• Class: Smartphone
• Body materials: glass and metal
• Operating system: Google Android 4.4.2
• Processor: 4 cores + 4 cores, HiSilicon Kirin 925
• RAM: 2 GB
• Storage memory: 16 GB
• Interfaces: Wi-Fi (b / g / n), Bluetooth 4.0, 3.5 mm for headset
• Screen: capacitive, IPS 6 "with a resolution of 1080x1920 pixels
• Camera: 13 MP (main), 5 MP (front)
• Optional: accelerometer, light and proximity sensors
• Battery: non-removable, Li-Pol (4100 mAh)
• Dimensions: 157x81x7.9 mm
• Weight: 185g

Contents of delivery

The smartphone comes in a small black cardboard box. “ASCEND MATE” is written on its front side in golden color and the company logo of the same color is located at the bottom.

Opening the package, on top you find an envelope with documentation and a special metal clip for removing the slot for installing a sim card. The following things are packed in a separate box: network adapter with an output current of 2A, USB cable and headset. All of them are made in white.

A technical film without inscriptions is glued to the smartphone screen, so you can safely use it as a protective one.

Introduction

We got acquainted with the device even before Honor 6 and Mate 7 were presented at IFA 2014. The first impression is ambiguous, apparently, because we expected something more and original from the exhibition, at least for me personally. After the "ifa", it turned out that the products from Huawei, in general, look quite at the level, since other manufacturers demonstrated devices that differed little from the previous generation of their lines. Although the devices from Huawei do not have outstanding technical characteristics or other significant gadgets, they are just high-quality gadgets, brought to mind.

Today we will talk about the flagship device Huawei Ascend Mate 7. What is so remarkable about this model? As already mentioned, Huawei has tried to take into account all the wishes of consumers: if you wanted a thin metal case - get it and sign; powerful processor - please; a cool camera is not a question, a fingerprint scanner is also there! Some potential buyers have been waiting for the Mate 7 for high-definition QHD, but alas, only FullHD is here. However, I believe that a QHD resolution on a screen up to 6 inches is rather marketing ploy: it is almost impossible to distinguish between displays with FullHD and QHD, the quality of the matrix is ​​more important. The only incomprehensible point is the amount of RAM. The expensive Ascend Mate 7 has 2 GB, and the more affordable "sixth" Honor - 3.

At the time of this writing, unfortunately, the exact date of the start of sales and, most importantly, the price are unknown. Most likely, the Mate 7 will hit store shelves in mid-November, and the price will be 25,000 - 27,000 rubles, I think it all depends on the dollar exchange rate. Eldar Murtazin in a tweet dated 17.10 wrote: “… if you were expecting some kind of equipment, and not a hell of a lot of money, then go and buy it on the weekend. Then it will be more expensive. "

Design, dimensions, controls

I would not want to be a bore and claim that the Mate 7 was copied from Htc one Max. Even if this is so, then this fact is only for the benefit of Huawei, and from HTC it will not diminish. Ascend dimensions - 157x81x7.9 mm, weight - 185 grams; dimensions of HTC One Mac - 164.5x82.5x10.3 mm, weight - 217 grams. Huawei is smaller, thinner, narrower and lighter. In any case, the Chinese company has tried to make it better and prettier.

Three colors of the device will be available for sale: white, black and gold. I liked the gold-colored device simply because it looks very unusual against the background of the same type of dark or light smartphones. In our review, we found the Mate 7 in light. The front panel backing is white, I would say milky. A thin edging around the perimeter of the matrix is ​​black, almost merging with the background of the display. Frames on the left and right are only 2.9 mm each. On a black gadget, they are generally invisible, it seems that in front of you is a smartphone that does not have screen frames. Interestingly, the ratio of the screen area to the front surface area is 83%.

Despite the fact that I prefer smaller smartphones, Huawei fits perfectly in the hand, it is easy to use, you do not feel discomfort due to its large size. In some situations, you still have to shift the gadget in the palm of your hand in order to reach the desired element in the interface. In terms of design ergonomics, everything is at the highest level here!

The display is protected by durable Corning Gorilla Glass 3. For several weeks of active use of the device, not a single scratch or scuff has remained on the glass. The surface is covered with an oleophobic layer, as although fingerprints remain, they can be removed very easily and quickly. The finger glides across the display smoothly, without jerking.

The edging on the device is made of glossy white plastic. It forms a small side, thereby protecting the screen surface from external influences such as when the Mate 7 is laid face down.

The side edges and almost the entire rear panel are made of light-colored metal. There are two decorative bevels on the edges. They play beautifully when exposed to light. We saw something similar in the iPhone 5 and 5S. For quite a long time "skid" Ascend, the rear surface remained without damage, although I carried it in my pocket along with the iPhone 5, which was equipped with an "iron" Draco bumper.

Naturally, it is extremely difficult to make a one-piece metal case; in any case, the signal must go out of the device. Therefore, the Mate 7 has two plastic inserts, painted in the color of the case. They are located on the reverse side, top and bottom. The width of each is only 8 mm.

The assembly of the gadget pleased: when squeezed in the hand, the creak or crunch is not audible, plastic inserts, buttons and slots for SIM and memory card do not play.

Above center is a speech speaker, covered with a small silver metal mesh. The volume is high, on the street or in the subway you can hear the interlocutor without problems. Mainly mids are heard, but there are also low and high frequencies. The timbre is pleasant. You are heard clearly and legibly.

To the left of the speaker are light and proximity sensors, a front camera. There are no touch buttons under the display, they are on-screen.

At the bottom there is a microphone and microUSB. Perfectionists will cry, because for some reason the "microyus" is shifted to the left relative to the central axis by a few millimeters. Above - the second microphone and 3.5 mm audio output for headphones or headset.

The volume rocker and the power button are on the right. They are made of metal, the surface is ribbed. Their stroke is minimal, pressing is soft. Placing the lock button in the center right is the right solution, it is convenient to use.

At the top left there are two metal skids: the one above is for a micro SIM card, and below is for a memory card. Usually in this class of gadgets there are no microSD slots.

On the back of the device: a large camera eye protruding a millimeter above the body, a flash and a hole where the speakerphone is located. And Huawei Mate 7 also has a fingerprint sensor (square, slightly recessed, with smoothed edges). Of course, you are unlikely to surprise anyone with them today, but a pleasant trifle. Unlike, for example, the sensor in Samsung, where you have to slide your finger across the screen and then on the button (frankly speaking, it works badly), in Mate 7 you just need to put your finger on it. And it's all the same: the scanner recognizes the fingerprint in any position of the device or finger. The function works faster than the standard screen unlock.

Comparative sizes:

Huawei and Apple iPhone 5

Huawei and Nexus 5

Huawei and Huawei M1 tablet

Display

Huawei has decided not to waste time on trifles, so the Ascend Mate 7 uses a 6-inch screen. Physical size - 74x132 mm. I have already spoken about the minimum frames around the perimeter of the display - it looks good! Top frame - 10 mm, bottom - 14 mm. There is an anti-reflective coating, it filters sunlight and other bright objects reflected by the screen quite well.

Contrary to expectations, this model has FullHD resolution, not QuadHD. I do not see the difference, especially on a screen of 6 inches or less. Compared with LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4. It is not the resolution that matters, but the quality of the matrix. The Mate 7 has an IPS matrix from Japan Display Inc.

The quality of the screen pleased me: pure white color, pleasant saturated colors, high brightness (information is read without problems even in the bright sun). Below I compared two matrices - in the ZTE Nubia 7 MAX and LG G3.

ZTE Nubia 7 MAX and Huawei Ascend Mate 7

In this case, there is not much difference, ZTE slightly lies with the white balance, slightly increasing the red color. The brightness is slightly higher on Huawei.

LG G3 and Huawei Ascend Mate 7

It would seem that LG should put Huawei on the blades, but no. Matrix G3 strongly takes the picture into warm colors. On slopes, the difference is even more obvious. The brightness is higher again on the Huawei Mate 7.

Traditionally, the Huawei settings have a "Color temperature" item. I do not advise you to touch it, you will only make it worse.

The brightness is set either manually or automatically. The range of regulation is wide. You can read a book at night without straining your eyes.

The capacitive touch layer supports up to 10 simultaneous touches. The sensitivity is excellent. In the "Control" item there is even a "Work with gloves" mode.

For those who are not used to reaching the right places on the screen with a large diagonal, the developers have made the "One-handed control" function. True, this only applies to controls, the dialer and some other things.

Here are some more original features:

Black color

Battery

The device has a non-removable lithium-polymer (Li-Pol) battery with a capacity of 4100 mAh. Well done Huawei, that such a capacious battery has been placed in such a thin case.

Those who often change smartphones to Android or simply test gadgets on this operating system know that the operating time of these devices is usually about the same, regardless of the battery capacity. Of course, if the device is not equipped with a 4100 mAh battery. Therefore, the Mate 7 “lives” 27-35 hours according to the following scheme: 30-40 minutes of calls, about 7 hours of 4G (background updates of mail, twitter, etc.), 3-4 hours of active Wi-Fi connection (views sites, reading twitter, mail, and so on), about two to three hours of photographing.

Lovers of watching videos can count on 9-10 hours: maximum brightness, maximum volume on headphones. Set the battery on toys for four hours. In the mode of reading a book, the device will last no more than 20 hours.

There is a section "Energy Saving". It is easy to switch between "Energy Saving", "Smart" and "Normal" modes. When the first is activated, only the necessary functions will be displayed on the phone screen: calls, messages, contacts and time. In this mode, the device operates for about 40 hours.

Communication capabilities

V this section in order not to inflate the review, it is worth describing the most important thing: Mate 7 works with LTE CAT 6 networks, it has Wi-Fi b / g / n (dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot), Bluetooth version 4.0 (A2DP, EDR, LE), NFC chip.

It is easy to connect Flash devices to USB (OTG mode).

Huawei has GPS and GLONASS. It functions stably, the speed is very high: even near the window, up to 10 satellites are "visible".

Memory, memory card

Inside the Ascend Mate is 2GB of RAM. The funny thing is that the more affordable Huawei Honor 6 (costs 17,000 rubles) is equipped with three "gigs". Why such a collision occurred, they cannot answer even in the representative office of the company. It seems to me that this was done in order to distinguish Honor 6 from the total mass of devices with FullHD screens, since up to 20,000 rubles such gadgets almost all have the same parameters and 2 GB of "RAM".

