● HUAWEI P10 PLUS £680 +++++
SUPERTEST SUPERPHONESIs the ‘iPhoney’ good enough
to upset the Apple cart?
Moving the fingerprint
sensor to the front isn’t
just for show – you
can use it to ditch the
on-screen buttons and
free up screen space for
your apps.Apparently, Huawei treats
flagship phones like pots of
Pringles: Once you pop, you just
can’t stop. That’s why we don’t
just get one P10, but two: a vanilla
5 .1in version and the Plus-sized
5.5in model seen here.
The original has plenty of
power and a genuinely clever
dual-camera design, but the
P10 Plus boosts battery life andbumps resolution from 1080p
up to QHD to give it a real edge.
It has the same Huawei-built
Kirin 960 CPU inside, along with
a whopping 6GB of RAM to keep
Android 7 ticking over smoothly.
You also get a huge 128GB
of on-board storage, so you’ll
struggle to run out of room for
apps and games. Where the P10
would barely last a day, though,the P10 Plus can eke out a day
and a half of heavy use between
battery top-ups.
The all-metal unibody doesn’t
really have the wow factor of its
rivals, especially when compared
to the Galaxy S8, but build
quality is exceptional and it
sits comfortably in your hand
despite the big screen. You get
a headphone jack too – that’sone area where Huawei didn’t take
inspiration from Apple.
Yes, it looks an awful lot like an
iPhone, EMUI takes some getting
used to, and it’s nowhere near as
distinctive as Samsung’s curved
glass. But that doesn’t stop the
P10 Plus being Huawei’s best
phone to date. And it demands
slightly less of your hard-earned
cash than its major rivals.DESIGN
Feels familiar
Yes, the P10 Plus looks a lot
like an iPhone, but they aren’t
identical. Flip it over and you’ll
spot how Huawei beats Apple,
setting the dual rear cameras
completely flush to the body
instead of sticking out.
You’ll still need to pick up one
of the bolder hues if you don’t
want people confusing you for
an iOS fan, though. ‘Greenery’
and ‘dazzling blue’ were both
designed with help from colour
specialists Pantone, and are as
attention-grabbing as they are
divisive. You’ll either love ’em or
hate ’em, but you’ll definitely
stand out from the crowd.
●●●●●●●●●●CAMERA
Compact lenses
Adding a 20MP monochrome
sensor to the main 12MP
colour one gives you a camera
bag’s worth of tricks, all packed
into something that slips in
a pocket. The P10 Plus can
zoom up to 2x without taking
an image quality hit, take
atmospheric, high-contrast
black and white pics that
preserve detail in the lowest
of low-light scenes, and add
dreamy depth of field to
portraits and macro shots.
Combining two f/1.8 lenses
lets them act like even faster
glass, so you can set a super-
wide aperture with a few taps.
●●●●●●●●●●OS AND APPS
Shed your skin
Huawei’s take on Android is
going to divide opinions – even
though EMUI 5.1 is the least
intrusive version of the skin
to date. It defaults to an Apple-
aping set of homescreens, but
you can choose the standard
Android app drawer format.
●●●●●●●●●●SCREEN
Join the Q
Full HD just doesn’t cut it any
more for a flagship phone – it
was one of the standard P10’s
few black marks – but you get
a QHD display here, stretched
over 5.5in. Darker hues aren’t
quite as rich as you’d get from
an OLED display, though.
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