Huawei Mate S Review


Introduction
From the point of view of Huawei's product portfolio, the Mate S is a weird addition to its high-end roster. A mixture between the P and Mate lines, the S strikes a balance between thinness and size, all the while hitting the right notes when it comes to looks. No, it doesn't look 'cool'. It looks beautiful.
But during our week with the Mate S, we couldn't shake the feeling that it's something of a gap filler — a sort of stand-in until the Mate 8. Sure, you could argue that its smaller size is more than enough to justify an excursion outside the established product matrix, but a new line for the sake of a new line? Sure, why not. But that only complicates things for the Mate S, which now has quite a bit to prove — especially at €649/~$650.
Let's see if it's convincing enough.
In the box:
- Huawei Mate S
- Earphones with metal accents
- 2A wall charger
- USB to microUSB cable
- SIM ejector tool
- Flip case with 'smart' front window
Design
You'll go 'my precioussss' all over it in no time whatsoever!
Whether you like large devices or not is besides the point. The Huawei Mate S is a beautifully crafted piece of telephony goodness, and one that's sure to attract eyeballs.
More specifically, we start off with an aluminum body with nary a disagreeing element to clash with the uniform looks of the phone. Clear-cut lines, rounded corners, chamfered edges, and display glass that seeps into the frame masterfully. Add to that a thin, 0.28 inch (7.2 mm) profile, and you've got yourself one of the most striking phablets currently on the market. Just handling the Mate S is consistently rewarding, and so we loved fondling it. And that says a lot when you go through literally hundreds of devices a year.
Of course, the Mate S isn't just a pretty face, and is engineered with reason. The slim body makes handling the device easier, and the slightly rounded back helps too. Sure, at 5.5 inches and ~74% screen-to-body ratio, it's not exactly a one-hand device, and that's further amplified by its rather slippery rear and big black border encircling the actual display panel. But as a concern, these are easily forgiven by on-the-target hits like the metal volume rocker and power key, the two of which are easy to reach on the right side. Both of these are a joy to use, with extremely good feedback, just the right height, and a soul-satisfying, pronounced 'click' to them.
Finally, we ought to mention the rear-mounted fingerprint scanner. Obviously, this particular setup has grown in popularity lately, though it's definitely true that there's a notable — but acceptable — learning curve to go through before you feel right at home. Even then, however, you'll find that unlocking the phone when it's laying flat on a surface is kind of a hassle — we ended up using the pass code quite often whenever that happened.
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
Dimensions
6.23 x 3.07 x 0.29 inches
158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm
Weight
6.77 oz (192 g)
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
Dimensions
6.23 x 3.07 x 0.29 inches
158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm
Weight
6.77 oz (192 g)
To see the phones in real size or compare them with other models, visit our Visual Phone Size Comparison page

Display
Shades of orange look red. And that's a problem that you can only partially solve.
AMOLED panels have recently grown into a significant trend within the industry, and while we've seen Samsung make some great progress in terms of color accuracy and brightness potency, the unit on the Mate S misses both these targets.
In short, the 5.5-incher of the Huawei Mate S, while pleasant to look at, is actually fairly disappointing for a high-end device. And no, it's not because Huawei has decided to skip over Quad HD and instead stick to a standard (and perfectly sufficient) resolution of 1080 x 1920 (401 ppi). More worrying are the non-trivial disparities between target and actual color reproduction.
Finally, on brightness. We measured a peak of just under 350 nits, which is on the lower end overall. Still, it being winter-y around here, we ran into absolutely no trouble — even on the odd day when the sun was up and shining — but you may feel otherwise once summer gets here. Unfortunately for Huawei, the minimum brightness of the panel (6 nits) is just too high for comfortable usage at night, and we can't say we were impressed by the performance of the ambient light sensor. It consistently let us down and forced us to manually adjust how much light goes through the pixel matrix, which is extremely annoying.
Not off to a good start.
