Design:
Aesthetically, the P8 looks closely similar to its predecessor in the Ascend P7, so the same tradition to offering a premium design carries on with this. Sporting a hard lined design, one that’s uniformly flat both on the front and back, there’s clearly an edgy look to the entire package – accentuated further by its beveled edges.What’s most profound, though, is the premium touch that we get from the design with its new glass and metal design. Like the iPhone and recent Samsung Galaxy phones, the antenna is built into the frame, with telltale rubber stripes that sort conductivity issues. On the Ascend P6, this was badly executed, with the rubber protruding so you felt it scuff against your hand. Here, it’s perfectly flush – just one sign of massively improved build quality.
The stripe of rubber runs round the back of the phone as well, and is the one element where Huawei’s design is better than Apple’s, which has thicker lines in a more dominant pattern. The edges are a touch sharp for my liking, especially since the smooth curves of the iPhone 6 and blunter corners of the Samsung Galaxy S6 have made conifer handsets the norm. Still, overall the design is good.
It’s available in four colours: Mystic Champagne (that’s just cava, right?), Titanium Grey, Carbon Black and Prestige Gold, with the last two boasting higher storage capacity at 64GB against the standard 16GB capacity. All models have a microSD card slot as well.
Going with this type of materials, it incrementally gives the phone a sturdier feeling construction than its predecessor, but at the same time, too, it gives it a substantial feel in the hand to make us know it’s solid. Technically, it’s longer, wider, and heavier than the Ascend P7, but the company was able to shave off just a smidgen off the phone to reach a profile thinness of 6.4mm, which eclipses the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S6 in the process.
What’s even more impressive, though, is that there’s no hump near or around the rear camera – making it completely flush, a rare achievement of late, it seems! Holding the P8, however, there’s a subtle sharp feel due to those beveled edges around its trim. It’s not as bad as some other handsets, but it’s still noticeable nonetheless. The achievements are commendable on so many levels! Its premium design, svelte chassis, and uniformly flush surfaces, all point to the obvious that Huawei is more than capable of coming up with good designs.
In keeping true to the design language of its predecessor, the P8 features the same set of ports and buttons around its trim – even in the same locations as before too! These include the 3.5mm headphone jack and noise cancelling mic on its top edge, the power button, volume controls, microSD slot, and SIM slot on its right, and the microUSB port, microphone, and speaker along the bottom side of the phone.
Looking intently more on its bottom edge, we can’t help but to draw comparisons to the iPhone 6, seeing that the microUSB charging port is flanked by screws. Again, we have to applaud Huawei for keeping the P8’s surfaces flush – while also being accompanied with a premium finish. When it’s laid flat on either side, there’s no odd section that’s raised due to the camera lens sticking out. It’s almost mind-boggling, but it’s rare nowadays to find phones that have uniformly flush surfaces like the P8, so we really appreciate that one particular design trait. Of course, that may be at the expense of camera quality.
Display:
In an age where quad-HD screens are increasingly becoming the standard for most flagships, Huawei has chosen to instead outfit the P8 with a 5.2-inch 1080 x 1920 JDI IPS-Neo display. Of course, 1080p resolution is more than effective on a 5.2-inch sized screen, allowing for strong details for both near and far viewing.Paying our attention to this evolved IPS-LCD based panel, Japan Display’s IPS-Neo technology delivers the goods in giving this new display some respectable qualities like blacks that are truly black, making for a nicely contrast look.
At the same time, too, the panel clearly favors a more saturated color reproduction when the display is set to the default color temperature setting, which is made more profound by how the color values fall in the color gamut chart. Even though it’s an improvement, the ~7200K color temperature of the display gives the entire panel a colder look – though, it can be adjusted in the settings.
For the most part, this IPS-Neo display exhibits enough vibrancy to retain our attention. Another improvement to the display is its brightness output, which now reaches 503 nits. Although it’s far from being the brightest, it’s still quite visible outdoors when the sun is out. Tilting the phone a little doesn't distort the screen, but at widest angles, we can discern a slightly more washed out look. Overall, it’s a solid effort, but we wouldn't say it’s perfect just yet.
Software and processor:
The P8 arrives with the latest Android Lollipop software on board, over which Huawei has applied its usual Emotion UI interface. Emotion UI changes everything from the colour scheme and fonts to the app icons. It even goes so far as to get rid of the app tray, meaning all your installed apps are scattered across multiple home screens. I'm not a fan of this, as it's easy for the interface to become cluttered once you've downloaded your favourite apps and slapped a bunch of widgets down, too.The iPhone also doesn't employ an app tray, so clearly it's not a problem for everyone. Although it has the latest version of Huawei's skin, there are no new interface tweaks or software additions to speak of. If you've spent any time with Huawei's recent Ascend Mate 7, then there will be absolutely no surprises here. It has had some network optimisation tweaks behind the scenes, which Huawei reckons helps the phone connect to a network faster when it boots up, although this isn't something I could particularly notice in my time with the phone.
You'll find the same array of customisation options as on other Huawei phones -- including a range of preset themes, and a Simple Mode, for those who just want the absolute basics put right at the front. It's powered by a 64-bit Kirin 930 octa-core processor, clocked at 1.5GHz with 3GB of RAM. That's a hearty engine, even by top-end phone standards, so it wasn't a surprise that the P8 is a very capable piece of kit. Swiping around the Android interface was smooth and free of the annoying lag that hints at a struggling processor.
It achieved 13,579 on the Quadrant benchmark test, which is a significant step down from the 36,000 achieved by the Galaxy S6 and below to the 23,700 achieved by last year's Galaxy S5. The P8 easily handled playing demanding games like Implosion: Never Lose Hope, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, while photo editing in Snapseed was a breeze.
