Is it a phone, a phablet or a tablet?
Price: 549 Euro
Rating: 0

Alongside the P8, Huawei launched a huge phablet called P8 max which it will pit against phones like the iPhone 6 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Note 4. Here’s our hands-on review of the Huawei P8 max. Also see: Best phones 2015.

If Huawei’s aim was to make the biggest smartphone possible then it appears to have smashed that target out of the park. This thing is only marginally smaller than tablets like the Nexus 7 but costs a lot more.

Huawei P8 max review: Price

Like the regular P8, it comes in standard and premium versions priced at 549 and 649 Euros respectively. The standard version comes with 32 GB of storage and is available in Titanium grey or Mystic champagne. Opting for the premium model doubles the storage and means you can choose from Carbon black and Prestige gold. Read Huawei P8 and P8 max UK release date, price and specs.

Huawei P8 max review: Design and build

It looks like the regular P8 and is still impressively thin at 6.8 mm and an 83 percent screen-to-body ratio means it’s actually quite compact. It’s really easier to compare it to small tablets like the Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact rather than large phones.

It’s actually easy enough to hold in one hand but there’s really no chance of using the display one-handed like you would normally do with a phone.

We like the style of the P8 max with those thin bezels and what Huawei calls a 94 percent metal-to-body ratio which is a bit confusing since the body is metal. We think means it’s mostly made of metal apart from the plastic strip on the back.

There’s no E ink cover like the smaller P8 but Huawei has gone for a copy of HTC’s DotView case so you can get information even with the case closed through the tiny holes. It will also prop the device at a nice viewing angle in landscape mode.

Huawei P8 max review: Hardware and specs

Despite a much larger screen than its sibling (we’re still getting our head round it), the resolution remains at Full HD. This means a pixel density of 323 ppi which is lower than the rivals Huawei is comparing the device to.

The screen does look nice but as mentioned earlier, the tablet size means you’ll need two hands to use it.

Apart from the dramatic difference in screen size, much of the spec remains the same as P8 with a Kirin octa-core processor, 3 GB of RAM. Performance seems to be good via our hands-on play but we’ll test this further with a sample and benchmarks.

A much larger battery at 4360 mAh means it offers a very specific 2.23 days of normal usage according to the firm.

As mentioned earlier, there is 32- or 64 GB of storage available and there’s a mciroSD card slot which can also be used for a Nano SIM if you prefer (not both at once) making this a dual-SIM phablet.

Wireless includes 4G LTE (Cat 6), 11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC but there are no additional features such as a fingerprint scanner or IR blaster.

There’s a decent 13 Mp rear camera which is the same as the P8 with optical image stabilisation and a dual-tone flash. At the front the selfie snapper is slightly lower res than its brother at 5 Mp. We’ll report back on the cameras when we have a review sample.

Huawei P8 max review: Software

Huawei pre-loads the P8 max with Android 5.0 Lollipop and its own Emotion UI. It’s fairly stylish and we like features like the drop down bar navigating straight to quick settings when there are no notifications to view.

However, we still don’t understand why Huawei ditches the Android app menu so in iPhone fashion app icons must sit on the homescreen panels. Emotion UI is great for customisation though with different themes and the ability to choose your own screen transition animation.

New features include a panel view and being able to run two apps side-by-side although we don’t know why this is limited to landscape orientation.

Buying Advice
Although it’s thin, light, compact and attractive, we’re not convinced anyone wants a 6.8in phone (not in the UK anyway). It should really be a 7in tablet instead at a much lower price. That’s our first impression so check back soon for a full review.

Cheap phone offers acceptable performance, build and battery life
Price: 82
Rating: 7

A well-specified dual-SIM Android smartphone for just £82, the Prestigio Grace X3 will be ideal for the bargain-hunting smartphone user who doesn’t mind compromising on aspects such as style, or display resolution. See also: Best smartphones 2015.

With a 4.5in FWVGA 480×854 IPS display the Prestigio Grace X3 is no HD device, but it is no slouch either. A quad core processor running at 1.3GHz is paired with 1GB RAM to look after performance. You get a customised version of Android 4.4, and 8GB of onboard storage, as well as a memory card extension card slot. A 1650 mAh battery looks after battery life, and you get a 5Mp FF 8.0MP AF camera.

These are all reasonable, if not outstanding, specifications and features. But the dual-SIM capability sets the Prestigio Grace X3 apart, at this price.

