Huawei Ascend Mate 7 LTE Smartphone Review

With the Ascend Mate 7, the Chinese manufacturer Huawei is a “scent mark” in the field of large phablets. From the equipment, Huawei makes the 6-inch smartphone a powerful competition with Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and iPhone 6 Plus, which is also about the price. In such cases, the Mate 7 visually has below features: The body is made entirely of metal and 7.9 millimeters, this rather flat. In addition, the edges around the screen are pleasingly narrow: The display does so more than 80 percent of the front. But the top values are inside – especially in LTE CAT6.

HUAWEI MATE 7 (1)

 

Features and characteristics of Huawei Ascend Mate 7
Manufacturer & Name Huawei Ascend Mate 7
Important performance data:
CPU (cores, clock) 1.8GHz & 1.3GHz octa-core (8 cores)
CPU name HiSilicon Kirin 925
random access memory 2 GB
internal memory 16GB (via micro SD card expansion)
operating system Android 4.4 KitKat with Emotion UI 3.0
Display size; resolution 6 inch IPS display with 1080 x Neo-1,920 pixels (386 ppi)
Camera (back and front) 13 MP rear / 5 MP front
Data Transfer:
LTE standards LTE 800/900/1800/2100/2600 MHz
Support of LTE-Advanced Yes
Support LTE following categories CAT6
Dominated VoLTE Yes
wireless Internet access Yes, 802.11a/b/g/n at 2.4 and 5 GHz
Bluetooth Yes, Version 4.0
other standards GPRS; EDGE; UMTS; HSPA; HSPA+
Other key data:
particularities FM radio; Fingerprint scanner
Memory Card | SIM format Micro-SD | Micro-SIM
battery pack 4,100 mAh
Weight; Dimensions (HxWxD) 185 grams; 81 x 157 x 7.9 mm
download manual ” Here download manual (PDF, Language: English, 9.53 MB)
Availability and Price
Release in Germany November 2014
offered at www.4gltemall.com

 HUAWEI MATE 7 (2)

 

Technical features

 

The 6-inch IPS screen of the Huawei Ascend Mate 7, solves with Full HD and 1,080 x 1,920 pixels, which is sufficient for a pixel density of 386 ppi for this size. Regarding the processor, Huawei use the octa-core chip like the new Honor 6: The HiSilicon Kirin 925 uses a Cortex-A15 1.8GHz and parallel with a Cortex-A7 1.3GHz.

HUAWEI MATE 7 (3)

 

Large Battery for big tasks

 

With big screen and eight-core processor, you may worry about the battery less than you think. The battery is in fact sufficient size with 4,100 mAh – no other phablet currently has such a strong and persistent motor. In test mode, the battery working almost two days by holding on average use. Huawei also promises more than 600 hours in standby.

HUAWEI MATE 7 (4)

Maximum download speed with LTE Advanced

 

For the maximum speed on the road, the Ascend Mate 7 brings support for fast LTE Category 6, ie LTE-Advanced. In the LTE network, the user can thus achieve download speeds of up to 300 Mbit/s with a corresponding tariff provided already in several cities. In addition to networking, DLNA and NFC, and Bluetooth 4.0 are present. WLAN is, however, not in the fastest ac version, which already is a bit surprising for a technology-High Flyer on the Mate. 7

HUAWEI MATE 7 (5)

As OS 4.4.2 is pre-installed at the current time Android KitKat. Huawei also puts his own user interface Emotion UI 3.0 in the smartphone. While these sorely missing in earlier versions of comfort, the latest software during handling can now nothing to be desired. The RAM is 2 gigabytes as average as the internal memory of only 16 GB. According to Huawei, only a maximum of 32 GB could be inserted to expand the storage.

HUAWEI MATE 7 (6)

 

Fingerprint Scanner, Speaker & Camera

 

 

Unlike Samsung, where you can sweep across the screen, the Ascend Mate 7 has a fingerprint scanner on the back, below the camera, which instantly releases the screen when touched. Not so well resolved is the sound, because the only speaker is located on the bottom rear. This is suboptimal, if we assume that many users look at a large Smartlet in landscape mode video and playing games. For Huawei does not compromise on the cameras, the rear with 13 megapixels and 5 MP front provide good results.

HUAWEI MATE 7 (8)

Availability & Price

The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is available in silver and black. Without a contract, it’s now at only 500.00USD now at www.4gltemall.com. Lower prices are to be expected in the further.

HUAWEI MATE 7 (7)

Conclusion

With the Ascend Mate 7, Huawei is a major success. If you want to a good smartphone with big screen size, Huawei Mate 7 is really budget comparing with Samsung Galaxy S6 or iPhone 6 Pus. Here, the Ascend Mate 7 comes not only Sino-cheap, but also makes in its aluminum dress also optically appealing.

