Huawei's smartphones only started arriving in the United States recently, but that's no reason to discount them. While the company still won't give us a price or a solid release date, its new Mate 9 will be a contender for any Android fan who wants a big smartphone as soon as it gets here. Huawei built upon the features of the P9 and the Honor 8 to make the Mate 9 slightly better in every way, including design, power, and efficiency.

While it hasn't been out long enough for us to truly test the long-term usefulness and intelligence of Huawei's Emotion UI and machine learning algorithms, we can assess how the €699 (~$740) Mate 9 performs straight out of the box. At this price tag, the conclusions are mixed: everything you can't see in the smartphone is impressive, but the things you do see and interact with regularly could be improved.

Look and feel

The first thing you'll notice about the Mate 9 is its size. Measuring 6.17 by 3.1 by 0.31 inches, it's a phablet-sized handset that my thumb could only just reach around completely while holding it one-handed. The minute black border around the 5.9-inch 1080, 373 PPI display is barely noticeable, and you're more likely to take note of the white spaces directly above and below the display where the front-facing camera and the Huawei logo sit.

SPECS AT A GLANCE: Huawei Mate 9 SCREEN 1920×1080 5.9" (373 PPI) LCD OS Android 7.0 with EMUI 5.0 CPU Octa-core Huawei Kirin 960 + i6 co-processor RAM 4GB GPU Mali-G71 MP8 STORAGE 64GB (expandable up to 256GB with microSD card) NETWORKING Wi-Fi 2.4G/5G, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac with Wi-Fi Direct support, Bluetooth 4.2, support BLE PORTS USB Type-C, 3.5mm headphone jack CAMERA rear: dual Leica, 20MP monochrome, 12MP RGB; front: 8MP SIZE 156.9 x 78.9 x 7.9 mm (6.17 x 3.1 x 0.31 inches) WEIGHT 190g (6.7 ounces) BATTERY 4000mAh STARTING PRICE €699 OTHER PERKS NFC, fingerprint sensor, dual SIM support

The Mate 9's brushed aluminum back is inoffensive and slippery, making it a little difficult to hold (especially if you have small hands), but it's in line with the designs of other flagship handsets. The top portion of the back holds the dual 20-megapixel monochrome and 12MP RGB Leica camera and fingerprint sensor, which feels small but works without a hitch. The fingerprint sensor also supports a couple gestures like swiping to make things happen on screen, showing the notification panel, answering calls, and browsing photos. However, the fingerprint sensor doesn't have that "smart key" functionality that the sensor on that $399 Honor 8 does.

There are no glaring problems with the Mate 9's design, though it does little to distinguish itself from other Android smartphones. On the bottom edge is the USB-C port for charging and the speaker grills; the right side holds the power button and the volume rocker; the top has only the audio jack; and the left side has the SIM drawer. The version of the Mate 9 we tested is dual SIM capable, though this capability is sometimes removed from the US versions of phones. You can also add a microSD card in the second slot to add up to 256GB of storage.

Valentina Palladino

Valentina Palladino

Valentina Palladino

Valentina Palladino

Valentina Palladino

Valentina Palladino

Valentina Palladino

Software

The Mate 9 runs Android 7.0 with Huawei's Emotion UI skin, and the appearance hasn't changed much since we reviewed the €599 (~$635) P9. Emotion takes a lot of influence from iOS, so if you're jumping from an iPhone to a Huawei device, you might enjoy that similarity. But when paired with Android and Google's Material Design apps, it creates a disjointed experience. The way Emotion transforms each app icon into a rounded square with a filled-in background isn't offensive itself, but it's sitting alongside Google apps that cannot be skinned over (apps like Docs and Drive remain in their original Material Design dress). Everything ends up looking out of place.

By default there's also no app drawer on the Mate 9, meaning every app you've downloaded gets spread out among different home screens a la iOS. I rely on the app drawer constantly whenever I use an Android device, and without it I was a little lost initially. Thankfully you can change this, it's just buried in the Settings app under "home screen style," and there are only two styles to choose from—app drawer or no app drawer. If you don't opt for the drawer, you'll also have to remember that deleting an app from any home screen fully uninstalls it rather than just removing it from your home screen. On the flip side, there are certain Huawei-branded apps you simply cannot get rid of. Many of these are just copies of Google services, including Music and Health, that you'll probably never use. Others are very utilitarian like SIM Toolkit and Backup.

Huawei says it put a machine learning algorithm on the Mate 9 that should help it age more gracefully as you use it. In addition to maximizing CPU, memory, and storage efficiency, the Mate 9 also allocates more storage and RAM to labor-intensive programs, and it will learn which apps you use most frequently to start them up quicker. Unfortunately, since I only spent a week or so with the Mate 9, I didn't see many of these benefits in action. You're not going to see them unless you have the Mate 9 as your primary smartphone for a while.

The only thing that gives you a glimpse into these benefits is an app called Phone Manager, which gives you options to optimize the performance of the handset, scan for viruses, and quickly edit settings that could speed up your phone. There's a "cleanup" option that scans your phone and suggests ways to remove storage-consuming and power-intensive programs; there's a shortcut to the battery manager where you can turn on power saving mode or the hyper-efficient "ultra" option that only keeps selected apps running (turning on ultra mode with my handset at 86 percent would make it last a whopping 170 hours); and the lock screen cleanup option lets you choose which apps you want to automatically close when the handset locks. Those are just a few of the settings you can change in Phone Manager, and I appreciate that Huawei gives you so many ways to tweak the internals of the handset to potentially increase its longevity.













Listing image by Valentina Palladino