Huawei Ascend Mate 2 Review: Incredible Battery Life & Value
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Joshua Ho on June 12, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Huawei
- Mobile
- Ascend Mate 2
Final Words
I'll have to admit here that coming into the review, I wasn't expecting much - not from the Ascend Mate 2 and not from Huawei itself. After all, while Huawei was making some interesting smartphones as an OEM outside the US, it remained an ODM in the US that was best known for the MyTouch smartphones on T-Mobile. Of course, even the announcement of the Ascend Mate 2 at CES was generally ignored by most. In short, Huawei has a lack of brand and product recognition.
Yet after using the phone for a while, there’s plenty to be surprised about. The first surprise was the design and feel of the device. The phone shows no signs of poor fit and finish, and it’s refreshing to see a design that embraces its material for what it is. More and more these days, it seems OEMs try to make plastic into a material that it isn’t. While some people might have no objections to this, it almost universally cheapens the design of the phone. The worst part about this trend is that such attempts often come at the expense of actual in-hand feel. Huawei has thankfully avoided this trend. The result is a phone that resembles the Galaxy S2 in feel, which was already well-designed. If anything, it ends up better due to the soft touch coating applied to the back cover.
Other OEMs highlight various technologies with an alphabet soup of acronyms to try and convince a buyer that their display is the best. Huawei seems to have taken the approach of not talking about their display at all outside of basic specifications, yet the display is one of the best we’ve tested this year. If anything, it’s surprising to see a midrange phablet beating out ~600 dollar phones and phablets.
Outside of display, battery life is record-breaking. This is the first device that I’ve seen to come close to 24 hours of continuous usage. A combination of an efficient display, SoC/RF, and a giant battery means that it’s almost guaranteed that the phone will last a full day, if not more. If battery life is truly the only concern you have in a phone, this would be the phone to buy.
The camera is also great for a 300 dollar phone. While low light performance is effectively nonexistent, the quality in daytime is surprisingly great, and a far cry from the Moto G or Nexus 4.
Of course, it’s not as if this phone is perfect. There are still some areas that could be improved. The single biggest issue is the SoC. While four Cortex A7s at 1.6 GHz is acceptable, it would be great to see a better SoC in general, especially to resolve some of the issues related to the ISP such as low preview resolution and frame rate. I suspect that this won’t happen until Snapdragon 410 begins shipping to OEMs. The only issues that really mar the device are some friction points in the OEM UI, and some concerns over future update support.
From Left to Right: Nexus 7, Ascend Mate 2, Nexus 5
It’s important to get back to pricing. The Mate 2 will be sold unlocked at GetHuawei.com, and from June 12th to June 22nd, Huawei will be including a $50 prepaid SIM card and $30 flip case with the Mate2. The phone itself sells for $299, which is a decent price on its own. For the same price as the Moto G LTE, Huawei is giving far better battery life, display, faster SoC, better camera, and a far better WiFi module. Of course, there’s the issue of the 6” display size and phablet formfactor, but if a large device is what you want Huawei delivers incredible value for the money.
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Fergy - Friday, June 13, 2014 - link
You don't buy purely on pricepoint. You find out what kind of phone you want and then look for the best price/performance ratio. If I want a phablet I will look at a few phablets like this one and note3. The question becomes: is note3 worth the extra premium?Impulses - Friday, June 13, 2014 - link
That's a generalization, and I can make the opposite case too: most people don't buy unlocked phones by paying full price upfront, and once you do you often have a price point already in mind (often something under $400).PubFiction - Saturday, June 21, 2014 - link
It still wouldn't hurt to throw other phablets in for comparison or controlled outgroups. And to be more fair they could do something like compare it to a note 2 or an older phone since many companies do not really have mid range phones they just have late model phones that are not midrange due to age.dawheat - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
This honestly seems like one of the worst reviews on Anandtech.- 1 line about the 720p resolution on such a large screen - 240dpi is so 2012 and easily seen on any web page
- Pretty bad GPU performance
- For phablets, put to shame by the Oppo or OnePlus phones which are not much more expensive but far more capable.
Maybe a year ago this phone would be a worthwhile budget phablet, but Oppo and OnePlus have already shaken up the phablet market.
nevertell - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
But it's a gr8 m8, m8, I r8 8/8.coolhardware - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
For someone that wants LENGTHY battery life without adding an extended battery (for Note2, Note3 etc.), this seems like a nice choice. The pixel density is low http://pixensity.com/list/phone/ (it is very near the bottom) but for a quite capable unlocked phone the price is not bad IMHO.SanX - Saturday, June 14, 2014 - link
Totally agree. I couldn't believe to see Anand name on the top of this absurd review of such utter junk. Hey Anand, everything is fine there? Need an eye doctor or others too? Holly &&%$$, it's like i swimmed in the toulet at Engadget.nrfitchett4 - Friday, March 20, 2015 - link
have you even tried the phone? It runs surprising well. The only time it bogs down is after several hours straight of clash of clans with xmod running on top. The only crash I've seen is an occasional contacts crash (weird because I can't find any info on why, maybe other contacts being imported). It runs much better than my G2 at half the price. I bought it because I am no longer subsidizing or financing phones and I was tired of having to charge my "great battery life" G2 at work. I love the battery optimizations and how it tells you if apps are eating battery in the background instead of a bunch of nonsensical google services in the battery list. I noticed the 720p screen for the first day, and after that, I didn't notice it being grainy or pixelated.To each their own, but I find that the midrange market is prime for explosive growth because Android runs just fine on lower end hardware. Funny how lower end hardware is snapdragon 400 and 2gb of RAM...
cknobman - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
Why dont you ever throw in the Nokia Lumia 1520 into these comparisons? Especially when you are looking at things 5.5+ inches?I'd love to see how my Lumia stacks up against some of these other phones.
I have never done an official battery life test but everyday @7am I take it off the charger and @11pm I put it back on and it always has >50% battery life left.
If I dont do any gaming or heavy downloading it will have >60%.
Duraz0rz - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
No reason to not include the 1520/930/Icon camera in the comparison, at the very least, especially when he mentions the Lumias on the camera architecture page!