Available in blue or white, the price you pay for such features at such a low price is in the design and build quality, as we shall see. But if you want a dual-SIM smartphone, you could do a lot worse. Let’s delve into the details. (See also: Best budget smartphones of 2015: 14 best cheap phones you can buy in UK.)

Prestigio Grace X3 review: design and build

It is by no means all bad. The Prestigio Grace X3 is a lightweight and compact handset. It is much more bulky than you would expect for a 4.5in device, but these days we are spoilt in that regard. The Prestigio Grace X3 is well balanced, and lightweight. Small enough to use one-handed, too. For the record it measures 65x8x134mm and weighs 118g, according to Prestigio. (We also measured the width at 8mm.)

The bezels at the top and bottom of the Prestigio Grace X3’s display are bigger than you might expect. But the front off the X3 is principally constructed of glass. The wider than average sides have a metallic finish, and the backside is a textured plastic.

Pull off that textured back panel, and you can access the removable battery, and both SIM card slots. There is also an expandable memory card slot. But the backpanel feels extremely thin and flimsy when not attached.

Overall the feeling is one of a device that is built to last in use, but is not particulaly beautiful. Which is probably the best you can expect at this price.

Prestigio Grace X3 review: display

The Prestigio Grace X3 has a 4.5in FWVGA (480×854) IPS display, which means a no more than middle-of-the-road pixel density of 217ppi. It is exactly what you would expect from such a reasonably specified display.

That relatively low resolution isn’t offensive. Look closely at icons and you can see some pixelation around the edges. Photos look nice without blowing you away. The colour pallet is a little bland, but nothing that would cause you to complain (unless you are used to a flagship such as the LG G3, and view the same image on both devices).

You get what you pay for when you pay for a smartphone display. There isn’t too much wrong with the Prestigio Grace X3’s screen, but then there isn’t a huge amount that is all that right. It is okay.

Prestigio Grace X3 review: performance and specification

The Grace X3 has a quad-core MediaTek MT6582M CPU and a Mali-400MP4 GPU. The central processor is clocked at 1.3GHz, and paired with 1GB RAM. This is a decent spec for the price. Nothing too outlandish, but nothing to be sniffed at. Certainly not.

In use this translates to a good level of performance. We noticed very little lag when using the Prestigio Grace X3. It is a responsive handset, even when under a reasonable load.

Graphical performance is less impressive. It’s far from terrible, but we wouldn’t expect to use the Prestigio Grace X3 as a gaming rig.

We would never use synthetic benchmarks for anything but to back up our own impressions of a device. And in the case of the Prestigio Grace X3, this rings true. In our Geekbench 3 testing we returned average scores of 1180 points in the multicore- and 364 points in the single core test. These scores put the Grace X3 in a similar bracket to that of the Motorola Moto G, or the original Nexus 7 tablet. Both excellent performers when you consider their budget prices, but nothing like as powerful as the big beast Android flagships. So it is with this handset.

We couldn’t get all of our graphical benchmarks to run, but in the onscreen T-Rex test of the GFX Benchmark we got a decent result of 9.7fps. The Prestigio Grace X3 will run games, just not the most graphically intensive.

Overall there is nothing bad about the Prestigio Grace X3’s performance levels. It isn’t a stellar performer, but it will be a more than decent everyday smartphone. (See also: What’s the fastest smartphone 2015 UK?)

Prestigio Grace X3 review: storage and connectivity

You get only 8GB onboard storage, which is where some of the savings have been made to get the Prestigio Grace X3 down to a decent price. On our Prestigio Grace X3 that ‘8GB’ was reduced to 4.99GB that we could see and use, and out of the box only 4.55GB was free.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can add in another 32GB via the SD card slot. A total of 37GB is still paltry by today’s flagship standards but, unless you are photography maven or a fan of carting around your entire music collection, it should be enough. As with the display: you get what you pay for.

In terms of connectivity you get Bluetooth 4.0, IEEE 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and a Micro USB 2.0 connector. There is a 3.5mm mini-jack for audio.

Network bands include GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, WCDMA 900/2100 MHz, and you get 3G, EDGE, GPRS, GSM

Sensors include GPS, A-GPS. And, of course, you can install two SIMS to operate across two international territories or use the same handset for work and play. (See also: Best dual-SIM smartphones: 11 best phones into which you can put two SIM cards.)

