The Huawei P10
…is actually not bad. The camera on my iPhone 5s had been slowly driving me mad. About every second photo was good, with some gorgeous ones in there, but Apple’s algorithm was prone to making things look a bit like a Rembrandt. I don’t have any examples because I threw them all away.
Anyway, this led me to wanting a “real” camera, followed by the certain knowledge I wouldn’t actually take it anywhere, and the inevitable conclusion that it had to be a camera in a phone, really. Even an Android one.
Now, I tried this before — I had a Panasonic CM1. The camera was fantastic, but everything else about it was unbearably bad, especially the ‘being android’ bit so it was after considerable research and with more than slight trepidation that I plonked down eight hundred bucks for a Chinese phone.
So, then, the camera…
Is, I guess, maybe 70% as good as I hoped. It has this weird thing where there’s a 20MP monochrome camera and a 12MP colour one with software that, presumably, paints one with colours from the other. It doesn’t have optical image stabilisation, which is a big shame and you do get to notice how much it needs it. Focus is pretty good but conspicuously not phase detected and there can be a half second or so of hunting before it settles down — particularly in low light.
Having said that you may have noticed the word “Leica” printed somewhat pretentiously across the back and asked whether it’s a marketing marvel or something worth having. It’s worth having, Huawei didn’t do this.
For example, the picture at the head of the page was cropped down from this selfie in a bathroom mirror. Now that is a boatload of resolution but, more impressively, a boatload that is not let down by the miniscule lenses that have to fit in the camera — or the fact that it’s artificial light.
Daytime shots are bloody outrageous:
Yeah, every blade of grass. A little cropping…
And we can see Keizo’s crocs in all their fluorescent blue glory. This should be a 1:1 crop but I might’ve messed it up.
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The software has a “portrait mode” that blurrs the background and makes everything ‘pop’ a bit more. It’s just a little bit full on and with the benefit of experience I’ve discovered the “wide aperture” mode is what I was looking for all along. It looks … like … a proper lens.
(awwww, a baby)
So, shortening a long story somewhat: the software is awesome but flawed on occasion; the UI bearable but with great ‘faux pro’ settings to mess around with; and there’s a thing where you can double click “volume down” to have it take a picture … right now … without needing waking up. Under 1 second.
Physically…
It’s nicely made. It doesn’t have that “hewn from solid unobtainium” feel that the 5s did but it’s slim, light, and doesn’t rattle, flap or bend. They claim a piece of glass covers the lenses but it looks like some kind of plastic to me. Speaking of glass it comes with a screen protector pre-fitted and (this is cool) three months insurance on the screen. I.e. you drop it, they fix it, no charge. Legend has it that the surface under the screen protector is not oleophobic but I have no intention of taking it off to find out.
USB-C charging, fast too. And got me a fuckin’ HEADPHONE SOCKET. Ohhh yeah! There’s a surreally difficult way of getting an SD card in there. And, get this, it sits flat on a table. You listening, Jony Ive? It’s also right at the limit of what I could carry around without needing to use it as a tea tray — something, again, that Apple don’t seem to have quite right.
The screen is awesome. I understand that 1080p LCD is all very passé these days but it seems really damn good to me. No issues with daytime brightness.
Oh, and it has a fingerprint detector thing that is so, so fast. Wonderful.
Android…
Yeah, well. Android is better than it was but good would be pushing the point. The phone ships with two basically incomplete UI’s — most of the stock Google one is only half heartedly hidden, leaving pride of place for the wonder of Chinese icons. These have a very nice 90’s gradient, on occasion a little drop shadow, and come in (seemingly random) purple, reddy-browny and teal. Not one to be left behind there is also a Huawei quasi-private network thing, a proprietary “air drop” clone, and a determined but ultimately fruitless attempt at making QR codes useful.
So I got to spend a lot of time downloading bits of Google android — which looks and behaves almost exactly like Angular 2. There are some fun times to be had when three different pieces of software all regard themselves as the most important SMS app; and the settings are … complete. In short, if you like mucking around with bits of software, you’ll love it. But if you want it just to work, out of the box, and be better than anything else — you’ll need an iPhone.
Oh, and the desktop software is a crime against humanity. Don’t even try.
All in all…
It’s actually not bad. I can stand using Android but it’s going to take some getting used to. The camera is actually really good. It costs, like, half as much as the dual camera iPhone, is much smaller, and can sit on a table. And be plugged into a stereo. The bigger screen is great — mostly because it means I can now actually type on the thing. Not perfect, but not bad.