 

Huawei Mate 8 VS Huawei Mate S 4G Smartphones

Huawei has introduced very interesting smartphone: the Mate S and Mate 8 in recent months. The Chinese producer Huawei went up to the third-largest smartphone seller in the German market in 2015 and the Mate 8 and Mate S would like to improve on this position. While the Mate S was presented at IFA in Berlin and a short time later went on sale; the Mate 8 has been presented only to CES in early 2016. The two mobile phones are technically and optically very similar at first glance, but take a closer look at the technical and visual details, there are much difference.

The Huawei Mate S distinguishes very little visually from Huawei Mate 8: The front is dominated by a huge screen and each very narrow margins, hardware keys do not exist. The display of Mate S measures 5.5 inches, which is slightly smaller than that of Mate 8, which measures 6 inches. Even if the difference in the data sheet appears small: at the latest when you have the mate S and 8 in the hand and compares, you will notice the difference in size significantly. The Mate 8 is bulky, but one hand can hand it, so you should not be regarded it as negative point.

The processing of both the Mate 8 as well as the Mate S is almost perfectly. The Mate S here nonetheless wins the comparison, because the back has two thin antenna strip of metal, while in Mate 8 has only a piece of plastic cover for the antennas used. The Mate 8 falls on the circular fingerprint scanner and the circular camera mount, while the Mate S has both built in classic rectangular design. Both Huawei Mate S and the Huawei Mate 8 have two colors: gray and white.

 

 
Basically, both the Huawei Mate S and the Huawei Mate 8 are a very good technical equipment, which is classified in the upper class. Let’s start with the display: the resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels in common, but the display technology is different: the Mate S uses an AMOLED panel while the Mate 8 uses an IPS panel. Colors, brightness and sharpness are excellent for both devices.
The internal memory is 32 gigabytes in size in each case and can be expanded via MicroSD memory card up to 128 GB. In addition, for Huawei Mate 8, there is still the possibility to take a second nano-SIM card instead of a mocro-SD card, so is it the ideal dual SIM smartphone. The simultaneous use of MicroSD card and dual SIM is not possible. Regarding the processor, the two devices differ only slightly, at least no difference in the speed. Nevertheless, the Huawei Mate 8 with the HiSilicon Kirin 950 is the significantly latest octa-core processor (Mate S: Kirin 935). Both devices come with 3 gigabytes of RAM and a very good fingerprint sensor.

 

Other differences are there between the radio links, here the Huawei Mate is 8 is clearly more superior than the Huawei Mate S: the Mate 8 has not only the aforementioned dual-SIM function, but also the LTE modem is significantly faster (LTE Cat6 instead LTE Cat4, ie up to 300 MBit/s instead of just up to 150 Mbit/s downstream). In addition, the Mate 8 the near-field wireless NFC, the Mate S has not. Even when the wireless topic Mate 8 has one step ahead: it supports Dual Band WLAN 802.11a/b/g/n/ac on 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, while the Mate S only WLAN 802.11b/g/n supports 2.4 GHz.

The back camera of Mate S and Mate 8 has an optical image stabilizer (OIS) and a dual-LED flash. The Mate 8 can create photos with up to 16 megapixel resolution (4: 3 format) that Mate S can accommodate up to 13 megapixels. For videos, both devices are limited to Full HD.


The Huawei Mate 8 is already with the latest Android 6.0 operating system and making it more up to date than the Mate S, which currently runs on Android 5.1.1. Serious differences do not exist, both units are very fast and the functions differ only in details. Both devices have pre-installed the user interface EMUI that Mate 8 a slightly newer version. EMUI reminiscent of the appearance and operation of the forth something to Apple iOS and is very easy to use.

 

 
An important point must not be missed when comparing two smartphones: the battery. While the Huawei Mate S comes with a 2,700 mAh strong battery, only slightly thicker and heavier, Huawei Mate 8 has a 4,000 mAh strong battery on board. not be missed: The batteries are not changeable for the two devices, when Mate 8 has a fast-charging adapter included, which fully charges the device within approximately 2.5 hours.
During daily use, the higher capacity of the battery makes the Huawei Mate 8 clearly noticeable: while the Mate S just allow one day at normal use, two days at normal use are possible on Mate 8 easily. The Huawei Mate 8 is, like its predecessor Huawei Mate 7, a real endurance runner and currently certainly one of the smartphone with the best battery performance.

 

 

We can see Huawei Mate 8 dominates in many aspects, however, it must be noted that the Mate 8 is just appeared, while the S Mate is on the market for several months. After all Huawei Mate 8 is the latest new flagship for Huawei. The Huawei Mate S is currently cheaper than Mate 8 without a contract.  If you need a budget good smartphone, Huawie Mate S may be a good option.

