Huawei had promised a “quality over quantity” philosophy, which looking at the Mate S, they’ve stayed true to. The Huawei Mate S is the successor of the Mate 7, and caters to the premium-smartphone buyer.
The device is comfortable to hold thanks to its all-metal body and diamond cut edges. The back is curved and the screen is 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 4. The Mate S features an amazing 5.5 Full HD AMOLED display which offers great sunlight legibility and great viewing angles. Huawei packed in an octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 935 processor which is backed up with 3GB of RAM. The Mate S comes with 3 size variants 32 GB, 64GB and a 128 GB Premium variant which comes with Force Touch (making Huawei the ‘first’ in the market to have Force Touch on a smartphone). Unfortunately, the Premium edition will be only available in certain markets.
The phone comes with a fingerprint sensor on the back, which I truly believe to be the best in the market. Not only is it the fastest, Huawei’s implementation of gestures takes the cake! The Mate S’s 2700 mAh battery provides almost a whole day of decent usage. The Mate S comes with a 13-MP rear camera with OIS which is produces great images with immense structure and saturation. The phone is great for selfie-lovers as it comes not only with an 8MP selfie snapper but also a flash which works as a sort of light in badly lit situations. The phone runs Android 5.1.1 with Huawei’s Emotion UI (EMUI) which is a whopping 8 GB of the phone and is quite ‘laggy’.
After using the phone for a bit, I’m sure of this much. Huawei has provided you with a premium device, with a camera which has nifty features and takes great clicks. According to me it is just tad bit on the expensive side but definitely worth it.
The Watch
When I opened the box and saw the Huawei Watch for the first time, the word oversell came to mind. Boy was I wrong. The Huawei Watch, like its release buddy the Mate S, is here to deliver the best of the best.
It oozes premium as it comes with a stainless steel casing and very thin bezel surrounding a sapphire-covered 1.4-inch display, making it not only beautiful but rugged as well. The only flaw with the body is the 0.44 inch thickness of the wearable.
The display isn’t Apple Watch’s retina sharp but it’s definitely one of the sharpest in the round smart watch segment. The watch runs Android Wear and has great battery life — during average use such as a few notifications every 4-5 minutes — even with the battery face on all through the day. I did notice a bit of lag while using the software but I’m sure that will be rectified in a future update.
The price of the Watch varies based on strap and body and ranges from $349 (Dh1,282) to $799. If you’re looking for a watch that doesn’t look like a toy on your wrist, then the Huawei Watch might just be your best bet.
