Huawei P10 review: A far less exciting sequel

I loved last year’s Huawei P9. It was the type of device where its whole was greater than the sum of its parts. It meant that when the P10 came around, this new phone would have some pretty big shoes to fill. Huawei Malaysia certainly wasted no time bringing it in, but the question is: Should you buy one?

As usual, Huawei’s gone for two variants for the P10 — a small P10 and the bigger P10 Plus — along with a whole host of different features to separate the two devices. Last year, the smaller P9 captured my heart in a way the larger Plus variant simply didn’t.

This year though, with upgraded specs, a new camera system and a new-ish build, can the smaller P10 do the same?

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Sequels to great things are hard to follow up. Sure, you can say that Huawei has been making the P series phones for quite awhile now and this new P10 isn’t really a “sequel”, but none of them really gelled and came together the way the P9 did. In a way, it ushered a new era of Huawei P series phones and the P10 is the first phone after that era.

You may remember that we said the P10 was more than just an incremental update from last year’s P9, however, that was said in the context of the series as a whole — i.e. P10 and P10 Plus together. What you should know now is that most of the “more than” lies with the P10 Plus while the P10 is left with the “just an incremental update” bits. Huawei compromised in three specific aspects in an attempt, we suspect, to keep the phone’s price low and create more distinction between the P10 and P10 Plus.

The first comes in the form of performance. As a result, you get a by-the-books updated Kirin 960 processor with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. Next, it’s screen also stays a stubborn 5.1-inch Full HD resolution instead of getting the same bump to Quad HD resolution the bigger P10 Plus got, which is a little disappointing. At least the display still looks pretty good and has nice viewing angles.

One annoying thing about the new P10’s screen is the fact that Knuckle Sense would randomly trigger when you’re swiping through the phone with your finger. For some reason, it’s a lot more sensitive on the P10 than it ever was because I’ve never encountered this problem before.

That said, having fewer pixels to push is a good thing for the performance of the phone. As a whole, I’d rate the performance at a B+ range where it’s not as snappy as I’d like, but it’s still pretty smooth with only very rare stuttering.

Its fingerprint scanner, though, is a nice treat. I was a little upset at first when they moved it to the front but this new scanner placement apparently also came with a performance boost. Huawei’s fingerprint scanner has never been better than it is on the P10 and it’s almost unbelievable. Just the lightest and briefest of touches is enough to unlock the phone and wake the screen. Its consistency and accuracy also pushes it past OPPO’s scanner to reclaim Huawei’s place at the top of the fingerprint scanning ranks.

Huawei’s new fingerprint scanner and placement in front also opens up an entirely new avenue of navigating through Android and it’s one that I’ve really come to like. On the P10 you have the option to switch off on-screen navigation buttons and rely solely on a series of gestures based on the fingerprint scanner. So you can tap once to go back, tap and hold to go home and swipe either left or right to bring up multitasking.

I wanted to hate it at first, but I ended up really liking this new way of navigating because it’s really intuitive. Everything can be accessed from the same exact spot so your fingers don’t have to reach across the screen at a back or recents button. Plus, you open up more space on your screen for other stuff, significantly cutting down on your display smudges too.

It isn’t perfect, of course. I think that the swiping motion to bring up recents needs work because the fingerprint scanner is too small and it becomes quite a challenge to deliberately initiate the swiping motion, but I can see this improving in future iterations.

The third, and perhaps most painful compromise to swallow when it comes to a photography-centric smartphone, is the camera — more specifically the camera lens. On the P10, you get pretty much the same camera as the one on the Mate 9 with a 20MP monochrome sensor paired with a 12MP colour sensor and a pair of Leica Summarit-H f/2.2 aperture lenses. The P10 Plus, on the other hand, comes with an “upgraded” Leica Summilux-set of lenses with a faster f/1.8 aperture lens.

I’ll admit, I was more than a little salty (still am) to find out P10 users were getting the shorter end of the stick especially when it comes to one of the most crucial pillars of this smartphone series. But after I got to use the P10’s camera, the negative emotions started to dissipate because it’s still a really good camera.

Photography buffs will definitely enjoy using this new phone as a convenient point and shoot because it’s got a whole bunch of manual controls. For those who like to go full auto on their phones — like me — will also be glad to know that the P10 takes really nice pictures in that mode too. It also retains the nice Leica schnick that debuted on the P9, which is always satisfying.

Images look great with nice colour reproduction, satisfying dynamic range and good sharpness without being oversharpened. Monochrome is still out of this world and you won’t find this kind of black and white images on any other smartphone out there. Deep blacks, excellent contrast, sharp detail, the whole nine yards.

Like the Mate 9, it also has high-resolution “hybrid zoom” where the camera will utilise both sensors to digitally zoom in on a subject. Unfortunately, that also means that if you set your colour photos to the 20MP format, you will be unable to zoom.

Unlike the Mate 9, the P10 also comes with a “portrait mode”. This works to digitally blur out the background for a simulated bokeh effect so that you can separate your subject. I can say that the portrait mode works more often on the P10 than it does on the iPhone 7 Plus, but because the lens on the P10 is so wide, the resulting image and angle ends up a lot less flattering.

