech, I like your content, but please hire an editor, the syntax is off-putting… ie:

(1) “The entire front panel is covered with glass that slightly curves toward the edges.” –> The entire front panel is covered with glass that is curved in the corners. (edges and corners are different)

(2) “The P10 remained almost the same as its predecessor, the Huawei P9, though a lot of the improvements were under the hood.” –> Although it appears similar to its predecessor, the P9, one can immediately notice the improvements in the phone’s performance once you use it. (the ‘under the hood’ expression is just too trite)

I have been reading you guys for years, and sometimes I just squint my eyes trying to zone out of sentences like the ones above.
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