We had a 16GB Flash sample. Free about 12 GB. However, do not worry, as there is a slot for a microSD memory card. The maximum size is 64 GB.

Camera

Recently, in flagship devices, I'm only interested in cameras. Why? Everything is very simple: in 99% of cases the hardware in such devices is so cool that it can handle anything, memory - the sea, screens for every taste. The cameras are also about the same, but the difference comes when you shoot not on a bright sunny day, but, say, in cloudy weather, in the evening, at night or in a room with artificial lighting. It is in such conditions that you have to choose a smartphone in terms of the quality of shooting.

Huawei Mate 7 has two modules: the main one is 13 MP, the front one is 5 MP. The second one is wide-angle, for the best selfies.

The lens of the main camera was equipped with an aperture of F2.0, for the front camera, the lens was F2.4. The minimum ISO value is 50, the maximum is 3200. The maximum shutter speed is 1/16, the minimum is 1/25000.

The picture quality is quite good, during the day, as I said, all cameras shoot about the same. Indoors, the Mate 7 does well thanks to its open hole. At night, Huawei "paints" a slightly darker picture than direct competitors, including Honor 6, but noticeably less noise. Focus is always accurate and fast, white balance is not questionable. Bokeh, as you know, at F2.0 is beautiful, pleasantly blurring the background.

The device shoots video in a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels at 30 frames per second. The quality is average, the picture is soapy, the sharpness is weak, the exposure is very rough. The sound is clear, stereo. There is an HDR video mode, but only at 720p.

The front camera takes wide-angle shots. Records video in 1080p resolution at 15 fps.

P.S. When we were in the Huawei office, we were told that the Mate 7 has optical stabilization, but only now it turned out that it is not there. Therefore, the part of the section about the camera had to be shortened.

Interface

Bottom left to right: entrance to the gallery (earlier there were displayed thumbnails, now only an icon, inconvenient), frame creation, effects. Swipes to the left or right to switch: focus (the camera takes several frames with different focus, then you can select the point of focus), photo and video. Above - a flash, switching to the front camera and back, a menu.

Menu

When you click on the icon, you get to the “quick” menu: decorations, panorama, HDR, audio note, good photos, watermark.

Advanced settings:

You can select "Fingerprint". In this case, "yourself" is easy to do by touching the sensor on the back.

Holding your finger on the screen while taking a photo activates the exposure point selection.

Electronic stabilization is enabled or disabled in the video settings. You will see the rest in the screenshots.

EXIF information from a photo file

Characteristics of the video file recorded on the main camera:

• Format: MP4
• Video: AVC, 22 Mbps
• Resolution: 1920х1080, 30 fps
• Audio: AAC, 96 Kbps
• Channels: 2 channels, 48 ​​KHz

Sample photos on the main camera:

In room:

In the dark:

An example of a photo on the front camera:

Performance

The smartphone from Huawei is traditionally built on its own HiSilicon Kirin 925 chipset: big.LITTLE architecture, 4 ARM Cortex-A15 cores (1.8 GHz) plus 4 more ARM Cortex-A7 cores (1.3 GHz), for processing sensors and a sensor fingerprint reader is equipped with a separate Smartl3 chip. To work with graphics, the Mali-T628 MP4 accelerator is used: 6 GPU cores with a frequency of 600 MHz, support for OpenGL ES 3.0, Open VG 1.1, OpenCL 1.1, DirectX 11, 4xFSAA, 16xFSAA, second generation Midgard architecture.

I think you understand that with such "hardware" the device does not slow down at all. "Freezes" of the shell were not noticed, glitches and crashes from the system, too. All games that were tested on the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 ran without problems (Real Racing 3, Modern Combat 5, GTA SA, Dead Trigger 2, and so on).

Below you can see screenshots from different games:

Brief information and performance tests.

Stylish and productive novelty of 2014 is the phablet Huawei Ascend Mate 7. Its hardware filling allows you to easily solve any, including the most complex tasks. It is about her, as well as about the reviews of the real owners of this gadget, and will be discussed in the future.

Phablet niche

The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is the flagship solution from this manufacturer in 2014. Its hardware and software components are still relevant today and allow solving all problems without exception. But now, a year and a half after the start of its sales, more expensive and at the same time more productive smartphones have appeared. Accordingly, this phablet will be more fairly attributed to the average price range. The price and capabilities of it confirm this once again. But at the same time, it has everything that modern flagship devices are equipped with. Therefore, this gadget can be an excellent solution for those who want to get an excellent smartphone for a relatively low cost. It is on them that it is oriented this decision first of all.

Gadget package

This device cannot boast of anything remarkable in terms of equipment. Everything is standard:

• The "smart" phone itself with a built-in battery.
• Charger with 2 A output.
• Proprietary interface cord.
• A discreet wired speaker system with a microphone. Lovers of high-quality sound and music lovers will certainly not like it and they will have to think about buying a better speaker system.
• User guide. It also contains a warranty card.
• A special clip for removing the slots for installing SIM cards and external storage.

Most of the body in this gadget is made of metal. The front panel is protected by glass "Gorilla Eye" revision 3 in Huawei Ascend Mate 7. A cover for a device with a similar degree of protection is most likely not advisable to buy. In addition, a special protective film is initially already glued to the screen area, so there is no need to buy it additionally. In general, of the accessories, you can only think about buying an external drive. In this case, its capacity can reach 64 GB.

Appearance and location of controls and communication ports

Impressive enough dimensions this phablet. It is 157 mm long, 81 mm wide and 7.9 mm thick. It is difficult for the average person to control this device with only the fingers of one hand. But this is true for all phablets without exception. And its weight is only 185 grams, and this is very little for such a large device. This smartphone has three color options for the body at once: black, silver and gold (very much it all looks like the iPhone 6). The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Black variant is the most practical solution. Fingerprints, dust and dirt are not so noticeable on it. But at the same time, the device no longer looks so elegant and premium. The weaker half of humanity will like the silver body more. There is something feminine and graceful in him. Well, Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Gold will allow you to emphasize the special status of its owner.

83% of the front panel is occupied by a touchscreen display, under which is the manufacturer's logo. There is no special control panel at the bottom of the gadget. For these purposes, the lower part of the screen is used, on which this panel is displayed. Above the screen there is an earpiece, a "window" of the front camera and several sensors. Mechanical (volume control and locking) are grouped on the right side of the device. In order for the user not to confuse them under any circumstances, the surface of the lock button is made loose, and the volume swing is smooth. On the lower edge of the gadget there is a port of the micro-USB format and a miniature hole for the spoken microphone. Above, there is a microphone hole for noise suppression during a call and a 3.5 mm audio port. There are two disguised slots on the left side of the smartphone. To remove special plastic inserts from them for installing a SIM card or external flash drive, you will have to use a special paper clip that comes with the phablet. One slot is designed to accommodate a conventional SIM card. But the second one can be used to increase the amount of memory in the device or to install a second "sim card" of a reduced format. On the back cover there is a peephole of the main camera, its single LED illumination, the main speaker. Well, the manufacturer did not forget to place his logo here along with the fingerprint sensor.

CPU

It is the high performance and phenomenal energy efficiency of the central processor that is one of the key benefits Huawei Ascend Mate 7. Premium - devices from other manufacturers with similar characteristics cannot boast of such a combination. The device is based on the Kirin 925 computing platform, developed by a subsidiary of Huawei - Hisilicon. According to the documentation, this chip includes 8 real computational cores, which operate according to the big.LITTLE scheme. That is, at the maximum and average load on the device, 4 computing modules based on the Cortex-A7 architecture are in operation. They are capable of overclocking at full load up to 1.3 GHz. Their main plus is high energy efficiency. It should also be noted that if 2 out of 4 cores are enough to solve the problem, then the other 2 are simply turned off. Do not forget that with an excess of computing power, the frequency of each active module is automatically reduced. As a result, we get a very energy efficient system that adapts to the needs of the problem being solved. When the computational resources of the first computational module of four cores are insufficient, it turns off, and the second computational cluster automatically comes into operation. It also consists of 4 cores. But only in this case we are talking about the architecture of "Cortex-A15". It delivers uncompromising performance levels. each of them can reach 1.8 GHz. Again, the frequency of computational modules in this case dynamically varies depending on the degree of complexity of the problem being solved. In the same way as in the previous case, unused kernels are deactivated. This allows you to run almost any task on this smartphone. The only exception is 64-bit applications, of which there are not so many now. It's just that this chip is built on the basis of two 32-bit architectures - such software will definitely be too tough for it. All of the above makes the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 very similar to the two flagship solutions from Samsung: S4 and S5. But this Chinese manufacturer went further and equipped this chip with another educational computing module, which was codenamed "i3". Its clock frequency is only 230 MHz. He is responsible for the maintenance of sensors and sensors. Such a constructive solution allows you to significantly unload the main computing resources of the smartphone and thereby further increase its performance and energy efficiency. No other manufacturer of mobile gadgets, including Apple or Samsung, can boast of such hardware optimization. Finally, it should be noted that this semiconductor crystal is manufactured in accordance with the norms of the 28nm technological process.

Graphics accelerator

The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 smartphone is equipped with a very powerful graphics accelerator Mali-T624MP4. This is a four-module video card that runs at 600 MHz. It cannot boast of great flexibility in terms of energy efficiency, like the processor itself in this device. On the other hand, it is necessary to understand that this graphic accelerator must display the picture on a 6-inch display and even in HD quality. A perfectly installed video card copes with this task.

Display

A very high quality display is used in the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Premium. The review of its technical parameters is impressive even now, although a lot of time has passed since the start of sales. So, the parameters for this screen are as follows:

• The resolution is 1920 x 1080. That is, the image, as noted earlier, is displayed in FullHD - quality. Add to this a pixel density of 368ppi and we get that a single point with such characteristics is certainly not distinguishable with the ordinary naked eye.
• The matrix of the screen is made according to the "IPS" technology. Added to this is the absence of an air gap between the touch panel and the matrix. As a result, we get an impeccable picture quality.
• To protect the display from possible damage, the faceplate of the phablet is covered with protective glass"Gorilla Eye" 3rd revision. On top of it, a special layer is also applied that prevents fingerprints from appearing on the screen.
• Also, the device has with which it is possible to automatically adjust the brightness of the display.

