Huawei Ascend Mate7 Review

Has the age of the tablet come to an end? No certainly not. Apple have just released the Ipad Pro, which is even bigger than the previous Ipad and I have just bought a dual boot Tablet which should arrive next year, thanks slow postal and customs. The love for tablets is still rubbing off on smartphones, hence companies keep bringing out new Phablets.

Weighing in at 185 grams, the Ascend Mate7 is a bit heavier than its competitor, the Note 5. But, the Mate 7 does have a 6 inch Full HD display which is absolutely brilliant to use and with an almost invisible bezel, is really nice to look at. The screen is made of Corning Gorilla Glass 3 which ensures that day to day use of the device will not scratch the screen, but you can never go wrong with a screen protector, just to be safe. The Mate7 features an ultra slim metal body that fits comfortably in the hand.

On a big display you are bound to want to do lots of important tasks like browsing the web, checking Instagram and doing some Tweeting. The Mate7 comes with a Quad core 1.8GHz processor with 3 GB of RAM which ensures that apps load up quickly with no lag. 3 GB of Ram means you can do some serious multitasking. Take my old tablet. It has 700mb of RAM and constantly freezes, hence I bought a new one. As I told someone last week, who wanted to buy a cheap Android phone that had under a GB of RAM, always get at least 2GB.

The Mate7 comes loaded with Android KitKat but is up-gradable to Lollipop and I am sure even Marshmallow, when available. I find the Emotion UI is clean and easy to use. The stock themes allow you to change the look and feel of the device quickly, which is something I like to do.

The device comes with either 16GB or 32GB internal memory and supports a microSD card up to 128GB. I don’t know who needs that in a phone but if you are taking lots of video, I guess having a huge amount of storage will come in handy.

Talking about videos, which I am really into creating, the Mate7 allows you to shoot in 1080p @30fps. The Mate7 takes decent quality video, like most smartphones these days but I would like to see Huawei introduce a phablet with a 4K camera.

Photographers will be interested to know that they can leave the DSLR at home when they just feel like travelling lightly. The 13MP camera captures photos at 4128 x 3096 pixels and has an LEd flash and autofocus to help get that shot quickly and seamlessly. With features such as Geo- tagging, face detection, HDR and panorama, the Mate7 camera abilities are on par with other devices in the same class.

The secondary camera shoots video in 720P and photos in 5MP, you selfie lovers are probably practising your duck face, right about now.

I am really happy to see that Huawei are making use of a fingerprint sensor to keep the device secure. I have never had a phone that has one but I know it is something that I would definitely use.

Accessories provided are standard for smartphones these days. The in-ear headphones provide good bass and an enjoyable audio experience. The charger also does as it should 🙂

With such a large display the Ascend Mate7 is going to need a whopper of a battery to ensure that you get at least a fulls day of use out of it. Comparing the Mate7 to the batteries of other phablets, the 4100mAh battery makes the device stand out from the crowd. Huawei have promised that the Mate7 will get at least 2 days of use before a charge is needed. With features such as Ultra Power Saving mode, you can even more juice before you need to find your micro usb cable! Light usage may even give you more than 2 days but I found that with heavy usage, I was able to get around two days which is actually on par with my Xperia Z3. So with the battery performance that I received, the Mate7 certainly has every right to compete. The battery cannot be removed so to insert the memory card and sim card, you use the supplied tool to access the slot.

Overall I found the Ascend Mate7 to be a well built device with an excellent screen and camera and a juiced up battery life. The large display is perfect for browsing the web and looking at photos and videos. But is also brilliant for using the phone for work on the go! If you are looking for a larger device, the Huawei Ascend Mate7 is worth taking a look at.