Episode: 1401
Title: HPR1401: Huawei Mate review
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1401/hpr1401.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 00:51:03

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Reviewing the Huawei Ascend Mate
I remember a scene in the movie Zoolander, where the main character, played by Ben Stiller,
a vain, spoiled male model, gets a call on his cell phone.
He answers the call and starts talking into this insanely little phone that he holds in
his ear.
A nearly invisible device pinched between his thumb and index finger.
The scene's funny because it deals with the popular trend in the phone industry
of the late 90s to make devices smaller, smaller, and smaller.
The device I'm reviewing today is clearly not an offspring of that trend.
The Huawei Ascend Mate is probably one of the largest cell phones on the market today.
At a giant 6.1-inch, it is even larger than the already bulky galaxy note,
two that is currently my communication device of choice.
Before we dive into the distinctions between a phone and a communicator,
let's just take a look at the Huawei Ascend Mate first.
The specs.
The screen of the Ascend Mate covers almost the entire surface of the 6.1-inch phone device,
with a resolution of 1200x720 pixels at 241 pixels per inch,
it is amazingly bright and has a realistic color spectrum.
What I found appealing is its visibility in bright sunlight.
Unlike the Note 2, whose screen is also quite bright but is terrible to use in bright sunlight,
the Mate manages to give you a good look at whatever is on your screen,
no matter if the twin sons of Tantooine are setting right behind your back.
But one thing that does stand out is the fact that the colors are still very natural,
and that's shorty a bonus.
The Mate comes with a front and rear-facing camera,
with a respective resolution of 8 and 1 megapixel.
Both cameras deliver good pictures, we tested them both outside and inside,
and the flash LEDs are bright enough to signal the Ruskies on the International Space Station.
Battery life on the Mate is quite good, considered the sheer size of the screen.
The downside is that the battery is not replaceable.
You can't remove the back cover of the Mate,
sim and memory slots are on the side.
We managed a day of extensive use and still had a couple of jolt's left at sunset.
The Ascense Mate comes with an adapted version of Android 4.1,
not 4.2, where Huawei decided to pre-populate your phone with most of the apps you might need.
All the apps are nicely organized in folders, for example,
there is a Google folder with most, if not all Google apps from the Play Store,
and this is surely a bonus.
Every phone manufacturer needs to give their software experience and added value,
some build skins, but Huawei decided to be your personal shopper in the marketplace
and pre-load your phone with all the standard off-the-shelf apps that you might need.
I like this, because then you are no longer dependent on the manufacturer to update their
in-house apps, you just depend on the core developers of those applications.
The interface of the Mate is slightly different to stock Android,
but it is hardly noticeable.
This lean-a-mean approach gives the Mate the speedy, swifty feel it needs,
and surely adds to the pleasure of its user.
The culprit of blame here would be the 1.5 gigahertz processor and 2 gigs of RAM.
This, however, is no phone for tinkerbell.
Like the previous Huawei phone we tested, the Mate feels like a wild finished product.
The downsides, we have found are the plastic latches that cover the phone's sim and SD card slots,
they might break off on the long run.
When we first took the phone in our hands, we expected it to be bulky and hard to handle.
Well guess what, it's not.
The Mate size is well proportioned and its internal weight distribution is very well balanced.
Using the phone in both portrait and landscape mode is a breeze.
We compared it to using the Galaxy Note 2 and the latter does not win that fabric price
fight. Although larger, the Mate is surprisingly more easy to hold and handle than a slightly smaller
Note 2. However, single-handed operation is not an option with the Mate and two hands are
required to type and hold the device at the same time. So, this brings us to the question.
Is it a phone at all?
We hate the word Fablets. It hints towards a mutational subset of mutant devices that are too small
to be a tablet and too large to be a phone. At 5.4 inches across, the Note 2 is surely a
tablet. Slightly too large to be a phone, slightly too small to be a tablet.
With the addition of just a measly 0.6 inch compared to the Note 2, the Huawei Mate slides into
the subtabular category and does it brilliantly. Well balanced in weight distribution,
having a crisp screen, a nice interface and a decent battery life, the Huawei Mate is the
perfect companion for those who want both a phone and a tablet, but do not have the cash to buy
both. Yes, it looks dorky when you get a phone call. But so what? How many phone calls do the younger
generation still make every day? It's all texting, Twitter, Facebook and the likes these days, so
a real-time audio-only conversation is something that is becoming scarce for teens these days.
So Geeks, should you get one? Well, if you want to live on the socially acceptable cutting edge and
carry around a communicator instead of a phone, get one. At around 300 euros, the price is
way below the premium price products of both Apple and Samsung and it still gets you a very cool
device. The one thing you need to click in your brain is the concept of a phone.
Just like the Note Q communicator of the 90s, the Mate is a communications device that enables
you to connect to your digital lifestyle and not a party line from the 80s. Forget concepts like
sliding it into your back pocket or making a quick phone call. The Mate is the love child between
your smartphone and your iPad making both pretty much obsolete once you have a Mate.
It's not light, it does not fit in your back pocket. It does not have a six day battery life,
but neither does your tablet. This is not a phone. It is an advanced digital communication device
that provides you with the connectivity, content and computational power to entertain and keep you
sane throughout the day. And by the way, you can also use it to call your grant.
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