During the week, Huawei officially announced the Huawei Mate 8, the latest flagship tablet form the Mate Series. The 6-inch sided device packs the company’s latest flagship processor and will be available by Q1 2016.
The Mate 8 is the successor to the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 (now Huawei Mate 7 following latest naming convention) and brings a host of new improvements and features. We take a look at both devices and their specifications to determine if the new flagship is really worth buying.
Comparison: Huawei Mate 8 vs Huawei Mate 7
Design and Display
The Huawei Mate 8 and Mate 7 both sports a 6-inch display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels (Full HD), a pixel density around 386ppi and full aluminium metal body build.
The Mate 8 however uses the latest Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection compared to Gorilla Glass 3 on the predecessor and the more popular 2.5D curved glass. The fingerprint scanner is now round in shape compared to the former square.
Processor
Every high-end Mate device from Huawei pack the company’s latest flagship processor so it is natural the Mate 8 will pack more power and is speedier in operation.
The Huawei Mate 8 is powered by the current latest – octa-core Kirin 950 64-bit processor (2.3GHz quad-core Cortex-A72 + 1.8GHz quad-core Cortex A53) with Mali-T880 MP4 GPU and an intelligent i5 co-processor for added hardware support. On its path, the Huawei Mate 7 is powered by the old octa-core Kirin 925 32-bit processor (1.8GHz quad-core Cortex-A15 + 1.3GHz quad-core Cortex-A7) with Mali-T628 GPU.
Memory and Storage
The Mate 8 is available in 32GB/64GB/128GB internal storage options along with 3GB or 4GB of RAM; while the Mate 7 is available in 2GB/16GB and 3GB/32GB combinations. Both have Dual Nano SIM slots with the second SIM slot also doubling as the microSD card slot for expansion up to 128GB.
Camera
In the camera segment, there Huawei Mate 8 sports a rear facing 16MP AF camera with Dual Tone LED flash and Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS); and a front facing 8MP camera for selfies. This is an upgrade over the rear facing 13MP AF camera with LED flash and a front facing 5MP camera for selfies on the Huawei Mate 7.
Battery and Operating System
The Huawei Mate 8 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS with the company’s Emotion UI ontop and is backed by a 4000mAh Li-Polymer battery. The Huawei Mate 7 runs the dated Android Kitkat OS with Emotion UI (but has received update to Android Lollipop and upgradable to Android Marshmallow) and is backed by a 4100mAh battery.
The Mate 8 might have a lower battery capacity compared to the Mate 7, however, there shouldn’t be much differences in performance and battery life should be the same, if not better with software customisation and more efficient processors.
Colours
The Huawei Mate 8 is available in four colour options – Champagne Gold, Mocha Brown, Moonlight Silver and Space Gray. The Mate 7 is available in Black and White colour only.
Verdict
The Huawei Mate 8 obviously brings substantial upgrades over the Mate 7 in the aspect of processing power, current latest software and upgrade in camera but the outlook hasn’t changed much in terms of appearance. Is the Huawei Mate 8 really a worthy upgrade over the Mate 7?
Cover Photo from Neurogadget.com