In front, you get an 8-megapixel front-facing camera with an f/1.9 aperture lens that also has Leica certification now. Huawei’s even added the portrait mode feature to the selfie shooter too, but an interesting thing I discovered is that the camera will blend your hair into the background if it’s of a similar colour (see bonus selfie on page 3).

The rest of the P10 is pretty good too. Its build is exceptional — even better than that of the P9 — and it fits really comfortably in your hands thanks to the really slim side bezels and rounded edges. The model I have on review is the Blue one which has yet to launch locally. It comes with Huawei’s new “diamond cut” back that feels a lot like a nail file.

I don’t like it because I think it makes the phone feel cheap while leaving the seam that separates the smooth sides and nail-file back is painfully obvious. Others in my office disagree but the truth is, they’re wrong.

I suppose there is a good thing about this and it’s that the surface is not as big of a fingerprint magnet as a glossier surface. But the downside is that any grime or fingerprints that do get on it are incredibly difficult to wipe off. The grime sinks into the micro ridges and is just an absolute pain to clean.

Personally, I’d get the matte black one, but that definitely doesn’t stand out the way the blue one does. If only there was matte blue…

And then we have the P10’s “just OK” battery life. Its 3,200 mAh cell hits a decidedly average three to four hours of screen-on-time range depending on usage. It usually lasts me an entire day (morning til night) so I don’t have to charge before I reach home but if I’m using the camera a lot or using navigation, I do find myself plugging in before the day is up. So, if you use it moderately, it should last you a day but don’t expect spectacular battery life. This was never particularly impressive on the P9 and that fact hasn’t changed on the P10.

On the plus side, the P10 now has fast-charging support — unlike last year where that was only reserved for the P9 Plus. I got a 50% charge in 30 minutes with a full charge taking just 1 hour and 35 minutes, so it’s pretty quick. However, it uses Huawei’s proprietary SuperCharge technology (5V4.5A) so it won’t fast-charge on the more conventional Quick Charge standards. So, if you lose your travel adapter, you’ll have to buy this RM139 travel adapter from Huawei or live with slow charging forever.

And I guess that brings us to the conclusion: Is the Huawei P10 a worthy sequel? For most people, it probably is, but it’s a painfully predictable one and that for me means it really isn’t a very good sequel. The P9 worked so well beyond just what it could do on paper because it was in many ways a first for the smartphone industry. It had that novelty there, that magic that really caught most of us off-guard. I never expected to like it as much as I did and that made it awesome.

Pair that with the super low price RM2,099 price tag and it instantly became the underdog you wanted to root for — it was a sleeper hit in the best way. And that made it a lot easier to forgive the lack of fast charging, among other things. You thought, yeah, Huawei will fix that next time.

Well, “next time” has arrived and true enough they gave it fast charging and NFC, but they compromised on three entirely different things while simultaneously bumping up the price tag to RM2,499. But, perhaps the biggest crime of all was that they failed to reintroduce the magic that came with the P9. I had a lot of hope for the P10 before it launched but I simply ended up a disappointed P9 fan.

It probably won’t be the same for you if you’ve never used the P9 — never experienced that fascinating turn in Huawei’s device history. If that’s the case then the P10 is a decent enough smartphone. It’s still got enough to differentiate it from the competition because you won’t find that stunning monochrome sensor on any other device in the market. But you will have to consider its price tag because it’s now more expensive than something like the OnePlus 3T which will blow the P10 out of the water when it comes to speed but sacrifices on camera performance.

Would I buy a P10? My answer is almost certainly a no. This time, the larger Plus version definitely is the more appealing phone to me because it represents a bigger leap forward. However, its RM3,099 price tag is also one that’s a little hard to swallow so I’ll let you know my final decision on that phone when I’m done with that review.

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Here are more photos captured with the Huawei P10’s camera. Feel free to click on each image to view its full resolution. If you want to see even more camera samples, check out our walk around Barcelona with the Huawei P10.

Portraits

Here are photos captured with the Huawei P10’s camera “portrait mode” on. I think the bokeh effect is done pretty nicely, though if you’re familiar with cameras you will notice how painfully artificial it is. Still, I think it gives a nice effect that certainly will make portrait photos pop.

If I could change one thing about this portrait mode, I would have liked to see a narrower focal length to give subjects a more flattering perspective. Typically, 50mm and above can give you some nice portrait shots with minimal barrel distortion. Unfortunately, this P10’s lens is a 27mm equivalent so my advice would be to stand a little further from your subject so their face is less round.

When it comes to focal length for portrait, I think the iPhone 7 Plus definitely has the more flattering angle, but the P10 does much better in low light and is a lot more consistent in recognising faces + enabling portrait mode.

Bonus selfie

The P10 also has a portrait mode for its selfie camera though I have found that it’s less impressive than the back camera. It also has a tendency to blend your hair into a darker background.

Portrait mode off:

Portrait mode on:

Huawei’s P10 also possess an “auto widening” selfie cam but I’ve found it to be wildly inconsistent and rather rubbish. I would have loved to see a button to toggle it on or off rather than have it automatically detect.