For the past three years, Samsung Electronics has been the leader in high end smart phone sales.
Its territory is now under attack by Chinese rival Huawei technologies.
Global technology researcher International Data Corporation states that Huawei has now gained confidence, releasing flagship gadgets that target Samsung’s ground, the ‘high end market’, though with a slightly lower price.
In late July, Huawei introduced its flagship Huawei P8 to the Kenyan market.
Smart Company reviewed the phone, and was a bit disappointed at the camera and user interphase.
Save for the shortfalls, it is way better than the Ascend Mate 7 and P7 whose shipments have hit over three million units, signifying strong local demand.
The phone has a powerful hardware and software, it is worth owning.
FEATURES
It has an all metal cover like the Galaxy S6 and comes with improved power and connectivity compared to Ascend P7.
“The camera helps the user to produce balanced shots, offers multi-frame dynamic exposure and includes a light-painting function as well as an instant preview function,” these are some of the positives about the camera highlighted by Mr Yudi Rambaran, the product and marketing director Huawei Technologies in a statement during its launch.
The 13MegaPixel is decent it does a great job capturing low light shots. However, the final images are a bit disappointing since they seem washed out.
It however beats the P7’s 13 MegaPixel effort to be better than the competition, the shots rival the ones made using an iPhone 6.
The camera has an aperture that helps with low light shots and a super night mode which processes the software to improve shots taken in low light.
Some good additions to it are the autofocus, optical image stabilisation, powerful flash. Something interesting is that one can use the touch focus to bring out unique features of the picture’s focal point.
I appreciated some fun moments while taking pictures.
The time-lapse, full panoramic mode, and ‘Light painting’ options helped me capture trails of light and start trails in the dark.
Selfie takers would love the 8MegaPixel front facing camera, it is good news because Huawei’s ‘Face Beauty’ option now recognises the phone owner’s face. It automatically ‘beautifies’ it in photos depending on the chosen settings.
The Huawei P8 is a great improvement compared to its predecessors Ascend Mate 7 and Ascend P7. The design and power of the phone is top notch.
The smartphone has a 2680mAh battery, while P7 has 2,500mAh.
LASTING BATTERY
Huawei promises that the P8 battery can go up to one and a half days of normal use without charge.
The battery however lasts only a day when heavily used.
I put the battery to practice doing twelve hours’ normal use, during which I took several photos, spent an hour managing emails, browsed the web and took a lot of videos.
The battery remained above 60 per cent at this level.
Also, the smartphone could pass for a multi SIM.
The manufacturer tried to bring out its identity through a hybrid SIM/microSD slot.
When one has an SD card in the slot, then the second SIM card will have no space.
There are however all reasons to have both SIM cards in the slots since the phone memory can host all photos and videos needed.
It has 3GigaBytes of random access memory and 16GigaBytes of internal memory.
This makes it better than the P7 which is limited to the 2GB of RAM but also has the 16GB storage.
The phone is sleek, it fits the pocket and stands out because of the super thin Aluminum frame which differentiates it from its Aluminum rivals.
The cover makes it have some satisfying weight managing to remain very light despite being 6.4 mm – it is considered among the thinnest smartphones available.
The design of this particular smartphone is a bit similar to that of One M9 and Galaxy S6, both of which look and spell ‘luxury’.
The P8 is still very elegant and someone who wants to buy Galaxy S6 can opt for a P8 without feeling odd.
The smart phone’s processor outdoes the Galaxy Note 4 in our possession. The software that runs on the front of the phone brings out a slick interface that is easy to navigate.
GLITCHES
However, I experienced some problems switching off the phone after a long day’s work.
This was too disappointing with the phone displaying a blank screen that used the power till it went off. It however lit back to work after being fully charged.
For music lovers, it is a bit disappointing that the P8 audio has no stereo speaker.
The phone has a single speaker grid above the screen, and two larger others at the bottom of the phone.
Sound can be reasonably loud but sometimes not clear enough to make the music being played boom with a bass.
The Huawei P8 falls just short of a top gadget review due to its camera and user interphase, it is however still a sleek gadget worth owning.
By LILIAN OCHIENG
