The P10 Plus is Huawei’s latest flagship smartphone and one of our favourite Android-powered handsets of this year because it offers an eye-catching design, a fantastic camera experience, and great all-round performance.
The iPhone-esque all-metal body of the P10 Plus matches highly polished edges with an attractive micro-etched finish at the back. This good looking design incorporates a 5.5″ full HD display that offers amazing detail thanks to its 2560 x 1440 (2K) resolution along with really decent viewing angles.
Right beneath the display resides a fingerprint scanner that is fast and accurate. Unlike the iPhone’s home button, the P10 Plus fingerprint scanner is not clickable, much to the dismay of everyone who has ever asked to hold our review unit.
A camera WMD
Like a mullet though, the P10 Plus is all business at the front and party at the back thanks to its fantastic camera setup that was developed in partnership with Leica. The 20 MP Monochrome and 12 MP RGB snappers boasts OIS (optical image stablisation), the ability to record 4K videos, 2x Hybrid Zoom, and a dual-tone flash.
This setup produces excellent low-light shots, as colours are still visible while the dark spots not overly noisy as it tends to be on competing handsets. The camera also offers an fantastic level of detail in shots, especially daytime shots in good lighting conditions, though colour can be more on the cool side (a little more subdued than vibrant) when compared to shots taken on the Galaxy S7 for instance.
Recording videos using the P10 Plus is a joy as well, as the device is capable of churning out 4K video at 30 fps. These videos look really good and very detailed, while playback is quite smooth, though buttery smooth videos are delivered at 60 fps when recording at 1080p. Furthermore, the P10 Plus’ front-facing 8 MP snapper also takes great selfies.
Performance
In terms of performance, the Android 7.0-running P10 Plus’ combination of a whopping 6 Gb of RAM and the Huawei Kirin 960 Octa-core CPU (4x Cortex A73 at 2.4 GHz + 4x Cortex A53 at 1.8 GHz) is a winning one that delivers a speedy, stutterless performance.
When it comes to battery life, the device sports a massive 3750 mAh non-removable battery that will last all day long, even for power users. When the battery is eventually drained, you can use the USB Type-C charger provided in the retail box to charge it back to full in under an hour.
Verdict
At a recommended retail price of R13 999 at all operator channels, the Huawei P10 Plus represents great value for smartphone buyer looking for a good looking design. Cameraphone lovers, selfie lovers, and non-Samsung or LG fanboys, who want value and performance with a great camera experience will find that the P10 Plus ticks all the right boxes. Those who want to opt for the admittedly more desirable S8, S8+ or G6 will have to cough up a lot more for that privilege.
