Welcome to my review of the Huawei P8.

Phone Basics

The official specifications are –

– Display 5.2-inch (1920 x 1080); 424ppi
– Processor Hisilicon Kirin 930; 8-core 64-bit; 2.0 GHz
– Operating system Android 5.0 Lollipop
– Storage 16GB on-board
– RAM 3GB
– Network GRA_L09: TDD LTE: B40 FDD LTE: B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B12/B17/B18/B19/B20/B25/B26/B28 UMTS: 800(B6,Japan)/800(B19,Japan)/850/900/1700/1900/2100MHz GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
GRA_UL00: TDD LTE: B38/B39/B40/B41 (2555MHz~2655MHz) FDD LTE:B1/B3/B4/B7 UMTS: 850/900/1700/1900/2100MHz(B8/B5/B4/B2/B1) GSM : Main card: 850/900/1800/1900MHz; Second card: 850/900/1800/1900MHz
– Rear camera 13MP with OIS, 1080p video, 4-color RGBW sensor
– Front camera 8MP
– Dimensions 144.9mm x 72.1mm x 6.4mm
– Weight 144g
– Colours Mystic Champagne, Titanium Grey, Gold, Carbon Black
– GPS GPS/A-GPS/Glonass/BDS(BeiDou Navigation Satellite System)
– Connectivity 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.1 LE, microUSB
– Sensors G-sensor; Gyroscope sensor; Ambient Light sensor; Proximity sensor; Compass, Accelerometer
– UI EMUI 3.1
– Battery 2680 mAh

The Huawei P8 is a gorgeous steel unibody designed phone. It oozes premium and quality. It is slim, easy to hold and fairly lightweight. In my tests so far the camera has performed admirably and so has the battery easily lasting a day.

The P8 comes with a tray for your nano sim and another for a micro SD card.

After you have completed the first setup of the Huawei P8, you are graced with the home screens as below. The P8 is running Android 5.0 with Emotion 3.1. In terms of storage space, 8gb was available out of the 16gb expandable with a micro SD card.

These screen shots give you a feel of what you get with your new P8.

Top Apps and Games Folders. You might decide to delete some of these and if you do you will free up some of your internal storage. I would recommend deleting all the games as they are trials and have notifications access permissions once opened.

Like other phones from Huawei when it comes to the phone basics the P8 shines. Strong wireless radios (WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC) and cell signal. However on the WiFi front there is no 5Ghz support or AC. It has a feature called Signal+ that uses both software and hardware to maintain cellular signal, even when travelling at speeds. The P8 I have supports 16 bands of LTE. My model number is GRA-L-09.

Now to some bugs that I have discovered. Android Wear support is broken. Lock screen notifications for Gmail and Hangouts are not appearing. The status bar cannot handle multiple Gmail notifications and are difficult to read with the default theme and wallpaper. Hopefully, a firmware update will address these issues especially as Huawei has an android wear watch going on sale!

The 5.2 inch screen is a lovely 1080p panel with decent viewing angles. In sunlight the P8 adjusts its brightness to improve readability.

Performance. Huawei manufacture their own processor, a Kirin 930, 8-core 64-bit running at 2.0 GHz. Long and short is it performs really well and is excellent at battery management too. AnTuTu kicked in at a respectable 51,500.

Audio

USB Audio is not supported. FM Radio is included. Bluetooth APT-X is included and music played via my Plantronics BackBeat Pro Bluetooth headphones was exceptionally good. The loudspeaker is on the bottom edge and although there are 2 speaker grills, there is only one speaker. This had lots of bass and volume and as good as the HTC One M9 Boomsound. It maxed out at 90db which is impressive.

Camera Interface

The rear camera is a 13-megapixel camera with OIS and two-tone flash. It includes a new RGBW sensor from Sony, which adds an additional white pixel to the red, green and blue found in regular image sensors. The OIS can also be toggled off in the camera settings. The new sensor reduces chroma noise and produces a brighter image in high-contrast situations. Add to the fact the rear camera is a f/2.0 lens and the end result is quality photos. But there is more.

The P8’s camera app has many shooting modes including HDR, panorama All-focus (for changing the focus point), Watermark, Super Night (to capture images at a range of different shutter speeds and combines them to form a finalised image), Light painting and Time Lapse. Light Painting has 4 sub modes from Car light trails, light graffiti, silky water and star track. Video records at a max of 1080p. Within the settings you can adjust so many different options, as shown below. There is even object tracking. However, there is no option for grid lines which is surprising.

When it comes to video recording the P8 can allow up to 4 other P8’s to connect and record video using Director Mode. See screen shots below.

Huawei P8 Camera Shots

Wistman’s Wood, Dartmoor

George and Tiggy – note the difficult shadow and sun conditions

Tiggy looking happy

Littaford Tor, Wistman’s Wood, Dartmoor

The Ancient Trees of Wistman’s Wood, Dartmoor – the lighting was near impossible to capture with darkness and mega bright sunlight pouring in

From Wistman’s Wood looking towards Princetown, Dartmoor

The Girls – Tiggy and Fury having fun

George having fun

Another shot of Wistman’s Wood

Camera Shootout – Huawei P8 vs LG G4 vs Xiaomi Mi4i – https://gavinsgadgets.com/2015/06/30/3-way-camera-shootout-lg-g4-vs-huawei-p8-vs-xiaomi-mi4i/

System UI

Below are screen shots from the Emotion UI 3.1 highlighting some of the key features. If you click on a photo it will open up the gallery.

Some of the noteworthy features included are –

Motion controls, glove mode, one handed mode, navigation menu bar layout is adjustable and can have up to 4 menu items (I have 4 as in screen shots), TouchPlus (a clever protector that adds extra controls), several power saving modes, screen colour display adjustments, themes and lock screen options.

To see each screen shot as a gallery, just tap on one of the photos below.

Conclusion

The Huawei P8 is a well built steel unibody phone. As Huawei take control of the software and hardware, on the whole the processor, software and hardware work well together. Phone radio essentials work effectively, the only issue is android wear and some Google apps are not working correctly Hopefully, the software updates will be fixed in a future firmware update.

Huawei offer a compelling product at around £400 but also face some stiff competition.