Home Hi-Tech Android World ,,,, dav,We are talking about Galaxy Note again these days, with the possible start of the development of the Galaxy Note 8 FW, and the sale of refurbished Note 7, albeit confined to South Korea. How many loved phablets, however, have already a beautiful and ready alternative in Huawei Mate 9: generous dimensions, and top performance.
Mate 9 is one of the most similar alternatives to Samsung's Notes, not only in size and price, but also in performance. Indeed, photo lovers will find a valid ally in the double photographic module. As already mentioned, the dimensions and weight of Mate 9 are generous, with a body of 156.9 x 78.9 x 7.9 mm for 190 grams .
Dimensionally it is not too bulky than any 5.5 inches, while presenting a wider diagonal of 5.9 inches , while the weight only scares on paper, because taking it into hand seems lighter than it appears. The 190 grams, in fact, are well distributed, and overall the Mate 9 holds really well in the hand. It is not very slippery, and the quality materials, both front and rear, give a pleasant sensation to the touch.
It will not be possible to use it completely with one hand, even if the one-hand shortcuts are not lacking, and overall it is an elegant phone, which after some initial running-in handles really well in everyday life.
The front is almost entirely covered by the large 5.9-inch panel. It is a Full HD unit, with IPS LCD technology , and a pixel density of 373 . On paper, even in consideration of the wide diagonal, they do not seem such important numbers, but overall the yield is very good, and energy consumption is rather low. The front glass gives an absolutely good touch and feel, is particularly resistant and offers a good oleophobic treatment . It can be seen well even in sunlight, with the possibility of setting the brightness to an average high level, even if in everyday life it is preferable to use the automatic brightness sensor, which always works in an excellent way.
It is possible to adjust the color temperature to your liking, while the possibility of setting the display at lower dpi, therefore with smaller texts and graphics, is particularly appreciable. These are small tricks that make the use of the terminal more pleasant in everyday life, and above all they model it perfectly on the user's tastes.
Performance
No doubt about it, the Mate 9 is a lightning-fast device, whatever use you make of it. Always responsive in daily use, it allows you to open apps, close them, and switch between them without the slightest lag. Lightning-fast, as in all Huawei devices, the fingerprint sensor positioned on the back. Also in this case, as already happened with Honor 6X and Nova PLUS, the sensor is placed in a perfect position, where it is natural and spontaneous to put your finger, even when you take the smartphone out of a pocket. This means taking the terminal in hand and unlocking it naturally, almost without even realizing it. Also because, it must be reiterated, the unlocking is among the fastest and most precise in the entire smartphone landscape.
Mate 9, for spec lovers, is equipped with a proprietary processor, the Kirin 960 , Octa-core CPU (4 x 2.4 GHz A73 + 4 x 1.8 GHz A53) + i6 co-processor, accompanied by a Mali-G71 MP8 , supported by 4 GB of RAM and with one integrated memory of 64 GB , expandable up to 256 GB via microSD, sacrificing, however, the second SIM.
Equipped with GPS / Glonass / Galileo / BDS, 4G TDD LTE support, Band38 / 39/40/41 (100MHz), has a 2.4G / 5G, 802.11a / b / g / n / ac Wi-Fi module, which particularly surprised us during our tests. For the first time, leaving the house and moving several meters away, we were able to surf the net using the home connection, despite being far from home. Where other smartphones, even high-end ones, no longer even saw the name of the network, Mate 9 continued to browse. This allowed us to browse in peace even in “dead” areas within the four walls of the home, where with other smartphones the WiFi notches are close to zero.
Even the telephone sector is absolutely to be promoted with flying colors. No signal reception problems, particularly high hands-free audio, above average, both in terms of volume and quality, with the possibility of activating the directional microphone. This means that some microphones will be excluded, depending on how you hold the smartphone, to exclude background noise and allow a quality call, even in the case of external confusion.
Good autonomy, thanks to the 4000 mAh battery and a “only” FHD display. You arrive safely in the evening with a good percentage of residual autonomy, as long as you make an intense use of the terminal. With mild use, however, one and a half days are exceeded.
Camera
If at the performance level Mate 9 runs really well, without being able to raise any criticism, the multimedia department consists of two different faces: the photographic one, and the video one. The first promoted, the second, however, did not live up to expectations. First of all the numbers. Mate 9 boasts a main room with double modules, one from 20MP Monochromatic, the other from 12MP RGB, with F2.2 aperture. It enjoys optical image stabilization, BSI CMOS, Dual-tone flash, PDAF + CAF + Laser + Depth auto focus and 2x hybrid zoom. The front one, on the other hand, is 8 MP with AF and F1.9 aperture.
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The double camera is able to take quality photos in any light condition, and to capture a lot of details. Images captured with the Mate 9 are absolutely sharp, superior quality when shooting in black and white . In this sense, Mate 9 shares a multimedia experience very similar to the latest Huawei P10, which Cyber Layman will review in the coming days.
The galleries taken with Mate 9, which we propose above and below, are not retouched in any way, so as to be able to judge the goodness of the sensor.
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Video
The recording of the videos deserves a separate discussion. With the higher premises one could expect more. Let's be clear, Mate 9 records videos of higher quality than many other top of the Android range, captures colors and details very well, but suffers from some uncertainties. The following is a test recorded with the Mate 9 at 4K resolution. The quality itself is very good, also in consideration of the lights with which we recorded, deliberately unfavorable. Even in such conditions it is possible to capture a very faithful chromatic range, but the general fluidity of the movie is not good at all, with obvious problems of struttering.
Furthermore, the choice of the H.265 format, which allows you to record at 4K while containing the dimensions has its cons: on Mac it is difficult to reproduce them except with the advice that we report on this tutorial, just as it is impossible to upload to YouTube. , what a need for a conversion.
EMUI
Little focus deserves the software. EMUI 5 is truly one of the best designed interfaces. It has already been said of the possibility of reducing the graphic elements and of the One-hand use, always very convenient in some situations. The UI is always fluid, it allows you to choose between drawer or no-drawer mode, contains smart searches through simple slides and allows you to take pictures in less than 1 second starting from the screen off, thanks to the double click of the volume down button. windows, but there are some bugs.
Unfortunately, by activating the “Ok Google” voice recognition function from any screen, you will have annoying bugs: when you record videos, or voice messages in the messaging apps, an error message and a non-working process will be returned. In these situations everything will work properly, but the “fake” pop up annoys.,
Conclusions
Those who had been burned, figuratively, by the Note 7 explosions, will find the (almost) perfect phablet in Mate 9. First-rate photographic department, just a little weak in the videos and with some software bugs. Except for this, performance is truly top-notch, with flawless construction and a premium type of everyday user experience.
Prices and availability
On vmall.eu you can buy it for 749 euros, but on the net you can also find it for less: on Amazon, for example, it is available for around 599 euros.
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