Prestigio Grace X3 review: camera

The Prestigio Grace X3 has two cameras, neither of which is likely to inspire you to fill up that storage. The main camera is a 8Mp sensor with autofocus, a flash and a BSI sensor. Around the front is a 5Mp camera for selfies. Presitigio says that the BSI sensor should make low-level photography better.

In use the Prestigio Grace X3’s camera is exactly what you would expect from a middle-of-the-road phone with a budget price. Okay, but no more than that. We took some test shots, and test video, and leave the rest for you to decide. (See also: Best Android smartphones of 2015: The 49 best Android phones you can buy.)

Prestigio Grace X3 review: test shots, test video

Click to enlarge to full size.

Prestigio Grace X3 review: software

The Prestigio Multiphone Grace X3 comes with Android 4.4 KitKat, and has full access to Google Play and all other features of recent Android. It is Prestigio’s own version of Android, however, which may explain some of that storage hogging. The principle noticeable difference to vanilla Android is that the fonts and icons are all slightly different. And Prestigio includes a special, er, clock: designed I think to make the phone feel prestigious (geddit?). So that’s nice.

More important are the myriad apps that were installed on my Prestigio Multiphone 5550 Duo as soon as it arrived. All are taking up space. Prestigio’s installed Android is taking up at least 3GB of the nominal 8GB available. That’s too much: if I want additional apps I will install them. It is the hidden price of a cheap smartphone, and for many it will be a price too far.

Prestigio Grace X3 review: battery life

The Prestigio Grace X3 comes with a 1650 mAh Lithium Ion cell. That feels small for a device with a quad-core chip, but the display is relatively low-spec and in heavy use we found we comfortably got through a day of solid smartphone usage without needing to recharge. See also: Best smartphones 2015.

Buying Advice
For a dual-SIM phone the Prestigio Grace X3 is staggeringly well-priced device. In order to make the phone so cheap Prestigio has given it a mediocre display, and plasticky lightweight build quality. But performance is decent and – despite the small battery – so is battery life. Storage is an issue, and we could live without the bloatware on Prestigio’s version of Android 4.4. But for the price, this is an amazing deal.

Huawei Technologies is betting its all-metal P8 and the P8max will help the company make further inroads into the high end of the smartphone market.

Following in the footsteps of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge from Samsung Electronics and the HTC One M9 is no easy feat, but Huawei is hoping it has developed a product that can compete with those devices.

The P8 has a 5.2-inch, 1080-by-1920-pixel screen and is powered by a HiSilicon Kirin 64-bit processor with eight cores running at 1.5GHz or 2GHz. It has 16GB or 64GB of integrated storage and 3GB of RAM. The integrated storage can be expanded using a microSD card.

Huawei has also worked to make the P8 look more premium. The device has an all-aluminum unibody that’s just 6.4 millimeters thick.

The display size is a slight increase over the 5-inch screen on the Ascend P7. The Ascend name has been dropped for the new model. Like HTC, Huawei has decided to stick with 1080p instead of increasing the resolution to 1440 by 2560 pixels. Competing products like the Galaxy S6, Google’s Nexus 6 and the G3 from LG Electronics all have screens with the higher resolution.

The company has also put effort into the smartphone’s cameras. The P8 has a 13-megapixel camera on the back and an 8-megapixel front camera. Those are the same resolutions as on the P7, but the performance of the main camera has been improved with image optical stabilization and a new image processor.

The P8max shares many of the P8’s specifications but has a 6.8-inch screen and 32GB of integrated storage.

The P8 will cost from €499 (US$530) and the P8max from €549. Upgrading to 64GB of storage on either model costs €100. Both devices will initially go on sale in 30 countries, including China, France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, and the U.K. The launch date wasn’t immediately available. Nor were plans for the U.S. market.

Year-on-year, Huawei has been improving the performance and design of its smartphones. The challenge is still its brand, which continues to lag behind the top tier in consumer perception. Brand building and marketing will be key activities in deciding which Chinese vendors can secure a foothold in mature markets, according to Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner.

For people who aren’t dead set on getting an HTC or Samsung device, the P8 looks to be yet another alternative for buyers who want a high-end Android-based smartphone. But with the launch of the G4 from LG just around the corner, waiting just a bit longer might be the best plan.

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com

Can the Huawei P8 take on the Galaxy S6, HTC One M9 and iPhone 6?
Price: 499 Euro
Rating: 0

Huawei today launched the P8smartphone at a launch event in central London and PC Advisor was in attendance. Here’s our Huawei P8 hands-on review. Also see: Best phones 2015.

