The Huawei Mate 8 is lauded as the perfect smartphone for business professionals. After spending some time with the device, it’s not hard to see why. In particular, these six features make the Mate 8 the ideal smartphone for those who need a stylish – and professional-looking – device.
Battery Life
We have been using the Mate 8 for quite some time now, and we have to say: this is one long-lasting smartphone. Throughout our time with the device, never did it run out of juice before the day is over. In fact, on certain occasions, the Mate 8 still had about 50% of battery by the end of the day. The 4,000mAh battery – along with a power-efficient processor – is definitely put to good use here.
Business professionals need a smartphone that won’t run out battery when you need it the most, and the Mate 8’s longevity will not disappoint. This is especially impressive when you consider the fact that the Mate 8 has a huge 6-inch 1080p display. This brings us to our next point.
Display
While the Mate 8 “only” has a 1080p IPS-NEO display instead of a higher resolution panel, we didn’t notice any issue with text clarity or display quality on the 6-inch display. In fact, we found that the IPS-NEO display looks a lot like an AMOLED panel, with its impressively deep blacks. Of course, the blacks are not as true as an AMOLED panel, but it is impressive nonetheless for an IPS display.
Image source: JDI
In addition to that, the generous size of the Mate 8’s display is ideal for productivity purposes. After all, users have a lot of screen real estate to work with, and the Dual Screen feature – where you can run two apps simultaneously – looks and works great on the 6-inch display. Also, the 85% screen-to-body ratio of the smartphone means the Mate 8 doesn’t feel unwieldy at all.
Design
In a meeting room, the Mate 8 will definitely not look out of place, thanks to its stylish yet understated design. It’s clear that Huawei designed the Mate 8 with the business professional in mind. From afar the Mate 8 looks handsome enough with its metal unibody that curves ever so gently at the back; look closer and you’ll see tiny details that elevates the design even further: the brushed metal sides, the concentric circles around the rear camera.
Perhaps it’s that very same train of thought that led to the unique Mocha Brown colourway of the Mate 8; it’s definitely a breath of fresh air from all of the “Rose Gold” devices flooding the market these days. Needless to say, the Mocha Brown colourway makes the Mate 8 a distinctive – yet refined – smartphone.
Power
When the Mate 8 was officially introduced late last year, it was one of the most powerful Android smartphones around, and this still holds true today. The company’s very own Kirin 950 processor is a giant leap in performance over its predecessor, the Kirin 930, in many, many ways.
For one, the Kirin 950 is a much more modern chipset: it consists of four high performance Cortex-A72 cores and four energy-efficient Cortex-A53 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration. In contrast, the Kirin 930 only has eight Cortex-A53 cores; needless to say, the Kirin 950 has a superior CPU performance over its predecessor. You basically won’t have to worry about performance issues with the Mate 8.
The Mate 8’s Kirin 950 chipset is also a 16nm SoC, whereas the Kirin 930 is a 28nm processor. Essentially, the smaller the chipset is, the more power efficient it is. This is another reason why the Mate 8 has such a good battery life.
Security
Nothing is arguably more important to a business professional than security, and the Mate 8 is equipped with a pretty impressive fingerprint sensor. Not only is it almost always accurate, it is also one of the quickest sensors we have ever tried; this is very reminiscent of the Huawei Mate S and honor 7 as well.
If you’re concerned about strangers gaining access to your smartphone without your consent, the fingerprint authentication of the Mate 8 will be a godsend. If you ever lose your smartphone, chances are no one would be able to unlock the Mate 8 without your biometric data.
Global Network Compatibility
Most business professionals travel a lot, and it can be frustrating to find out at the last moment that your smartphone cannot roam due to network compatibility issues. This isn’t an issue with the Mate 8: packed with a HiSilicon RF chip, Huawei mentioned that this smartphone can connect to most networks worldwide.
The Mate 8 supports a wide range of global network standards, including FDD-LTE, TDD-LTE, and WCDMA. The dual-SIM card slot of the Mate 8 is also very convenient if there’s a need to use a local SIM card when you’re in a foreign country – your home SIM is still active wherever you go.
(Bonus) Business Card Capture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypSdGgm0xN4
Exchanging name cards is part and parcel of building connections. The thing is, it can be very easy to lose these cards if one isn’t careful. With the Mate 8, this shouldn’t be much of an issue: users simply have to follow the instructions above to automatically save business cards to their devices, thus eliminating the need to keep those cards for future references (and the risk of losing them one way or another).
For the common consumer, the Huawei Mate 8 is a really good smartphone, but Huawei clearly developed it with the business user in mind. It has great battery life, a big (and bright) display, as well as a handsome design. All of these features make up one attractive flagship smartphone, which is even more compelling when we look at its RM2,099 price tag. After all, not many flagship smartphones are priced as such in Malaysia.
If you highly value these six – well, seven really – features, you cannot go wrong with the Huawei Mate 8. Huawei has made great strides in the industry, and the Mate 8 is a testament to how far it has come as a smartphone maker.
Disclosure: this article was sponsored by Huawei Malaysia.