Sound

The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 phone boasts high sound quality. The main nuance here is the presence of an additional Tensilica HiFi3 module, which is integrated directly into the central processor crystal. It processes the audio signal coming to both the earpiece and the main speaker. Also participates in the processing of the signal output to the 3.5 mm audio port. Therefore, the sound of this mobile gadget is much better than that of other competitors. But this also requires an appropriate speaker system. A complete stereo headset is certainly not so, and lovers of high-quality sound will have to immediately think about buying a higher-quality accessory of this class.

Cameras

One more strong point in this device is the main camera of 13 megapixels. It is based on the Sony IMX214 sensor element. Of course, the developers did not forget to equip it with an autofocus system and an LED backlight system (it is simply irreplaceable in the dark). The photo quality is really excellent on this device and raises no objections. The only significant drawback is that the camera's peephole itself protrudes against the back cover of Huawei Ascend Mate 7. The case, perhaps, will not be superfluous for this device. With its help, it will be possible to avoid possible damage to the eye of the main camera. There is no separate button for controlling the camera in this gadget. But the ability to quickly capture an important moment still exists. To do this, you need to quickly press the device volume down button twice quickly. As a result, the required application will start and you can start taking photographs. There is also the possibility of recording video in the "FullHychDi" format with an image refresh rate of 30 frames / sec. The front camera has a more modest sensor - 5 megapixels. But this is quite enough for her typical tasks: “selfies” and video calls. An additional coprocessor IMAGESmart Engine version 2.0 is used to process the received images. It allows you to get a better picture, and at the same time, the resources of the central processor are practically not used. Another important point in optimizing this phablet.

Memory

Several versions of this gadget are on sale at once. The most modest of them is equipped with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage. Some of them (1 GB of RAM and about 4 GB of built-in storage) will be occupied by the pre-installed software. There is also a more advanced version of Huawei Ascend Mate 7 - 32Gb, it has an integrated storage capacity and 3 GB of RAM. Determining which version of the gadget you have in your hands is quite simple - for the price: an advanced version of the flagship solution costs 1.5 times more. In the single-symbol version of the phone, there is no possibility of installing an additional external storage. But already the two-sim version of the device allows you to do this. But at the same time, it is necessary to understand that the second slot will have to be sacrificed - because of this, the device will cease to be two-SIM. The maximum external storage capacity in this case is 64 GB. But even the capacity of the integrated storage in the most economical version of the smartphone is quite enough for comfortable work. But in order to avoid the loss of the most important data in the event of a device failure or breakdown, you need to use cloud services and periodically save the most important information on them.

The battery of the gadget and its autonomy

The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 smartphone has a built-in 4100 mAh battery. In reality, one charge is enough for 1-2 days of battery life. Taking into account the diagonal of the display, the size of the device and the processing power of the central processor, this is an excellent indicator. If you use the maximum saving mode (it only allows you to make calls and send and receive SMS), then you can count on 3 days. Something more can not be achieved with such technical parameters and with such a battery capacity.

Interfaces

All the main methods of transferring information are supported by Huawei Ascend Mate 7. In this regard, it has the following characteristics:

• Full support for all existing cellular networks is fully implemented in Huawei Ascend Mate 7. LTE, GSM and 3G - you will not have any problems with working in any of them.
• Wi-Fi is the main tool for transferring data to the global web. It also allows you to upload files of any size to your device.
• To exchange a small amount of information with similar "smart" phones, it will be most optimal to use "Bluetooth".
• This device can work with two navigation systems "ZhPS" and, of course, GLONASS.
• To connect with an interface cable to external devices, it is most rational to use a micro-USB format port. It also charges the battery.
• Another wired interface is designed to output audio signals to external speakers - a 3.5 mm audio port.

Additional protection

The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is equipped with additional protection. A review of the back cover indicates the presence of a fingerprint sensor. It is with its help that additional protection of the device is implemented. Now, in order to unlock the phone and gain access to personal data, you will have to confirm your personal presence using this procedure. This puts this device on a par with last year's smartphone from Apple - iPhone 6. Moreover, the algorithm of this sensor is an order of magnitude better than that of the flagship solution from the Apple company. And this is another serious plus of this phablet.

Sensor set

The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 boasts an impressive array of sensors and sensors. An overview of the technical specifications indicates the presence of an electronic compass. With its help and in the presence of the appropriate software, it will not be difficult to turn this device into an ordinary compass. There is also a light sensor (it allows you to automatically adjust the brightness of the display) and distance detection (it automatically locks the screen during a call). This phablet also has a gyroscope and an accelerometer.

Soft devices

Initially, this device has a version of "Android" with serial number 4.4. When Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is connected to the Internet for the first time, the system software will be updated automatically. On the this moment version 5.1 is available. The official plans of the manufacturer also include the transition to an even more "fresh" version of the operating system - 6.0. However, no specific dates have been announced yet. When this will happen is not entirely clear. In general, a powerful hardware platform allows you to install the latest versions of the operating system on this gadget without any problems. Installed on top of the OS branded shell Huawei Emotion UI. Its version 3.0 will be available from the box. But after installing updates, its version will also change. The rest of the software is quite solid and allows you to start using the device right out of the box.

Tests

Of course, now the Huawei Ascend Mate 7's performance level is far from being the flagship. Premium - the devices of the latest generation - are built on the basis of more efficient chips, and it is already difficult for the last year's flagship to compete with them. Therefore, one should not expect a fantastic number of points in various test packages. But we can safely note one important nuance: the performance of this phablet is quite enough for a comfortable game in Real Racing 3, Asphalt 8 or GTA 3. And you can even run them on maximum settings... Therefore, the performance level of this gadget can be safely called excessive. And the detailed situation will certainly remain for the next two years.

Phablet cost today

Like any other flagship device, the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 cannot be cheap. The more modest version starts at $ 400. Moreover, this is true for the black and silver case options. If you want to purchase a stylish gold gadget, you will have to increase the indicated amount by $ 50. The more advanced version of Huawei Ascend Mate 7 has an even higher cost. Prices for silver and black smartphones start at $ 480. Well, a gold device with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of integrated storage is estimated by online stores at $ 520.

Owners' opinion about the smartphone

In reality, the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 gadget does not have any significant shortcomings. Reviews only confirm this. Some people complain about its rather large size. On the other hand, they knew its dimensions before buying and then complain about the inconvenience of working with one hand on it. And if such a drawback is already voiced, then everything suggests that this Chinese manufacturer has really turned out to be an excellent phablet. But the advantages are many times greater for Huawei Ascend Mate 7. Reviews indicate the following:

• Impeccable build quality of the case. Moreover, its degree of protection raises no objections.
• A central processing unit that combines energy efficiency and performance.
• Large and high quality display.
• A high degree of autonomy, as for a device with such dimensions.
• Excellent cameras that allow you to take high-quality pictures and record videos in Full HD format.
• Constant updating of the software part of the device.

Let's summarize

Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is an excellent solution for those who want to get a relatively inexpensive, yet functional and reliable smartphone. Of course, its $ 400 price tag is quite high today. But, on the other hand, you get a smartphone that will be relevant for more than one year. And the manufacturer himself will regularly "pump" software updates.

The September novelties presented at IFA 2014 are gradually going on sale, and today we will get acquainted with one of the most interesting smartphones of the fall - the flagship Huawei Mate7. How can a hero attract a buyer? For example, whole metal case, a productive platform, good software optimization, a capacious battery. But there are other positive aspects to it, which we will talk about in our review.

Equipment

The Huawei Mate7 comes in a stylish large box. Opening it, you can see the smartphone itself on the pallet, the documentation and a paper clip for removing the SIM card and memory card trays are hidden in the lid of the package, under the smartphone there is a 2A charger, a cable and a simple headset.

Design and usability

Externally, Huawei Mate7 is a typical modern phablet.

The front panel is covered with protective glass, framed by a thin plastic edging, barely rising above its surface. Naturally, most of it is occupied by a screen (according to the manufacturer, 83% of the area).

The side frames are only 2.9mm thick, the top 10.5mm and the bottom 13mm. The smartphone uses on-screen control keys, so only the manufacturer's logo can be seen under the display. A set of sensors, a front camera, a narrow strip were assembled above the screen conversational dynamics and a small indicator light.

Most of the body is made of metal, Huawei Mate7 pleasantly cools your hand. Small plastic inserts can be seen only in the upper and lower parts of the back, behind them are the antennas of the wireless modules. Here you can also find a slightly protruding camera lens, a flash diode, a fingerprint scanner recessed into the body and a small multimedia speaker grill.

The side faces are flat. On the left there are trays MicroSIM and MicroSD, on the right - the lock and volume keys. The main microphone and interface connector can be found at the bottom, while at the top there is an additional microphone and mini-jack.

The build quality is excellent, all the parts are perfectly matched to each other, the smartphone looks and feels monolithic. As for a six-inch device, the Huawei Mate7 has no problem with ergonomics. The corners and edges of the case are rounded, so it fits comfortably in the hand and does not dig into the palm of anything.

The physical keys are perfectly distinguishable by touch, they have a clear stroke, and they are convenient to use. The lock button is made of metal and has notches on it. The volume control, on the other hand, is plastic and smooth, so it will be difficult to confuse the keys.

The manufacturer claims that the usability of the Huawei Mate7 is comparable to 5.7-inch smartphones. But this is slyness, after all, the same Note 4 is a couple of millimeters narrower and lower, which noticeably affects the usability of the phablet.

If we talk about personal feelings, then it was hard for me to reach the upper third of the display, for this you need to tilt the smartphone towards you.

We reviewed the black version of the smartphone, in fact, it looks dark gray. In addition to her, Mate7 exists in silver and gold (bronze) colors, but for the first time only black and silver models will be supplied to the Ukrainian market.

Display

The Huawei Mate7 has a 6-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. A matrix produced by JDI is used, there is no air gap between the glass and the panel, and a protective film is glued to the screen from the box.

Measurements showed that the minimum brightness of the screen is 8.8 cd / m2, the maximum is 372 cd / m2, the contrast is 1 to 1019. The quality of the factory calibration is traditionally good, the deviations of most parameters are minimal. Auto brightness adjustment works correctly.