Display measurements and quality
Maximum brightness Higher is better | Minimum brightness (nits) Lower is better | Contrast Higher is better | Color temperature (Kelvins) | Gamma | Delta E rgbcmy Lower is better | Delta E grayscale Lower is better | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Huawei Mate S |
347 (Average) |
6 (Good) |
unmeasurable (Excellent) |
7746 (Average) |
2.24 |
7.16 (Average) |
5.28 (Average) |
Samsung Galaxy Note 5 |
470 (Good) |
2 (Excellent) |
unmeasurable (Excellent) |
6722 (Excellent) |
2.09 |
1.32 (Excellent) |
1.94 (Excellent) |
Google Nexus 6P |
356 (Average) |
1 (Excellent) |
unmeasurable (Excellent) |
6737 (Excellent) |
2.26 |
6.46 (Average) |
2.04 (Good) |
Apple iPhone 6s Plus |
593 (Excellent) |
5 (Excellent) |
1:1407 (Excellent) |
7018 (Good) |
2.19 |
2.32 (Good) |
2.76 (Good) |
The numbers below represent the amount of deviation in the respective property, observed when a display is viewed from a 45-degree angle as opposed to direct viewing.
Maximum brightness Lower is better | Minimum brightness Lower is better | Contrast Lower is better | Color temperature Lower is better | Gamma Lower is better | Delta E rgbcmy Lower is better | Delta E grayscale Lower is better | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Huawei Mate S |
51% |
50% |
unmeasurable |
24.4% |
No data |
39.8% |
83.9% |
Google Nexus 6P |
56.2% |
No data |
unmeasurable |
12.1% |
1.8% |
29.9% |
187.3% |
Samsung Galaxy Note 5 |
60.4% |
50% |
unmeasurable |
5.7% |
2.4% |
281.1% |
128.9% |
Apple iPhone 6s Plus |
84.7% |
80% |
89.2% |
1% |
11.9% |
15.1% |
46% |
The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set (area) of colors that a display can reproduce, with the sRGB colorspace (the highlighted triangle) serving as reference. The chart also provides a visual representation of a display's color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The 'x: CIE31' and 'y: CIE31' values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. 'Y' shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while 'Target Y' is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, 'ΔE 2000' is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.
These measurements are made using SpectraCal's CalMAN calibration software.
The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display's measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.
These measurements are made using SpectraCal's CalMAN calibration software.
The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance (balance between red, green and blue) across different levels of grey (from dark to bright). The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones, the better.
These measurements are made using SpectraCal's CalMAN calibration software.
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16 Comments
Jango
Posts: 369; Member since: Oct 24, 2014
How so? I have a Huawei Nexus 6P and my friend the Mate S. Seriously beautiful device that Mate S, with a more solid feeling metal build construction and smaller frame.
The screen was just as good as that on the 6P. The speakers were plenty loud, a smidgen less than the 6P. The selfie camera is probably the best out there after the one on the 6P. I can't speak for battery life or performance in general but what little i tried of the UI, seemed to perform just fine.
posted on Dec 14, 2015, 7:43 AM 0
Chris.P
Posts: 567; Member since: Jun 27, 2013
Save for the Recents menu, UI performance is pretty decent on the whole. It's complex apps/games that put a strain on the Kirin 935. It's perfectly acceptable for the most part, but objectively inferior to the best out there.
posted on Dec 14, 2015, 8:15 AM 1
Arch_Fiend
Posts: 3920; Member since: Oct 03, 2015
Its Soc Is Trash So That's Why Its Slow. The Nexus 6P Has The Sd810 So Of Course Its Not Slow.
posted on Dec 14, 2015, 2:10 PM 0
Moose
Posts: 418; Member since: Jan 05, 2015
Nice looking phone, but only a 2700 mAh battery? And so expensive? No thanks. I tried their Mate 7 for a few months, great phone and 2-day battery - 4100 mAh, hard to accept even 3000 mAh after experiencing such great battery life.
posted on Dec 14, 2015, 5:23 AM 1
iM2.0
Posts: 52; Member since: Dec 14, 2015
sorry Huawei but your 6s Plus rip off is awful
posted on Dec 14, 2015, 5:26 AM 0
Acer_Predator unregistered
how can be this iphobe rip off? it does not e en have a close to iphone liking..
posted on Dec 14, 2015, 11:12 AM 1
iWin_Droid
Posts: 76; Member since: Jan 22, 2015
Huawei Mate S; Your smartphone equivalent of a bimbo, all beauty and a slow brain.
posted on Dec 14, 2015, 8:47 AM 4
Gautham386
Posts: 8; Member since: Nov 20, 2015
The device looks decent but how well it performes high end heavy graphic games?
posted on Jan 09, 2016, 3:37 AM 0
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- Display 5.5" 1080 x 1920 pixels
- Camera 13 MP / 8 MP front
- Processor HiSilicon Kirin, Octa-core, 2200 MHz
- Memory
- Storage 128 GB
- Battery 2700 mAh
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