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103 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
103 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
Episode: 1401
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Title: HPR1401: Huawei Mate review
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1401/hpr1401.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-18 00:51:03
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---
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Reviewing the Huawei Ascend Mate
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I remember a scene in the movie Zoolander, where the main character, played by Ben Stiller,
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a vain, spoiled male model, gets a call on his cell phone.
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He answers the call and starts talking into this insanely little phone that he holds in
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his ear.
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A nearly invisible device pinched between his thumb and index finger.
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The scene's funny because it deals with the popular trend in the phone industry
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of the late 90s to make devices smaller, smaller, and smaller.
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The device I'm reviewing today is clearly not an offspring of that trend.
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The Huawei Ascend Mate is probably one of the largest cell phones on the market today.
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At a giant 6.1-inch, it is even larger than the already bulky galaxy note,
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two that is currently my communication device of choice.
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Before we dive into the distinctions between a phone and a communicator,
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let's just take a look at the Huawei Ascend Mate first.
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The specs.
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The screen of the Ascend Mate covers almost the entire surface of the 6.1-inch phone device,
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with a resolution of 1200x720 pixels at 241 pixels per inch,
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it is amazingly bright and has a realistic color spectrum.
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What I found appealing is its visibility in bright sunlight.
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Unlike the Note 2, whose screen is also quite bright but is terrible to use in bright sunlight,
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the Mate manages to give you a good look at whatever is on your screen,
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no matter if the twin sons of Tantooine are setting right behind your back.
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But one thing that does stand out is the fact that the colors are still very natural,
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and that's shorty a bonus.
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The Mate comes with a front and rear-facing camera,
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with a respective resolution of 8 and 1 megapixel.
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Both cameras deliver good pictures, we tested them both outside and inside,
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and the flash LEDs are bright enough to signal the Ruskies on the International Space Station.
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Battery life on the Mate is quite good, considered the sheer size of the screen.
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The downside is that the battery is not replaceable.
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You can't remove the back cover of the Mate,
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sim and memory slots are on the side.
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We managed a day of extensive use and still had a couple of jolt's left at sunset.
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The Ascense Mate comes with an adapted version of Android 4.1,
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not 4.2, where Huawei decided to pre-populate your phone with most of the apps you might need.
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All the apps are nicely organized in folders, for example,
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there is a Google folder with most, if not all Google apps from the Play Store,
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and this is surely a bonus.
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Every phone manufacturer needs to give their software experience and added value,
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some build skins, but Huawei decided to be your personal shopper in the marketplace
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and pre-load your phone with all the standard off-the-shelf apps that you might need.
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I like this, because then you are no longer dependent on the manufacturer to update their
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in-house apps, you just depend on the core developers of those applications.
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The interface of the Mate is slightly different to stock Android,
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but it is hardly noticeable.
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This lean-a-mean approach gives the Mate the speedy, swifty feel it needs,
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and surely adds to the pleasure of its user.
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The culprit of blame here would be the 1.5 gigahertz processor and 2 gigs of RAM.
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This, however, is no phone for tinkerbell.
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Like the previous Huawei phone we tested, the Mate feels like a wild finished product.
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The downsides, we have found are the plastic latches that cover the phone's sim and SD card slots,
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they might break off on the long run.
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When we first took the phone in our hands, we expected it to be bulky and hard to handle.
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Well guess what, it's not.
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The Mate size is well proportioned and its internal weight distribution is very well balanced.
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Using the phone in both portrait and landscape mode is a breeze.
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We compared it to using the Galaxy Note 2 and the latter does not win that fabric price
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fight. Although larger, the Mate is surprisingly more easy to hold and handle than a slightly smaller
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Note 2. However, single-handed operation is not an option with the Mate and two hands are
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required to type and hold the device at the same time. So, this brings us to the question.
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Is it a phone at all?
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We hate the word Fablets. It hints towards a mutational subset of mutant devices that are too small
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to be a tablet and too large to be a phone. At 5.4 inches across, the Note 2 is surely a
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tablet. Slightly too large to be a phone, slightly too small to be a tablet.
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With the addition of just a measly 0.6 inch compared to the Note 2, the Huawei Mate slides into
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the subtabular category and does it brilliantly. Well balanced in weight distribution,
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having a crisp screen, a nice interface and a decent battery life, the Huawei Mate is the
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perfect companion for those who want both a phone and a tablet, but do not have the cash to buy
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both. Yes, it looks dorky when you get a phone call. But so what? How many phone calls do the younger
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generation still make every day? It's all texting, Twitter, Facebook and the likes these days, so
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a real-time audio-only conversation is something that is becoming scarce for teens these days.
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So Geeks, should you get one? Well, if you want to live on the socially acceptable cutting edge and
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carry around a communicator instead of a phone, get one. At around 300 euros, the price is
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way below the premium price products of both Apple and Samsung and it still gets you a very cool
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device. The one thing you need to click in your brain is the concept of a phone.
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Just like the Note Q communicator of the 90s, the Mate is a communications device that enables
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you to connect to your digital lifestyle and not a party line from the 80s. Forget concepts like
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sliding it into your back pocket or making a quick phone call. The Mate is the love child between
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your smartphone and your iPad making both pretty much obsolete once you have a Mate.
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It's not light, it does not fit in your back pocket. It does not have a six day battery life,
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but neither does your tablet. This is not a phone. It is an advanced digital communication device
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that provides you with the connectivity, content and computational power to entertain and keep you
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sane throughout the day. And by the way, you can also use it to call your grant.
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Tired of choosing between NAS, Linux and OSX? Listen to the NightWise.com podcast and learn how to
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decide from operating systems to operating systems using our hack tips and tweets for cross-platform
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to tech into your way of life and let technology work for you instead of the other way around.
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