In the screen settings, you can adjust the color temperature, turn off the indicator light. In the "Management" section, you can enable "work with gloves".

In addition, the screen of Huawei Mate7 has maximum viewing angles, there is a normal oleophobic coating, good readability on the street and a comfortable minimum brightness. The color reproduction of the display is calm and natural, and the FullHD resolution (368 ppi) is enough to make even small print look smooth - in all respects we have a good screen.

Hardware platform

The heart of Huawei Mate7 is the HiSilicon Kirin 925 system-on-a-chip. The platform of the Huawei subsidiary is built according to the big.LITTLE (4 + 4 + 1) scheme, it contains energy-efficient 4 Cortex-A7 cores, operating at a frequency of up to 1.3 GHz, 4 high-performance Cortex-A15 cores (up to 1.8 GHz) and one auxiliary i3 core (0.23 GHz) providing the operation of sensors and sensors. The video core is Mali-T624 MP4, 600 MHz. The processor is made according to the 28 nm technical process.

The solution used is similar to the Samsung Exynos chips that the company uses in and. The amount of RAM - 2 GB, built-in - 16 (free 11.5 GB), there is a slot for memory cards. Communication capabilities smartphones are presented with support for all common communication standards (except CDMA), Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.1 b / g / n, NFC.

In addition to the standard (as in the review), there is a version of Huawei Mate7 with 3 GB of RAM, 32 GB of permanent memory and support for two SIM cards. It will go on sale later.

In synthetic tests, the Mate7 demonstrates results comparable to current flagships. The operating speed during normal use depends on the selected power consumption mode, of which there can be three in total: energy-saving (only calls and messages), smart (automatically adjusting the processor frequency and network operation) and normal (maximum performance).

In general, the "Smart" mode is sufficient for everyday comfortable use of the smartphone, especially if your usage profile is reading news, listening to music and other simple tasks. If in this mode a heavy application is launched or you start to actively switch between programs, there may be slight delays in the reaction of the smartphone, in such cases it is better to turn on the "Normal" power consumption mode - it does not have any complaints about the speed of work, it is great for games and others resource-demanding applications.

We checked the work of popular games (Real Racing 3, GTA 3, Asphalt 8), they all run without problems at maximum settings.

The work of the Wi-Fi and GPS modules did not raise any questions either.

Calls, multimedia

Officially, the MT7-TL09 version will be sold in Ukraine - this is the international version of Mate7, it supports the operation of one sim card. The rest of the smartphone versions (international MT7-TL10 and others) support the operation of two SIM cards, a second Nano-SIM card can be installed instead of a memory card, such as in.

Phone functionality is implemented in Huawei Mate7 at the proper level. The ringing loudspeaker turned out to be loud, it has a pleasant sound, albeit without a hint of volume. Conversation is also good, the voices of the interlocutors sound natural, the volume is sufficient in most situations. Due to the rather large and heavy body, the vibrating alert turned out to be weaker than average, sometimes it can be missed.

The smartphone supports many codec supporters, in the Antutu Video test it scores 500 points. The quality of music reproduction deserves special attention. The SoC integrates the Tensilica HiFi 3 DSP processor, which is responsible for processing music, conversations and other audio signals. Such a solution will not provide the quality of a professional player or other "big" source, but it did. Huawei Mate7 has a detailed, clear sound with a good headroom. The smartphone copes without problems not only with ordinary plugs, but also with slightly larger headphones, for example, Creative Aurvana Live!

Operating system and shell

Huawei Mate7 runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat operating system with EMUI 3.0 shell.

The general logic of the shell remains the same - all applications in it are placed on desktops and sorted into folders. It is possible to change the desktop scrolling effects familiar to EMUI, support for themes that can be applied either completely or assemble your theme from separate elements (icons, wallpapers, melodies, fonts) of different themes.

The smartphone has a backup application and Phone Manager. The latter allows you to configure which applications will send notifications and which will not, which programs will have access to the Internet (Wi-Fi and mobile), you can immediately turn off the background work of selected programs, which will save battery power.

The interface has small optimizations for comfortable one-handed operation. These include the docking of the text and telephone keyboards, on-screen keys to the edges of the screen. TO virtual keys you can add two additional ones to open the notification panel and collapse the block of buttons anywhere in the interface.

The fingerprint scanner

More and more smartphones, along with a set of familiar sensors, are receiving a fingerprint scanner, and Huawei Mate7 is no exception. The scanner was placed in a recess under the camera.

Using the sensor, you can unlock your smartphone, provide access to selected applications, deny access to selected files, which will be moved to the "Personal" category. Huawei Mate7 can store 5 fingerprints.

At the moment, among Android smartphones, the hero of the review has the best implementation of the scanner, in terms of accuracy, speed and percentage of successful responses, it is comparable to the iPhone 6 or even slightly surpasses it. To unlock the screen, you just need to put your finger on the scanner; no additional actions or button presses are required from the user. If the device is on the table, you can simply enter the password or PIN-code, no additional pressing "OK" is required.

Working hours

The Huawei Mate7 housing hides a non-removable 4100 mAh battery.

In normal average load mode, in "smart" power saving mode, with enabled auto-syncs, a set of installed programs (instant messengers and others), the smartphone works for two days. With an inserted "OGO!" and activated data transfer in the "normal" power saving mode, you can count on about a day and a half of work, which can be considered quite good results.

In the mode reading all wireless communications are disabled, including data transmission in the mobile network, and the display brightness is set to 200 cd / m². While listening music automatic data synchronization and data transmission worked. Headphone volume at 12 out of 15 possible levels. All music files in MP3 format, bit rate 320 Kbps.Navigation includes laying a route to google app Navigation. The brightness is set to 200 cd / m², all communication modules are disabled. During playback video data transmission in the mobile network is active, the display brightness is set to 200 cd / m², the sound volume in the headphones is at level 12 out of a possible 15. Video file format MKV, resolution 1024x432 pixels, frame rate 24. Video playback from Youtube was accompanied not only by work in the Wi-Fi network, but also by active data transfer. Display brightness is set to 200 cd / m², headphone volume is set to 12 out of 15 possible levels. *- the data was obtained under similar conditions, but with the brightness set at 50% of the possible You can get acquainted with the testing methodology in material.

Cameras

The smartphone received two cameras. The main one uses a Sony IMX214 module with a resolution of 13 megapixels, there is autofocus, LED flash, f / 2.0. The front camera has a resolution of 5 megapixels. Image processing is provided by the IMAGESmart Engine 2.0 coprocessor.

The camera application has an extremely ascetic interface with a minimum number of settings. There are basic resolution settings, where to save images, white balance, ISO, and several shooting modes (auto, HDR, panorama, continuous shooting with best shot, watermark). You can use the fingerprint scanner to take pictures, and quick launch just turn the Mate7 horizontally and press the volume down key twice.

Photos taken with the main camera:

The manufacturer claims that the camera starts up in 1.3 seconds, the application informs about the start time if the launch option with the creation of a photo is selected in the settings. Our sample usually started the camera in 0.8-0.9 seconds, but these photos often come out blurry, so it's easier to start the camera and take a picture with another press of the volume key, then such problems are not observed.

An example of shooting FullHD video:

In general, the main camera of Huawei Mate7 demonstrates photo quality that is normal for modern flagships, autofocus works quite quickly, in addition, it takes pictures well in low light.

Photos taken by the front camera:

Outcomes

The Huawei Mate7 is a great example of a modern, balanced phablet. It received a nice metal body, a fairly productive hardware platform, an excellent FullHD screen, a capacious battery, good cameras and a bonus in the form of a convenient fingerprint scanner. On the one hand, there is nothing special about this, but the combination of all these parameters in one device creates the feeling of a high-quality smartphone that deserves the title of flagship. Therefore, if you are looking for a device of this format, you should pay attention to the Mate7.

Unfortunately, all this is overshadowed by one fact. According to the latest information, Huawei Mate7 should go on sale in late December or early January 2015. Due to currency fluctuations, the expected cost of a smartphone will be 8777 hryvnia, which is somewhat large, and the version with 3 GB of RAM will be estimated at 9999 hryvnia. At the same time, the smartphone has a lot of competitors - these are both already on sale and cheaper devices of 2014, so we cannot guarantee that the buyer will wait for his Mate7.

Liked:

Materials, body dimensions

Excellent FullHD screen

Sufficiently productive hardware platform

Capacious battery, good autonomy

Main camera

Fingerprint scanner implementation, headphone music playback quality

Did not like:

- long time to market

	HUAWEI Ascend Mate 7 MT7-L09 (Black) UAH 3 899 - 4 899 Compare prices
A type	Smartphone
SIM card type	Micro-SIM
Standard	GSM 850/900/1800/1900, UMTS 850/900/1900/2100 / AWS, LTE FDD 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/20/28
High speed data transfer	GPRS, EDGE, HSPA +, HSDPA (up to 42 Mb / s), LTE Cat.6 UL (up to 300 Mb / s)
Number of SIM-cards	1/2
Operating system	Android 4.4 (KitKat) + Huawei Emotion UI 3.0
RAM, GB	2
Built-in memory, GB	16
Expansion slot	microSD
Dimensions, mm	157x81x7.9
Weight, g	185
Dust and moisture protection	—
Accumulator battery	4100 mAh
Opening hours (manufacturer's data)	there is no data
Diagonal, inches	6
Permission	1920 × 1080
Matrix type	IPS
PPI	368
Brightness adjustment sensor	+
Touch screen (type)	touch (capacitive)
Other	16 million colors, Gorilla Glass 3
CPU	Hisilicon Kirin 925 + GPU Mali-T628 MP4
Kernel type	Cortex-A15 + Cortex-A7
Number of Cores	4+4+1
Frequency, GHz	1,8/1,3/0,23
Main camera, MP	13
Autofocus	+
Filming	1920х1080 pixels, 30 fps
Flash	LED
Front camera, MP	5
Other	digital zoom, image stabilization, touch focus, face detection, panoramic shooting
Wi-Fi	802.11 a / b / g / n, Wi-Fi Direct
Bluetooth	4.0
Gps	+ (GLONASS)
IrDA	—
NFC	+
Interface connector	USB 2.0 (micro-USB)
Audio jack	3.5mm
MP3 player	+
FM radio	+
Type of shell	monoblock
Keyboard type	screen input
More	proximity and lighting sensors, accelerometer, E-compass, gyroscope, GPS receiver, vibration alert, fingerprint sensor, metal case

The product was provided for testing by Huawei,

Metal tablet phone with great camera and maximum performance

Following the flagship smartphone Huawei Ascend P7, which was presented separately in Paris this spring, the “seventh series” was replenished with two more novelties at the very beginning of autumn. In addition to the curious and fairly balanced mid-price smartphone Huawei Ascend G7, a review of which we will definitely present in the near future, a very unusual tablet phone called Huawei Ascend Mate 7 was presented. The novelty, due to its outstanding characteristics, turned out to be so noticeable that it immediately attracted itself the closest attention of the general public. The smartphone immediately became famous immediately after the presentation, visitors to the exhibition talked a lot about it, journalists and bloggers discussed it. The test copy given to us has already managed to work as a photo and video camera both at the exhibition itself and during the grandiose night fireworks festival, which was taking place at that time in Berlin, and also managed to visit the famous Berlin Zoo as a consumer camera. And since one of the strongest points of the new Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is its outstanding camera, users will certainly be interested in knowing how this device performed in normal, non-laboratory conditions. So this time the review will feature a lot more different interesting photo and video materials captured on the camera of the sample under study during a trip to Berlin than we usually post in our reviews of mobile technology. The smartphone is really outstanding, we have collected a lot of materials on it, so today we present to your attention detailed overview this mobile device.

