It's odd to admit this, but the Mate 10 is the best budget phone you can buy right now. It's odd because the phone is so old that perhaps it is better to recommend more current alternatives. However, after using the Huawei Mate 10 for a two-month review period, it is easy to say that this is the best phone that can be bought for 100 Euros.
Off the bat, the warning for readers is this phone is not for everybody. This phone can mostly be purchased used or refurbished these days. However, still, this phone is indeed an amazing phone though. The Mate 10 has everything that is wanted in a phone and can easily be useful for the next 12 months.
It might be kind of weird to see this review being written now in the first quarter of 2021. The Huawei Mate 10 was released in October 2017; the last quarter of 2017, and it became widely available worldwide in the first quarter of 2018. The Mate 10 is old. In fact, 3 years old - to put an exact date on that. It is also stuck on Android 10 and EMUI 10 with a security patch from July 1st, 2020. Its July 2020 security patch came with the Huawei EMUI stability update pushed on September 24th, 2020. So, even the security update arrived on an untimely schedule. There are no indicators that this phone will be getting anymore major updates. Perhaps until forever and the end of time. Rumor has it that this phone may never see an update to EMUI 11. So, the Mate 10 is old, and it is also on old software with an 8-month-old security patch. To be 100% clear there is absolutely nothing new about the Mate 10, and the old software and security patch might already be a deal breaker. Despite the outmoded software, this phone still has some redeeming qualities which make it worthwhile.
Despite its age, the Mate 10 is still worth it in 2021. This can be asserted confidently considering other phone released in late 2017 like the iPhone X, or the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, or LG V30 are still worthwhile as affordable options, purchasable on the used market. All 2017 flagships will still run great. They will run apps, take photos, record videos, and play games perfectly fine. The advantage here goes to the iPhone X which should see updates for several years beyond 2021. The iPhone X is a great phone; it still gets updates and will continue to get updates for at least 2 more years. The Mate 10 still bests its other aforementioned Android rivals. The Note 8 and LG are somewhat disadvantaged compared to the Mate 10 because they are stuck a full Android version behind on Android 9 Pie. So aside from the iPhone, the Mate 10 is indeed the best 2017 flagship phone on the used market right now. It's on Android 10. It's cheaper than the Note 8 or V30. And it is unique. Really, there is nothing like it, nothing even close to it.
Here's why: Firstly, the screen. The Mate 10 is awesome because it stands out as the last true flagship phone with large-sized 16:9 aspect ratio display. The display is larger than that of the 5.5-inch display found on the bezel-monster-of-a-phone, the iPhone 8 Plus. Which is also another great phone that will still get software updates for another 2 years. But still, the Mate 10 has a large screen, and its body is still quite smaller than that of the plus-sized iPhone.
Why is this special? The 16:9 ratio display is an extinct breed. No joke, the iPhone SE was the only mainstream, major-release phone with a 16:9 display released within the last 12 months. And there were exactly zero phones released between 2019 and 2020 with a 16:9 aspect ratio display.
While there was still yet another phone that came out after the Mate 10 with a large 6-inch 16:9 display, namely, the Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra, released in the first quarter 2018, the Mate 10 gets a rare distinction of being the last truly flagship-class, feature-packed phone with a large 16:9 ratio display. The Xperia XA2 Ultra might beat the Huawei in terms of sheer display size, albeit by fractions of an inch, the display resolution is much lower, the chipset inside is much, much weaker, and it is a far less capable device, and worse in just about every possible aspect: overall size, bezels, build materials, speakers, on and on.
Anyone accustomed to 16:9 ratio displays, let's say anyone who owned an iPhone 7 Plus, or 8 Plus, or on Android, a Xperia XA2 Ultra, or Google Nexus 6P by Huawei, will likely appreciate screens with this aspect ratio. Anyone who is not used to using a 16:9 display, or anyone who has been using phones of all sorts of ratios, from the 19.5:9 used on most new iPhones, or 18:9 that was all the craze for a single year in 2017, will still appreciate that 16:9 is perhaps the best aspect ratio.
After using taller, skinnier, wide aspect ratio phones, 16:9 still comes out on top. A good theory for why this is the case can be that: it comes down to surface area. Surface area is interesting to analyze because with taller skinnier phones, only their diagonal measures are longer, however overall, they are smaller screens. For example, the Huawei Mate 10 has 5.93-inch 16:9 aspect ratio screen and the iPhone Xr has a 6.1 inch 19.5:9 ratio screen. While the iPhone Xr seems like it has a bigger screen because it's diagonal measure is longer, it actually has the smaller screen, by surface area! The surface area of the iPhone Xr is 90.3 cm2 vs the Mate 10's 95.6 cm2. Almost anyone would appreciate a bigger overall display above a skinnier wider display, any day of the week, and for this reasoning: The Mate 10 is perfect.