 

Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Smartphone Test

Large smartphones are in vogue. The Chinese manufacturer Huawei offers an extremely large device Huawei Ascend Mate 7 that can almost be described as small tablet. They have put considerable effort on technical facilities and the design. Almost the entire housing of the Ascend Mate 7 is made of metal, only above, below and the back material are plastic out of consideration for the antennas. The software relies on its “Emotion UI”. To learn more about the Ascend Mate 7 smartphone, we will take a test on this phone.

 

High-quality packaging and good first impression
Huawei provides Ascend Mate 7 in an attractive package, which is definitely necessary for an expensive device. In addition to the smartphone, there is of course a power supply (output: 2A) and a USB cable included for charging. The USB cable can be used for data transfer to the PC. Furthermore, a headset and various instructions are included, and a small “tool” to insert the SIM and SD card, which is also urgently needed, because the card slots are laterally inserted in the body as seen, such as from the Apple iPhone or the HTC One ago.


The first reaction of most people when they take the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 for the first time in the hand: “The mobile phone is extremely large.” For most users, it is even much too large. But for Huawei, the size is a clear argument. According to statistics, more and more people want to buy but a great smartphone. Regarding the materials and workmanship, the Ascend Mate 7 is processed not only high quality, it also feels very good. It’s a high end smarpthone to compete with other brands.

 

Brilliant display, decent camera
The display is certainly one of the highlights of the Huawei Ascend Mate 7. The frame on the sides is very thin, so the screen takes up most of the front and thus looks very good. With a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels on a diagonal of 6 inches, the display is very sharp. The brightness is desired very well, so even in direct sunlight, there is no trouble reading the screen.

 

The camera in the Ascend Mate 7 can take pictures with up to 13 megapixel resolution, and there is even a front camera with 5 megapixel resolution for self-portraits or video calls. The quality of the camera was very well in the test under good light conditions, however if in dimly lit rooms, the camera was comparatively slow and the picture quality was not satisfying. Overall, the camera is decent, but in other smart phones we can find some better cameras. We suppose Huawei will improve this on newer upgraded model.
The chipset in Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is a self-developed HiSilicon Kirin 925 Octa-core processor with ARM big LITTLE technology which could work with up to 4 cores and provides a very good speed. We can’t see any stutter or delays when Huawei Ascend Mate 7 working, which is certainly because of the emotion UI surface Android 4.4 KitKat that Huawei has put over. Emotion UI looks tidy and has many useful features. In addition, we noticed that many pre-installed Apps by Huawei (system) come up with a uniform design.

The integrated memory size is just right with 16 gigabytes. Although the memory can be with a microSD card to expand, but at a maximum of card storage is 32 GB. This is very little for use nowadays, because there are already MicroSD card with 128 GB commercially.

 

Amazingly good fingerprint reader
Fingerprint scanners are at least on the rise in smartphones increasingly. But they often do not work as desired, and are unreliable. Here is where the Huawei Ascend Mate 7: The scanner is extremely fast, reacts with virtually no delay even when the finger is very dry or moist.  Huawei has currently (Feb 2015) clearly built the best fingerprint scanner, which you can find in a smartphone. Unfortunately, there are also two disadvantages: the largest is certainly the positioning of the scanner at the back of the device under the camera. In particular, if the device is on the table, the scanner is unusable. The second drawback is that only three fingerprints can be enrolled simultaneously. Devices from Apple and Samsung allow at least five different fingers.

LTE-Advanced Cat6
The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is one of the first devices to support LTE-Advanced category 6 with up to 300 Mbit/s in the downlink and 50 Mbit/s for uplink. Although in our test, LTE-Advanced with great increase in speed was invisible, the Ascend Mate 7 is well prepared for the future anyway. Of course, GSM and UMTS are also supported and the 3G network via DC-HSPA+ is up to 42.2 Mbit/s. The receiving and transmit power of the Ascend Mate 7 is very good, even at low power supply; there is often a stable LTE reception. Also, the built-in (and not replaceable) battery can be proud of. Despite of a large display and good performance, the device can easily work for two days in normal use.

Conclusion: Huawei Ascend Mate 7
The Huawei Ascend Mate is in my opinion the best smartphone that Huawei has been put on the market. It offers a good design, qualified workmanship and is technically very well equipped. Particularly noteworthy is the support for LTE-Advanced Cat6 and extremely good fingerprint sensor. For me personally, the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is much too large – in a normal jeans pocket, the device is hardly convenient to transport. But if that does not bother, the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is a very good smartphone with an attractive price.