“Today marks the beginning of a new era: we present our new product - the fastest and most powerful smartphone with big screen... It is a symbol of our unremitting commitment to the “Make it Possible” concept of creating innovative, high-quality products for people around the world, ”said Richard Yu, CEO, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, introducing his new smartphone... “The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is truly an example of such a product, combining a large screen, high performance, impressive energy efficiency and one-touch fingerprint recognition technology.”

So, the Chinese industrial giant, Huawei, at the international exhibition IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin) 2014, held annually in Germany. unveiled the new Ascend Mate 7 smartphone with a large 6-inch Full HD screen, a thin 7.9 mm body, a completely new 8-core processor of its own production and a huge battery with a capacity of as much as 4100 mAh. Among other things, the smartphone implements one-touch fingerprint recognition technology, as well as an updated user interface EMUI 3.0. On the whole, Ascend Mate 7 turned out to be very interesting - at the moment it is perhaps one of the most powerful and advanced tablet phones, or, as they are also called, “smartpads”, on the global mobile market.

Video review

First, we suggest watching our video review Huawei smartphone Ascend Mate 7:

Main characteristics of Huawei Ascend Mate 7 (MT7-L09)

	Huawei Ascend Mate 7	Vivo Xplay 3S	Oppo Find 7	Lg g3
Screen	6 ″, IPS	6 ″, IPS	5.5 ″, IPS	5.5 ″, IPS
Permission	1920 × 1080, 367 ppi	2560 × 1440, 490 ppi	2560 × 1440, 538 ppi	2560 × 1440, 538 ppi
SoC	HiSilicon Kirin 925 (4x Cortex-A15 @ 1.7GHz + 4x Cortex-A7 + i3)	Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 (4-core Krait 400) @ 2.3 GHz		Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 (4-core Krait 400) @ 2.5 GHz
GPU	Mali-T628 MP4	Adreno 330	Adreno 330	Adreno 330
RAM	2 GB	3 GB	3 GB	2/3 GB
Flash memory	16 GB	32 GB	32 GB	16/32 GB
Memory card support	microSD	No	microSD	microSD
Operating system	Google Android 4.4	Google Android 4.3	Google Android 4.3	Google Android 4.4
Battery	non-removable, 4100 mAh	non-removable, 3200 mAh	removable, 3000 mAh	removable, 3000 mAh
Cameras		rear (13 Mp; video 1080p), front (5 Mp)	rear (13 Mp; 4K video), front (5 Mp)	rear (13 Mp; 4K video), front (2 Mp)
Dimensions and weight	157 x 81 x 7.9mm, 185g	158 x 83 x 8.7 mm, 174 grams	153 x 75 x 9.2 mm, 173 g	146 x 75 x 8.8mm, 155g
Average model price	T-11036156	T-10623253	T-10752992	T-10848744
Huawei Ascend Mate 7 offers	L-11036156-10

• SoC HiSilicon Kirin 925, 8 cores ARM big.LITTLE (4 cores Cortex-A15 @ 1.7 GHz + 4 cores Cortex-A7) + Smart-l3 processor for working with sensors
• GPU Mali-T628 MP4
• Operating system Android 4.4 with shell Emotion UI 3.0
• IPS touch display, 6 ″, 1920 × 1080, 367 ppi
• Random access memory (RAM) 2 GB, internal memory 16 GB
• Support for microSD memory cards up to 128 GB
• Communication GSM / GPRS / EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• WCDMA communication: 850/900/1900/2100 MHz
• Data transmission LTE Cat 6 LTE FDD: B1 / B3 / B7 TD-LTE: B38 / B39 / B40 / B41
• Wi-Fi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac, point Wi-Fi access, Wi-Fi Direct
• Bluetooth 4.0, NFC
• USB OTG
• GPS (A-GPS), Glonass
• 13MP camera (Sony BSI 4th ​​generation, f / 2.0, autofocus, LED flash), 1080p video
• 5MP camera (front)
• DAC TenSilica
• Accelerometer, proximity and light sensors, gyroscope, fingerprint sensor, electronic compass
• Lithium polymer battery 4100 mAh (non-removable)
• Dimensions 157 x 81 x 7.9mm
• Weight 185 g

Contents of delivery

The smartphone comes on sale in premium packaging: a stylish black cardboard box is made in the form of a box with a hinged lid, on its surface there is a minimum of information and a stylish golden logo. Inside there are several compartments with separate boxes that fit into recessed nests. In general, the contents of the package are presented very pretentiously.

The set of accessories consists of a large-sized charger (output power 5 V, 2 A) and a separate Micro-USB connecting cable; Ordinary headset headphones with a thin round wire without ear cushions are put in a separate pocket, like the rest of the accessories. Also in the box there was a key-clip for removing the SIM-card. The packaging is large enough, there would be enough space for more accessories, but extended packaging is not in vogue these days.

Appearance and usability

The design of the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 looks calm enough; there is nothing here for the eye to catch. Discreet appearance is compensated by the accuracy of execution and strictness of the lines, and premium materials emphasize the status of the product. The smartphone looks quite expensive due to the use of metal in the case, the assembly does not cause the slightest complaints. The developers report that the Ascend Mate 7 is more than 95% metal. The surfaces of the metal sides and the back cover are matte, non-marking, there are no prints left on them, but the metal can slip out of your hands. Like any other heavy metal object, the Huawei Ascend Mate 7's case doesn't hold as securely in your fingers as a plastic one.

Perhaps the only thing that you can find fault with here is the very large dimensions and large mass, but they are due to the huge display area with a 6-inch diagonal, so nitpicking about the dimensions of the device is inappropriate: we have a real tablet-phone in front of us, the main purpose of which is - to combine the capabilities of a smartphone and a tablet, and in this case there can be no talk of diminutiveness.

At the same time, the body of the device is rather thin, and the width and height with such a huge screen could be much larger: the screen here occupies 83% of the body area. The developers have managed to make the side frames around the screen record thin (about 2.9 mm), which sometimes gives the impression that in your hands you are holding only one luminous screen without a case at all. That is, to put it simply, the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 smartphone, although huge in itself, is, among the six-inch devices, perhaps the smallest and thinnest on the market, which its creators did not forget to mention during the presentation.

The back cover of the smartphone is not a removable element, the body is monolithic, so the method of installing cards is customary for such cases: a memory card and a SIM card are inserted into the side slots, entering and exiting on metal slides, to remove which you will have to resort to the complete key or use any paper clip.

In principle, during the presentation, the possibility of installing a second additional SIM-card of the Nano-SIM format in the slot for the memory card was mentioned, but here we are most likely talking about some of the modifications, since in the copy given to journalists it is possible to install a second SIM- the card was not there. Neither Nano-SIM nor Micro-SIM fit in any way on the sled of the second slot. By the way, exactly the same story happened with the Ascend P7 issued to journalists in Paris, which also did not have the possibility of installing a second SIM-card in place of a memory card, which was promised at the presentation. As for the standard conditions, initially a Micro-SIM card must be inserted into one of the slots, and the other slot supports microSD memory cards up to 128 GB.

In addition to the usual camera eyes and flash, on the back of the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 you can find one not quite familiar element. Just below the square glass of the rear camera, the developers have installed the same size square touch panel for reading fingerprints. The 9.16 x 9.16 mm fingerprint sensor stores up to five sets of different fingerprints for normal and guest modes, giving the user the ability to switch modes to increase the protection of access to personal folders or applications.

The sensor has a high sensitivity factor (508 ppi), which improves the reading accuracy even in rain or wet hands. The integrated ARM TrustZone technology stores encrypted fingerprint data in the chipset for better protection by the SecureOS system and prevents direct third-party access to the data. The developers themselves praise the one-touch fingerprint recognition technology, and they can be understood: it is enough to put your finger on this square at any angle, and the fingerprint will be recognized. At the same time, the screen is immediately unlocked, that is, the smartphone can really be awakened literally with one touch, which is extremely convenient. By the way, by touching this sensor you can also take pictures with the camera, which is especially convenient when taking a selfie with the front camera.

The camera window on the rear wall is framed with a metal rim, slightly raising it above the surface. Nearby is a one-section LED flash that can function as a flashlight using a pre-installed program.

Below is the main speaker grill, made in the form of an array of small round holes. Apparently, some of the holes are not covered by a hard surface, when the smartphone usually lies with the screen facing up, since the sound of the device lying on the table is practically not muffled.

The front panel is completely covered with protective Gorilla Glass 3, which is resistant to scratches. In the upper part of the glass there is a slit for the earpiece grille, the eyes of the sensors and the front camera are visible next to it. Even to the right is an LED notification indicator that shines with a dull dot only when the screen is off. There is a special item in the settings menu to turn off the indicator.

There is very little free space left under the screen in the lower part, the traditional row of control buttons has been moved here to the screen, so there is nothing else at the bottom, except for the company logo.