Whilst on the subject of the front of the phone, there's the topic of bezels. Now, in terms of bezel design, the Mate 10's bezel design is very similar to that of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 with virtually no side bezels and just thin slivers of bezel on the top and the bottom of the screen. The Mate 10 has the perfect balance of minimal bezels. No seriously, its screen-to-body ratio is higher than that of the iPhone Xr. The intension here is not to put down the iPhone Xr with all these comparisons, the Xr is a really great phone that will likely get another 2-3 years of updates, but rather, the point of these comparisons, is to compare the Mate 10 to the iPhone Xr in order to highlight a bigger picture perspective. The perspective is: that this underrated Mate 10 phone from 2017 is still having many stand-out, competitive features. Consider that these bezels beautifully wrap around a qHD 2K 1440p super bright 670 nits HDR10 goodness screen. For an LCD, the screen is out-of-this-world phenomenal. All in all, this is a very well-designed phone all around.
Also, similar to iPhone 8 Plus, the Huawei Mate 10 also stands out as the last true flagship with a capacitive fingerprint reader home button on the front of the phone. After spending years using the iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone 8, and now the Mate 10, it is settled: the fingerprint reader belongs on the front on the phone. And in the case of the Mate 10, to add some extra pizazz, the fingerprint reader on the Mate 10 is also used for gesture navigation. While talking about navigation doesn't sound epic at all, it's one of those things that has to be tried out in real life in order to understand it and appreciate it wow-factor. Getting used to navigating the phone with the fingerprint reader, it becomes extremely obvious that more phones should've implemented this navigation method. It's sleek, it keeps the screen free of virtual navigation buttons, and it much better than swipe gestures from the edges of the screen on Android and iOS, specifically because it makes managing this big phone doable with one hand.
To quickly sum up the review of this phone:
Body - Immaculate and stunning design. Hardy and solid. Feels very premium and well built. I like its same radius corners that gives it Note-like squared of design. Also it can withstand splashes, like when I am washing dishes or trying to watch some Netflix in the shower, thanks to a splash-resistant design. Warning: Do not submerge or dunk this phone in water. It is not designed to resist that much water. You might consider it a downside that this phone doesn't have the highest water-resistance rating, but since I don't go swimming with my phone, IP-53 is perfect for how I use my phone.
Screen - Best screen I ever has, mostly due to brightness and sharpness from high resolution. I find it very similar to the iPhone X display, though the X did have that extra bit of punchiness characteristic of OLED displays. Regardless, this LCD on the Mate 10 is so contrasty and blacks are so black you might mistaken it for an OLED.
Chipset - Is fast, at least fast enough. When playing PUBG everything is running smoothly, though I can say from time to time I will notice and odd stutter when browsing the internet or scrolling through menus. It's random, I can't describe, but overall, it gets the job done, and I would say the performance feels slightly stronger than the iPhone 7 Plus.
Performance in Benchmarks - Really, this is a very capable phone even by current contemporary 2021 standards. Consider that for the price that you pay, let's say between 75 - 135 Euros on Ebay, or more simply 100 Euros, equivalent to 120 US Dollars, these phones is scoring 250K on Antutu and 380 single core; 1600 multi core on Geekbench 5. That puts this phone neck and neck with similar performers like: The Snapdragon 730G powered phones, think of things like the Motorola One Fusion +, or the Realme X2, or the Poco X2, Redmi K30, or the Pixel 4a - I would even liken the performance to the Poco X3, or even the Poco M2 Pro. All of these are new 2020 entry-level or middle-class phones that can be purchaces for 250-350 Euros. Essentially, the Mate 10 is neck and neck with current "value for money" smartphones.
Memory & Storage - With 4 GB RAM and 64 GB Storage, the Mate 10 will be fine for an everyday Android, these days a a 4/64 is the bare minimum configuration for a good experience. Luckily, the Mate 10 had and SD card slot.
OS - EMUI 10.0.0.180 on Android 10 is a little outdated, and now that I have heard that it won't be likely to get future updates, I have accepted that I will likely have to use Android 10 for a long time. Android 10 it's bad though.
Camera - Fantastic at shooting stills. Background blur looks phenomenal; falloff looks like a DSLR. The camera also has OIS. All of the photos and video used for this review were taken with the Huawei Mate 10. Its only weakness is how it processes grass in landscape images - it has tendency to lose detail in the blades of grass, although this is hit or miss. Check out the gallery below.
