HUAWEI P10 PLUS HANDS-ON: THE ULTIMATE HUAWEI PHONE?
Huawei P10 Plus release date: Q1/2017
Huawei P10 Plus price: €699
The Huawei P10 Plus isn't just a P10 with a bigger screen; in fact, it's a huge improvement over the P10 in a number of areas and clearly takes much of its inspiration from the Porsche Design Mate 9.
If you’re familiar with the excellent P9, then the design of the P10 Plus won’t be a surprise. This is much more an evolution, rather than a revolution, but this isn't a bad thing. The all-metal build is slick, and the P10 Plus adds a few more curves to make it a more rounded device. In addition, the fingerprint sensor has been moved from the rear of the handset to the front, and it now includes a few gestures for ditching the on-screen keys entirely.
The sides of the P10 Plus are very like the iPhone 7, and from a distance it's hard to tell the two phones apart. Huawei has teamed up with Pantone to release the P10 Plus in a selection of colours that includes Dazzling Blue, Rose Gold, Prestige Gold, Ceramic White, Mystic Silver, Dazzling Gold and Graphite Black. There’s also a green option, Greenery, which is definitely a grower.
As the name suggests, the P10 Plus is larger than its sibling. It has a 5.5-inch screen, as opposed to 5.1-inches, but it’s still thin and light. In my opinion, the P10 is too small – probably because I've become accustomed to larger devices – while the P10 Plus offers greater screen real-estate but without sacrificing portability.
Related: Huawei P10 review
Huawei hasn’t only seen fit to increase the screen size; the resolution sees a bump-up too. The is the first Huawei phone – not counting the abnormally expensive Porsche Mate 9 and the China-only Mate 9 Pro – to have a quad-HD 2,560 x 1,440 panel – and it really is impressive to look at.
The 1080p display on the smaller P10 is decent, too, but the extra resolution stretched over a bigger canvas adds an extra hit of sharpness. It’s an IPS panel, rather than the AMOLED types favoured by Samsung, but colours still appear rich and nicely accurate.
I'm not so impressed by the fact that after only a few minutes of use, the handset was covered in smudges and greasy fingerprints.
Huawei’s main focus on both the P10 and P10 Plus is photography. Last year saw it partner with Leica; this year Huawei builds on that partnership by offering up not only a Leica-branded rear camera, but a front one too.
The new selfie sensor sits at 8 megapixels with an f/1.9 aperture, and it includes a brand-new Portrait mode that offers extra enhancements, providing you with greater control over how your face looks.
Just like the Mate 9, the P10 Plus has two sensors on the rear of the handset – a 20-megapixel monochrome one for detail and improved brightness, along with a 12-megapixel one for colours; they’re covered in Leica f/1.8 lenses.
The wider aperture is another bonus of opting for the larger Plus model, and it should help low-light photos look brighter. The Portrait mode is present on the rear camera too. It functions similarly to its iOS counterpart, achieving a nice bokeh effect when it finds a face in your shots.
Like the Mate 9, at the heart of the P10 Plus sits a Kirin 960 CPU and 4GB of RAM – which is a speedy and efficient chip that works like a charm. Note that a 6GB of RAM model will be available in some regions – this is unlikely in the UK – and that will come with 128GB opposed to 64GB of internal storage.
EMUI 5.1 is the software of choice on the P10 Plus and it’s layered on top of Android 7.0 Nougat. It’s much slicker than any other version of the UI I've seen before, and it brings back features such as a more traditional notifications panel and app drawer.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Considering the P10 Plus is slated to cost only €50 more than the regular P10 – €649 vs €699 – it seems the larger handset is the one to go for. Benefits include a wider aperture camera, higher-resolution screen, decent 3,750mAh battery, all the while maintaining a thin and sleek design. What's not to like?
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