Mechanical controls are located on the right side of the device: closer to the center is the power and lock button, and above it is the volume rocker. This arrangement of the keys is very convenient, with one finger you can easily reach any of the buttons, both right-handed and left-handed. The keys themselves are small, but it is not difficult to find them blindly. The travel of the buttons is elastic and distinct, and in general there are no complaints about the mechanical controls.

The headphone audio jack (3.5 mm) is on the top here, and the universal Micro-USB connector that supports OTG mode is on the bottom. The connectors and outputs of the smartphone are not covered with any plugs, since the device is not protected from water and dirt. There are also no strap mounts on the Huawei Ascend Mate 7.

The smartphone comes on the market in only three color versions: silver, black and gold. The latter, by the way, is a more advanced option and comes with, among other things, not two, but three gigabytes of RAM. It is not known for certain in what packaging the premium golden version is delivered to the shelves, but as for the other two, black and white, both of them will go on sale in the same black boxes with a gold logo.

Screen

The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 smartphone is equipped with a touch IPS matrix... The screen dimensions are 75 × 132 mm, the diagonal is 6 inches, the resolution is 1920 × 1080 pixels. In the flagship model Oppo Find 7, for example, with a similar physical size, the screen resolution is almost twice as high (in area), and therefore, the dot density is also higher. The Oppo device has 537 ppi, while today's hero has a pixel density of 367 ppi. This is far from a record figure.

The side bezels are even less than 3 mm (approximately 2.9) thick from edge to edge of the screen - the bezels are extremely narrow and look even thinner with such huge dimensions. Above and below, by the way, very little space is also left, only to compactly place all the necessary elements, so you cannot blame the developers for uneconomical allocation of space.

The brightness of the display can be adjusted manually, or you can use automatic adjustment. The multitouch technology here allows you to process 10 simultaneous touches. When brought to your ear, the screen is locked using a proximity sensor. It is also possible to work with the screen with gloves, but by default this function is disabled, because the display becomes too sensitive to normal touches.

Alexey Kudryavtsev, editor of the "Monitors" and "Projectors and TV" sections, carried out a detailed examination using measuring instruments. Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the test sample.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface, resistant to scratches. Judging by the reflection of objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are no worse than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photo in which a white surface is reflected in the turned off screens (on the left - Nexus 7, on the right - Huawei Ascend Mate 7, then they can be distinguished by their size):

The screen of the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is slightly darker (the brightness in the photos is 108 versus 109 for the Nexus 7). The doubling of reflected objects in the screen of Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is very weak, this indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen (more specifically, between the outer glass and the surface of the LCD matrix) (OGS-type screen - One Glass Solution). Due to the smaller number of boundaries (such as glass-to-air) with very different refractive indices, such screens look better in conditions of strong external illumination, but their repair in the case of cracked outer glass is much more expensive, since the entire screen has to be changed. On the outer surface of the screen there is a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating (very effective, slightly better than the Nexus 7), so fingerprints are much easier to remove and appear at a slower rate than in the case of regular glass.

With manual brightness control and with the display of the white field on the whole screen, the maximum brightness value was about 460 cd / m², the minimum - 10 cd / m². The maximum brightness is high, which means, given the excellent anti-glare properties, readability even on a sunny day outdoors should be at a good level. In complete darkness, the brightness can be lowered to a comfortable value. In the presence of automatic brightness control by the light sensor (located to the left of the camera eye on the front panel). In automatic mode, when the ambient light conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. This function depends on the position of the brightness adjustment slider. If it is 100%, then in complete darkness the auto-brightness function reduces the brightness to 120 cd / m2 (too much), in an office illuminated with artificial light (about 400 lux) it sets to 320 cd / m2 (it could have been less), in a very bright environment (corresponds to illumination on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or slightly more), the brightness rises to 460 cd / m² (to the maximum - this is what you need); if the adjustment is about 75% (the scale of the standard brightness control is very non-linear), then the values ​​are as follows: 40, 230 and 460 cd / m2 (acceptable values), the control at 0% - 10, 36 and 235 cd / m2 (values ​​underestimated, which logical). As a result, the automatic brightness control function works quite adequately. At any brightness level, there is practically no backlight modulation, so there is no screen flickering either.

V this smartphone a matrix of the IPS type is used. The micrographs show the typical IPS subpixel structure:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of photomicrographs of screens used in mobile technology.

The screen has good viewing angles without significant color shift even with large gaze deviations from perpendicular to the screen and without tint inversion. For comparison, we present photographs in which the screens of Huawei Ascend Mate 7 and Nexus 7 display the same images, while the brightness of the screens was initially set to about 200 cd / m2, and the color balance on the camera was forcibly switched to 6500 K. The white field is perpendicular to the screens:

Note the good uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field. And the test picture:

Color reproduction is good and colors are rich on both screens, but the color balance is slightly different. Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:

It can be seen that the colors did not change much on both screens, but on the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 the contrast decreased to a large extent due to the strong highlighting of blacks. And white box:

The brightness at an angle of the screens decreased (at least 5 times, based on the difference in exposure), but the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 has a slightly lighter screen (the brightness according to the photos is 232 versus 228 for the Nexus 7). The black field, when deviated along the diagonal, lightens very strongly and acquires a slight red-violet tint. The photos below demonstrate this (the brightness of the white areas in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the screens is the same!):

And from a different angle:

With a perpendicular view, the uniformity of the black field is average:

Contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is high - 1270: 1. The response time for the transition black-white-black is 21 ms (11 ms on + 10 ms off). The transition between gray tones of 25% and 75% (based on the numerical value of the color) and back takes 32 ms in total. The gamma curve, plotted using 32 points at equal intervals in terms of the numerical value of the shade of gray, did not reveal a blockage in either the highlights or the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.16, which is close to the standard value of 2.2. In this case, the real gamma curve almost does not deviate from the power dependence:

The color gamut is sRGB:

The spectra show that the matrix filters mix the components together to a moderate extent:

As a result, the colors visually have a natural saturation. The balance of shades on the gray scale is slightly compromise, since the color temperature is not much higher than the standard 6500 K, but the deviation from the spectrum of the absolute black body (ΔE) is greater than 10, which is considered not a very good indicator even for a consumer device. At the same time, the color temperature and ΔE vary little from shade to shade - this has a positive effect on the visual assessment of the color balance. (The darkest areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since the color balance there is not very important, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

This product has the ability to correct the color balance by adjusting the hue warmer — colder. In the graphs above, the curves Without corr. correspond to the results without any color balance correction, and the curves Corr.- data obtained after shifting the correction slider to the "warm" side before setting the target 6500 K on the white field. It can be seen that the balance change is in line with the expected result, as the color temperature has become closer to the standard on most of the gray scale, but the ΔE, unfortunately, has increased slightly.

To summarize: the screen has a high maximum brightness and has good anti-reflective properties, so the device can be used outdoors without any problems even on a sunny summer day. In complete darkness, the brightness can be lowered to a comfortable level. It is also acceptable to use the mode with automatic brightness adjustment, which works adequately. Also, the advantages of the screen include an effective oleophobic coating, no flickering and no air gap in the layers of the screen, high contrast, sRGB color gamut and good - in visual assessment - color balance. The disadvantages are low stability of black to deviation of the gaze from the perpendicular to the plane of the screen and low uniformity of the black field. Nevertheless, taking into account the importance of characteristics for this particular class of devices, the screen quality can be considered high.

Sound

The smartphone is quite good in sound quality, for this it has a special sound chip (DAC TenSilica) and support for DTS technology. The sound is loud and bass low frequencies is not deprived, and at the maximum volume level the speaker does not wheeze, the sound remains clear. The interlocutor's speech is recognized confidently, ear speaker clearly conveys all intonations and timbre of the voice. There are practically no sound settings in the music player, there is only the ability to turn on or off the DTS sound enhancement technology. There is an FM radio in the standard configuration of the smartphone, and a dictaphone was also found. The radio will not work without headphones connected as an external antenna.

The main rear camera has a 13MP sensor with a 4th generation Sony BSI sensor and an f / 2.0 aperture. The camera is equipped with autofocus and LED flash, video shooting is limited to 1080p (no 4K support).

When shooting in maximum resolution photographs are obtained with dimensions 4160 × 3120 (13 megapixels). The organization and design of the camera control interface in the new Emotion UI 3.0 shell has been completely changed compared to previous versions. This is not to say that the flagship Huawei Ascend P7 with its Emotion UI 2.3 had a camera control interface at least somewhat inconvenient, but here everything has become even more concise, clear and intuitive. Most of the menu functions are collected in a single vertical block. In addition to the automatic shooting mode, there are several specific modes, such as successful photos, decoration, panorama, HDR, etc. With the help of a separate mode, you can play around and adjust focus on different areas of an already captured photo. It is worth noting that by touching the fingerprint sensor located on the back, you can instantly take a picture, which is sometimes convenient.

The camera can shoot video at a maximum resolution of 1080p. The ability to shoot in UHD (4K) was not provided here, and this is not a very serious problem at the moment, but the 1080p mode at 60 frames per second would definitely not hurt such a luxurious camera. Examples of test clips shot under various lighting conditions are shown below.

• Movie # 1 (80 MB, 1920 × 1080, in the dark)
• Movie # 2 (59 MB, 1920 × 1080, street)
• Movie # 3 (76 MB, 1920 × 1080, bright sunlight)
• Movie # 4 (76 MB, 1920 × 1080, aquarium)
• Movie # 5 (76 MB, 1920 × 1080, close up)

	Good sharpness and shadow work.
	Excellent sharpness across the entire frame.
	Noise in the shadows is almost invisible.
	Sharpness in the center is excellent, but falls off at the edges.
	Sharpness in the background is slightly worse, but still good in the foreground.
	Good sharpness across the field and across plans.
	With removal, sharpness drops noticeably only on the left side of the frame.
	Too coarse noise reduction is clearly visible.
	On non-uniform surfaces, the noise reduction is almost invisible.
	Under certain conditions, artifacts from the noise reduction are completely lost.
	When the sensitivity is lowered to values ​​in the range of ISO 400, the quality is noticeably improved.
	The camera is good at macro photography, there is even some bokeh.
	Macro is still decent in low light.
	The flash does not always work moderately, but generally improves clarity.
	The text is well done and practically free of artifacts.
	The flash improves the situation a little.