Battery - Battery lasts a day when the brightness is kept lowered, and under control. Auto brightness tends to want to make the screen super bright all the time. Battery tends to drain quite quickly when the brightness is high. So actively wrestling with the auto-brightness or turning it off completely is recommended, although the highest peak brightness is only achievable when auto-brightness is turned on because the phone will go into a high contrast boosted mode if it detects that you are in bright, direct sunlight.
That said, running the phone on the maximum highest resolution at all times, instead of the default adaptive smart resolution mode, surely has a tax on the battery, but for the high-quality crispy visuals it's worth it. During the review period, light use can have the battery last 24 hours with mixed use. Typical use can have 7 hours SOT. Heavy use such as gaming and you are looking at 5 hours SOT max, but maybe closer to 4 or 4 and half. It should be pointed out this is a 2017 phone, and such a phone is at 80% health or roughly charging up to 3300 mAh out of the original 4000 mAh, so battery life will not be like what it was like back in 2017. Still even after years of degradation the battery life is still totally good. Standby is awesome, the battery barely drains when it is lying around with the screen off. On the plus side it does support fast charging, and fast charging is super-fast and super good, but it's good to know it's there if I want to use it. If the battery life is merely good enough now, it must've been amazing when this phone was released on day one.
Under the stock default settings, the UI wants to kill apps aggressively to maintain a longer battery life, but this gets really old really quickly.
So here's some tips to keep apps running in the background. The suggestion is: go to settings > battery > app launch, or search for app launch, and then: TURN OFF manage automatically, SET TO manage manually and have all 3 boxes selected, do this for ALL APPS. This is annoying, it is honestly the most annoying part of owning a Huawei phone because its time-consuming. then after that go to settings > apps > : 3 dot hamburger > battery optimization, or just search for battery optimization, and then select, show all apps, and then SET TO "don't allow" or whichever option that says this may cause battery to drain - it tends to have a different phrasing on different devices but its all the same concept. In the end the way the Huawei attempts to manage apps to extend battery life might be the culprit cause poor RAM management. After doing these steps RAM management is much, much better. Make sure to turn all of Huawei's optimizations off to get a more stock like experience. Admittedly this is the worst part of owning a Huawei.
Security - Front-facing fingerprint sensor and camera-based face unlock. Both are super-fast and satisfying.
Connections - Speed demon on wi-fi with 5GHz. It has NFC for payments. 3.5mm Headphone Jack is amazing for everyday use, and the phone features an equalizer and Huawei's Histen sound enhancements. Wired headphones audio is another feature that we see on less and less flagships these days. And, the phone has an IR blaster, something that should be considered fundamental and a must have feature that should be on all phones. It's great to use it to control a TV.
Audio - speakers are loud and clear. Headphone jack quality is awesome
Price - On Ebay they can be found for anything between 75 EUR to 125 EUR or $115 and $145 USD - so the price on Ebay is a great deal. They can also be found on AliExpress and dhgate for 185 - 225 USD. Check local classifieds and you should find used model models selling for less that 175 EUR regularly. In many ways the price is a feature of this phone, because you are getting a lot of phone for very little money.
Honestly, there's not much unlikeable about this phone. Maybe, the update situation and the end of software support is a letdown, but that is something that can be lived with, this is kind of happening to many Android phones. Plain and simply Androids don't get updates for as long as iPhones do, so it is not something to hold that against Android phones. Just accept it. In the future, hopefully Androids will get as much support as iPhones get, but then again, the lack of upgrading to Android 11 or 12 won't ruin the experience an android phone.
The negatives, other things not to like -
Audio - the phone has stereo speakers, but it doesn't sound stereo at all, the sound coming out of the earpiece is so quiet compare to the bottom speaker that it doesn't create a stereo effect at all. It's like a 10-90 kind of balance. Though its possible to make the stereo balance slightly better by turning of the Stereo+ feature in settings.
My last and fine gripe is that this phone gets little warm while gaming, but surprisingly it doesn't throttle, no matter how hot it gets it does not throttle. The performance stays very stable, but still, it does get quite warm.
All in all, the Huawei Mate 10 is a great phone. Hopefully, the verdict is clear. The Huawei Mate 10 is the best phone that you can buy right now for 100 Euros.
Sources:
1. Huawei Mate 10 - Full phone specifications (gsmarena.com) https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_10-8877.php
2. Huawei Mate 10 review - GSMArena.com tests https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_10-review-1675.php
3. Compare Apple iPhone XR vs. Huawei Mate 10 - GSMArena.com https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=9320&idPhone2=8877
4. Huawei updates the Mate 10, Mate 10 Pro, P20 and P20 Pro with system improvements - NotebookCheck.net News https://www.notebookcheck.net/Huawei-updates-the-Mate-10-Mate-10-Pro-P20-and-P20-Pro-with-system-improvements.495729.0.html
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