For more information you can relive the Huawei P8 launch and see Huawei P8 and P8 max UK release date, price and specs.

We’ve been impressed by Huawei’s previous flagship phones, namely the Ascend P6 and Ascend P7 which both scored well with the former earning our recommended award. So we’ve been looking forward to the Huawei P8 which has some tough competition in the market from the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S6, HTC One M9,iPhone 6 and others.

Don’t forget that LG will unveil the LG G4 later this month and we’re keenly awaiting the arrival of the Sony Xperia Z4 too.

Huawei P8 review: Price

The Chinese smartphone and tablet maker likes to lure customers with an a affordable price, typically undercutting rivals like Google has traditionally done with the Nexus range. The P6 and P7 were both great value for money.

Huawei has priced the P8 from 499 Euro making it a fair amount cheaper than its competitors which typically cost close to £600. The firm is off to a good start.

Huawei P8 review: Design and build

Huawei likes doing things wafer thin and although the phone got thicker from the P6 to the P7, it’s now thinner again at just 6.5 mm. While a svelte phone looks great and seems better on a spec sheet, we’ve found some phones to be too thin becoming less ergonomic to hold. A 78.3 percent screen-to-body ratio is impressive.

The P8 is extremely thin but luckily not so much that it’s uncomfortable. The slender frame means that it’s also very lightweight. Once again is has similarities in appearance to the iPhone 6 and now Galaxy S6 with the metal frame although it’s more symetrical than before as there’s no rounded bottom edge. It’s not fully waterproof but it is spill resistant thanks to nano-coating according to Huawei.

The Huawei P8 will be available in four colours: carbon black, titanium grey, mystic champagne and prestige gold. These are split into standard and premium models so the 64 GB model only comes in black or prestige gold while the 16 GB is only grey or mystic champagne.

In an interesting move, Huawei will offer an E-ink cover which sits ontop of the P8 to turn it into a traditional eReader. This means, in a roundabout way, the P8 rivals the YotaPhone 2. We’ve not seen this cover in the flesh so can’t comment on it yet.

Huawei P8 review: Hardware and specs

Following on from the previous generations, Huawei has once again increased the screen size for the P8. It’s now 5.2in compared to 5in and matches theSony Xperia Z3. It’s still an IPS screen and the resolution remains at Full HD 1080p creating a pixel density of 424 ppi. If for some strange reason this isn’t big enough, the Huawei P8 max is a whopping 6.8in which is essentially a 7in tablet.

As per the rumour mill, Huawei has installed a Kirin 935 octa-core processor clocked at 2 GHz and 1.5 GHz. There’s also 3 GB of RAM and either 16- or 64 GB of storage which matches top-end Android phones. You’ll be pleased to know that Huawei has kept the microSD card slot so you can add more storage which is a feature fewer manufacturers are offering and this also doubles up as a second SIM card slot so the P8 is dual-SIM.

Performance seems smooth during a quick play with the P8 but we’ll test it further very soon. Huawei says its 100 pecent better than the P7 in GPU and 80 percent on CPU. Battery performance should be 1.5 days with normall usage which isn’t massively impressive but the battery is only 2600mAh as the phone is so thin.

On the camera front, Huawei has stuck with a 13 Mp rear camera and 8 Mp front camera. Lining up with all the teasers leading up to the launch about light, the P8 is touted to capture better results in low light conditions. Huawei touts best in class optical image stabilisation and DSLR-level independent image signal processor. We haven’t had time to test it out properly but there’s certainly potential here.

Huawei P8 review: Software

As you’d expect from a new 2015 smartphone, the P8 comes with Android 5.0 Lollipop pre-loaded and Huawei is sticking with its own Emotion UI which is places over the top. It’s similar to previous versions which is both good and bad.

We like the amount of customisation which includes themes and the ability to even change homescreen transition animations. However, the lack of an app menu is strange and unnecessary meaning all your app icons must sit on homescreen panels like the iPhone.

There are a number of background features which you’re not supposed to notice such as Signal and Wi-Fi which automatically try to give you the best experience by switching between antennas and Wi-Fi. There’s also a smart international dialler so you don’t even need to put in the country code.

A strange feature called Knuckle Sense allows you to double tap the screen to take a screenshot which you can then edit and also draw pretty lines on the screen. We’re not too sure what to make of it.

Buying Advice
Once again Huawei has made an interesting flagship smartphone with a sleek design and top-end specs at a price lower than big name rivals. Stay tuned for a full review soon.