Below are a few more shots from the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 camera, taken in different conditions.

The Chinese have been producing flagship-level smartphones for a long time, and many of them show themselves very worthy, including in terms of the quality of cameras. There are, of course, models that are far from ideal, but some are already able to compete with eminent flagships in terms of image quality. Among them, quite suddenly, but effectively, Huawei smartphones entered. The Huawei Ascend Mate 7 camera is definitely a success, although it has problems. In any case, for a pre-production sample, this is already very good, and definitely better than what we saw in preliminary testing.

The camera has decent field and shot sharpness. The overall picture is spoiled a little by the drop in sharpness in the corners of the frame and the periodically arising areas of blur at the edges. On the whole, everything is quite good with the optics of the camera. The situation with the sensor is a little worse: it makes a noticeable noise when shooting indoors. Noise, or rather the result of their processing, becomes noticeable at sensitivity values ​​from ISO 400 and above. At the same time, even in the dark, the camera still produces a certain result, which is quite acceptable if "it is really necessary." With good lighting, the situation changes dramatically: there is practically no noise in the shadows, the sharpness across the field of the frame and according to the plans is fairly uniform. Yes, as soon as the lighting deteriorates a little, problems begin, but they are noticeable only when viewed per-pixel, and on a large monitor, the picture reduced to its resolution looks nice.

Another problem concerns exposure. Exposure metering works well, but the parameters are not always reasonable. Considering that up to ISO 400 the camera copes with noise quite well, lowering the sensitivity by increasing the shutter speed is not very correct. In addition, shutter speeds of 1/25 second or more are already long enough for a camera and handheld shooting. Thus, shooting indoors in low light is the main weakness of the camera. And even in such conditions, it is quite possible to get a good picture, but that's how the camera decides.

The camera does not quite reach the current flagships, and there is no point in comparing it with them yet. This is confirmed by a laboratory test. At the same time, the camera behaves quite decently, and there is still hope that the manufacturer will still modify the software. But even in this form, the camera is quite suitable for many different scenarios of use.

Telephone part and communications

The smartphone works as standard in modern 2G GSM and 3G WCDMA networks, and there is also support for fourth-generation 4G networks, and the latest LTE Cat6 is implemented here, which theoretically can provide speed wireless transmission data up to 300 Mbps. In practice, with the SIM-card of the domestic operator MTS, the smartphone confidently recognizes and works with 4G networks. The network capabilities of the smartphone are extensive, correspond to a truly top-level level: there is support for NFC technology, dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4 and 5 GHz), Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Display, as standard, you can organize a wireless access point via Wi-Fi channels Fi or bluetooth. The mode of connecting external devices (USB Host, USB OTG) is supported, so you can connect flash drives and mice with keyboards to the Micro-USB port. The navigation module works with both GPS and domestic system Glonass.

Spontaneous reboots / shutdowns were not observed during testing. The screen of the smartphone is large, so the drawing of letters and numbers of the virtual keyboard is quite comfortable to control. There is no dedicated top row with numbers on the standard keyboard - you have to switch the layout every time. Using the settings, the virtual keyboard can be reduced in size for ease of operation with one hand. Naturally, the ability to input using the Swype method is also supported. The phone application supports Smart Dial, that is, while dialing phone number search by contacts is carried out immediately.

OS and software

The device uses the Google Android software platform version 4.4.2 and a very fresh version of the proprietary graphical interface called Emotion UI 3.0 as a system. The interface has been greatly redesigned graphically, there are also organizational internal changes. However, most of them are, rather, only cosmetic in nature. For example, a timeline has appeared in the notification drop-down menu, showing the exact time of the recorded event. Some settings items have moved to other menu items. In principle, all the innovations add comfort to use, and as for the graphic part, we can say that the shell has become more solid and strict in appearance. A separate menu of installed applications is still missing, all icons are evenly distributed across desktops, and the creation of folders is supported. As before, a lot of attention has been paid to working with gestures, something has been added, for example, a mode of operation in a case. The mode of reducing the working screen for the convenience of working with the fingers of one hand has also been implemented, as well as a special software control button that calls a pop-up menu for quick access to some frequently used applications. It is possible to reassign the bottom row of navigation control buttons at your discretion, traditionally there is a good energy-saving mode that monitors the most "gluttonous" applications and gives advice on saving energy.

Performance

The hardware platform of Ascend Mate 7 is based on the latest single-chip system (SoC) of Huawei's own production - HiSilicon Kirin 925, which is practically identical in characteristics to Kirin 920, announced a little earlier and installed in Huawei Honor 6, but differs from it in the presence of an additional processor responsible for the operation of sensors and a fingerprint scanner. The new SoC includes two quad-core processors that implement the ARM big.LITTLE concept: one with Cortex A-15 cores (clocked at 1.8 GHz), and the other with Cortex-A7 cores (1.3 GHz), which allows dynamic switch between CPUs depending on the needs of applications. There is also another processor called the Smart i3, which allows even more energy savings by taking over the work of the fingerprint sensor and sensors.

The modern high-performance Mali-T628 MP4 video accelerator is responsible for graphics processing in the SoC. The amount of RAM of the smartphone is 2 GB, for the needs of the user, about 11 GB of flash memory out of 16 nominal are available in the device. In the future, the release of a more advanced modification with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of ROM is promised. The memory capacity can be increased by using microSD memory cards up to 128 GB. You can also connect external flash drives, keyboards and mice to the Micro-USB port using a special OTG adapter.

To get an idea of ​​the performance of the tested smartphone platform, let's run a standard set of tests.

All the results obtained by us when testing the smartphone in the latest versions of popular benchmarks, we have summarized in tables for convenience. Several other devices from different segments are usually added to the table, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry numbers). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison, it is impossible to present the results from different versions of benchmarks, therefore, many worthy and relevant models remain "behind the scenes" - due to the fact that they once passed the "obstacle course" on previous versions test programs.

Testing in MobileXPRT as well as in the latest versions of AnTuTu and GeekBench 3:

According to the results of testing in benchmarks, the new product showed amazing performance results. In the AnTuTu 5.x test, the subject showed even better results than previously recognized world leaders showed. True, it is not yet entirely clear how the results of the two versions of the popular benchmark correlate with each other, because now the fourth version has been replaced by the fifth, and all new devices are now tested in it. It is not known whether the developers have brought everything to a common denominator, so for now it is necessary to mark in the tables with which versions of the benchmark this or that model was tested. However, the difference is probably not that great, and in any case, the hardware capacities of the smartphone will be enough for a long time to complete any assigned tasks.

When testing in 3DMark for the highest performing smartphones, it is now possible to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).

The results of testing the graphics subsystem in the gaming test Epic Citadel, as well as Basemark X and Bonsai Benchmark:

Browser cross-platform tests:

As for benchmarks for evaluating the speed of a javascript engine, you should always make allowances for the fact that the results in them significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so that the comparison can be truly correct only on the same OS and browsers, and this possibility is available when testing not always. In the case of Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.

Video playback

For testing "omnivorous" when playing video (including support for various codecs, containers and special features subtitles) We used the most common formats that make up the bulk of the content available on the Web. Note that it is important for mobile devices to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is often impossible to process modern versions using processor cores alone. Also, do not expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it.

According to the test results, the smartphone, unfortunately, did not please with the presence of full support for all the necessary decoders in its smartphones. To fully play most of the most common files on the network, you will have to resort to using a third-party player - for example, MX Player. True, in it, you will first have to change the settings, switching from hardware decoding to software or to a new mode called Hardware +(not supported by all smartphones).

Format	Container, video, sound	MX Video Player	Native video player
DVDRip	AVI, XviD 720 × 400 2200 Kbps, MP3 + AC3	reproduced normally	reproduced normally
Web-DL SD	AVI, XviD 720 × 400 1400 Kbps, MP3 + AC3	reproduced normally	reproduced normally
Web-DL HD	MKV, H.264 1280 × 720 3000Kbps, AC3	Hardware +
BDRip 720p	MKV, H.264 1280 × 720 4000 Kbps, AC3	plays fine with decoder Hardware +	video plays fine, no sound¹
BDRip 1080p	MKV, H.264 1920 × 1080 8000Kbps, AC3	plays fine with decoder Hardware +	video plays fine, no sound¹

¹ the sound in MX Video Player was only played after switching to software decoding or to a new mode Hardware +; the standard player does not have such a setting

Additionally, the MHL interface was tested. To test it, we used the LG IPS237L monitor, which supports direct MHL connection using a passive micro-USB to HDMI adapter cable. In this case, the MHL output was carried out at a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels with a frequency of 30 fps. With an active MHL connection, regardless of the actual orientation of the smartphone, the image is displayed on its screen and on the monitor in landscape orientation (the exception is start screen and windows of some programs that are forced to be displayed in portrait orientation), while the image on the monitor is slightly smaller than the display area (narrow black bars are displayed around the perimeter).

Such scaling is completely inappropriate and significantly reduces the clarity of the image. Sound is output via MHL (in this case, the sounds were heard through the headphones connected to the monitor, since there are no speakers in the monitor itself) and is of good quality. At the same time, multimedia sounds are not output through the loudspeaker of the smartphone itself, and the volume is controlled by buttons on the smartphone body. The smartphone connected via MHL is charging (at least, this is indicated by the charge indicator).

Then, using a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see "Testing methods for video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices)"), we checked how the video is displayed on the screen of the tested device. Screenshots with an exposure of 1 s helped to determine the frame output behavior of video files with various parameters: the resolution was 1280 by 720 (720p) and 1920 by 1080 (1080p) pixels and the frame rate was 24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 fps. In our tests we used the MX Player video player in the "Hardware +" mode. The results of this (block entitled "Smartphone Screen") and the following test are tabulated:

Note: If both columns Uniformity and Skips green ratings are set, this means that, most likely, when watching movies, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and skipping of frames will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect the viewing comfort. Red marks indicate possible problems with the playback of the respective files.

In general, according to the criterion for outputting frames, the quality of video files playback on the screen of the smartphone itself is good, since frames (or groups of frames) can be displayed with a more or less uniform alternation of intervals and without frame drops. When playing video files with a resolution of 1080p (1920 by 1080 pixels), the image of the video file itself is displayed one-to-one, exactly on the edge of the screen, in the original Full HD resolution. The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to the standard range of 16-235 - in shadows and highlights, just a couple of shades are indistinguishable in brightness from black and white, respectively.

With a monitor connected via MHL, when playing a video in hardware acceleration mode, only a picture of the video file is displayed on the monitor, and both the picture itself and information elements and virtual controls are displayed on the smartphone screen (but they also disappear after a couple of seconds):

When playing video files with a resolution of 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels) on the monitor, the image of the video file itself is still smaller than the display area, so the actual resolution is reduced. Displayed on the monitor range of brightness is equal to the standard range of 16-235 - in the shadows and highlights, all the necessary gradations of shades are displayed.

The results of the monitor output tests are shown in the table above in the "MHL (monitor output)" block. For files with 50 and 60 fps, we do not present the results, since this does not make sense due to the output mode of 30 fps. For games where higher frame rates are desired, external adapters can be used that can output 60 fps at 720p. According to the criterion of frame sequencing, the MHL output does not fundamentally differ from the display of the smartphone itself.

It turns out that the MHL connection to external monitors, TVs and projectors can in principle be used for gaming, watching movies, displaying web pages, and other activities that benefit from multiple times the size of the screen. But the image has reduced clarity and does not take up the entire available screen area.

Battery life

Huawei Ascend Mate 7 has a powerful rechargeable battery, its capacity is as much as 4100 mAh. It is not surprising that the subject showed himself excellently in all our tests, coping with the standard operating modes quite adequately, although he did not demonstrate any records.

	Battery capacity	Reading mode	Video mode	3D Game Mode
Huawei Mate 7	4100 mAh	20 h 00 m	12h 30m	4h 25m
Vivo Xplay 3S	3200 mAh	12h 30m	8h 00m	3h 30m
Oppo Find 7	3000 mAh	9h 00m	6h 40m	3h 20m
Oppo Find 7a	2800 mAh	16h 40m	8h 20m	3h 00m
HTC One M8	2600 mAh	22h 10m	13h 20m	3h 20m
Samsung Galaxy S5	2800 mAh	17h 20m	12h 30m	4h 30m
Lenovo Vibe Z	3050 mAh	11h 45m	8h 00m	3h 30m
Acer Liquid S2	3300 mAh	16h 40m	7h 40m	6h 00m

Continuous reading in the FBReader program (with a standard, light theme) at the minimum comfortable brightness level (the brightness was set to 100 cd / m2) lasted 20 hours until the battery was fully discharged, and when continuously watching YouTube videos in high quality (HQ) the device lasted 12.5 hours with the same brightness level through the home Wi-Fi network. In 3D games mode, the smartphone worked for almost 4.5 hours. The battery of the smartphone is charged for a long time - more than 3 hours.

Outcome

Times change. A truly Chinese company that a few years ago produced OEM products for others, and a little later also earned unflattering fame by trying to copy other people's ideas, today it has already reached the third place in the world in the sale of mobile devices. The old "feats" have been lost in time, Huawei has a new, noble face and excellent quality products that are in no way inferior to the manufacturers of the first magnitude. True, the Chinese did not hesitate to raise prices to the same level, which is a little depressing. Nevertheless, the new tablet phone from Huawei really turned out to be not only excellent, it is currently, perhaps, one of the best deals among smartphones with such a large screen on the mobile market. The device has practically no flaws, there is absolutely nothing to complain about here. A great screen, premium materials, undeniable build, outstanding performance and a superb, one of the best camera to date, all deserve the highest praise. In addition, the smartphone is not devoid of additional functions that are found only in devices of the highest class, such as a fingerprint scanner, and even so advanced. Perhaps the novelty lacks only the built-in wireless charging function and protection from water, but in all other respects the smartphone turned out to be at its best.

As for the cost of the Huawei Ascend Mate 7, it is known that the recommended retail price of the standard Huawei Ascend Mate 7 (2 GB RAM and 16 GB internal memory) is 499 euros, while the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 premium configuration (3 GB RAM and 32 GB of internal memory) will cost 599 euros. The smartphone will go on sale in over 30 countries.

Chinese smartphone manufacturers are progressing at a terrible pace - and at an equally mesmerizing pace. More recently, my colleague Perekalin and I wandered around the Huawei booth at MWC 2012 and wondered why the Chinese decided to show the public this plastic misunderstanding, for some unknown reason, equipped with a quad-core processor.

Only a couple of years have passed - and it was the Huawei smartphone, in the opinion of the author of this review, that became the most interesting novelty of another exhibition, IFA 2014. This, no matter how trite, looks like the transformation of Cinderella into a princess. The only difference is that the fairy has nothing to do with it: such miracles are not miracles at all, but the result of hard work on their mistakes. However, back to our smartphones: on the agenda we have a new flagship Huawei tablet - Ascend Mate 7.

⇡ Design and ergonomics

The author of this material is not a big fan of super-large smartphones, and although at one time I had to walk a lot with the first of them, the Samsung Galaxy Note, my soul always lay with more compact devices. The last of these was the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact, and in contrast, the Ascend Mate 7 is particularly impressive for its size. Still, six inches, albeit with fashionable ultra-thin frames.

By the way, about the frame: the designers, obviously, did not think that the designers were able to achieve a record ratio of the screen area to the area of ​​the front panel (83%, for comparison: the "frameless" Sharp Aquos Crystal this figure is 78%). To heighten the effect, the glass around the display has been painted black, so in many cases it looks like the screen is larger and the bezels are thinner than it actually is.

Not that there was something completely bad in this, but there is some kind of inappropriate desire to outwit the buyer in such a maneuver. And at the same time borrowing from HTC. But the Taiwanese had something to mask - the One's frames are not thin at all, but why? However, this is the only bad thing about the design of the Mate 7. Otherwise, everything is fine - the smartphone looks really great.

Another source of pride is the increased metal content in the rear panel of the case - 95%. The inevitable plastic inserts above the antennas are very thin, everything else is machined from aluminum.

A nice detail that Chinese smartphone manufacturers often forget about: there is a thin plastic spacer between the metal case and the front panel, which acts as a damper and reduces the chance of breaking the glass on impact.

The case is thin, perhaps even too thin (7.9 mm). But taking into account all the circumstances, such a large device still does not fit very well in your pocket, and there is no other practical sense in “thinning” it. So the smartphone could be boldly made thicker: so the filling would fit more, and the camera would not have to stick out. It sticks out about half a millimeter, like the last iPhone, - although it interferes a little less in everyday life, its frames are not at all so sharp.

In theory, the Mate 7's USB port can charge small gadgets. But there is no lace in the kit for this.

However, this is all lyrics. We rarely like "shovelphones" for their design as such - and much more often for the fact that they are endowed with functions to the maximum, many of which are simply not available in more slender devices. What attracts Huawei? One small but very useful thing - it seems to be the first fingerprint sensor on the Android platform, which really working.

Yes, a few months ago there was already the first pancake from Samsung - but it turned out to be so crumpled that it makes no sense to talk about it seriously. Turn on the smartphone, then slide your finger over the button located at the bottom of the front panel - you won't be able to do it with one hand. And who has time for this these days, when people unlock their smartphones on average 150 times a day?

Huawei has everything much more convenient. The sensor is located on the back panel, with the most comfortable grip, the index finger fits perfectly on it. And most importantly, you don't need to press anything to unlock your smartphone - you just need to touch the sensor with your finger.

The recognition process is very fast - no delay is felt. True, it does not always work the first time, but even taking into account the extra attempts, the total turns out, perhaps, faster than in an iPhone. And certainly faster than Samsung - even if you imagine for a second that the Korean version is somehow suitable for real use.

⇡ Specifications

Huawei Ascend Mate 7
Display	6.0 inches, 1920x1080, IPS
Touch screen	Capacitive, up to 10 simultaneous touches
Air gap	Not
Oleophobic coating	There is
Polarizing filter	There is
CPU	HiSilicon Kirin 925: ARM architecture big.LITTLE HMP four cores ARM Cortex-A7 (ARMv7), frequency 1.3 GHz four cores ARM Cortex-A15 (ARMv7), frequency 1.8 GHz TSMC process technology 28 nm HPm
Graphics controller	ARM Mali-T628
RAM	2 GB, LPDDR3
Flash memory	16 GB (about 12 GB available) + microSD
Connectors	1 x micro-USB 2.0 1 x 3.5mm headset jack 1 x microSD (SDHC, SDXC) 1 x micro-SIM *
cellular	2G / 3G / 4G The modem is built into the processor One SIM card micro-SIM
Cellular 2G	GSM / GPRS / EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Cellular 3G	DC-HSPA + (42.2 / 5.76 Mbps) WCDMA 850/900/1700/1900/2100 MHz TD-SCDMA 1900/2100 MHz
Cellular 4G	LTE Cat. 6 (300/50 Mbps), Carrier Aggregation LTE FDD band 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/20/28 (2100/1900/1800/1700/850/2600/900/800/700 ) LTE TDD band 40 (2300 MHz)
Wi-Fi	802.11a / b / g / n
Bluetooth	4.0
NFC	There is
Infrared port	Not
Navigation	GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS
Sensors	Light sensor, proximity sensor, accelerometer / gyroscope, magnetometer (digital compass)
Main camera	13 MP (4160x3120), autofocus, diode flash, f / 2.0
Front-camera	5 MP (2592x1952)
Nutrition	Non-removable battery 15.58 Wh (4100 mAh, 3.8 V)
The size	157x81 mm Case thickness: 7.9 mm (8.5 mm with camera)
Weight	181 g
Water and dust resistant	Not
Operating system	Google Android 4.4.2 (Jelly Bean) Own shell Huawei Emotion UI 3.0
recommended price	25,000 rubles (Update: the official recommended price is 29,990 rubles for the silver and black versions and 31,990 for the golden ones)
* A more expensive version with support for two SIM cards will also be available - including in Russia

⇡ Iron and performance

At the heart of Huawei Ascend Mate 7 is the latest chipset produced by a subsidiary of HiSilicon - Kirin 925. The processor does not differ too much from the already familiar Kirin 920 used in the Huawei Honor 6 smartphone. It is also based on the ARM big.LITTLE architecture and contains eight processing cores - four small and economical ARM Cortex-A7 plus four large and powerful ARM Cortex-A15.