Huawei Ascend Mate 2 Review: Incredible Battery Life & Value

Final Words

I'll have to admit here that coming into the review, I wasn't expecting much - not from the Ascend Mate 2 and not from Huawei itself. After all, while Huawei was making some interesting smartphones as an OEM outside the US, it remained an ODM in the US that was best known for the MyTouch smartphones on T-Mobile. Of course, even the announcement of the Ascend Mate 2 at CES was generally ignored by most. In short, Huawei has a lack of brand and product recognition. 

Yet after using the phone for a while, there’s plenty to be surprised about. The first surprise was the design and feel of the device. The phone shows no signs of poor fit and finish, and it’s refreshing to see a design that embraces its material for what it is. More and more these days, it seems OEMs try to make plastic into a material that it isn’t. While some people might have no objections to this, it almost universally cheapens the design of the phone. The worst part about this trend is that such attempts often come at the expense of actual in-hand feel. Huawei has thankfully avoided this trend. The result is a phone that resembles the Galaxy S2 in feel, which was already well-designed. If anything, it ends up better due to the soft touch coating applied to the back cover.  

Other OEMs highlight various technologies with an alphabet soup of acronyms to try and convince a buyer that their display is the best. Huawei seems to have taken the approach of not talking about their display at all outside of basic specifications, yet the display is one of the best we’ve tested this year. If anything, it’s surprising to see a midrange phablet beating out ~600 dollar phones and phablets.

Outside of display, battery life is record-breaking. This is the first device that I’ve seen to come close to 24 hours of continuous usage. A combination of an efficient display, SoC/RF, and a giant battery means that it’s almost guaranteed that the phone will last a full day, if not more. If battery life is truly the only concern you have in a phone, this would be the phone to buy.

The camera is also great for a 300 dollar phone. While low light performance is effectively nonexistent, the quality in daytime is surprisingly great, and a far cry from the Moto G or Nexus 4.

Of course, it’s not as if this phone is perfect. There are still some areas that could be improved. The single biggest issue is the SoC. While four Cortex A7s at 1.6 GHz is acceptable, it would be great to see a better SoC in general, especially to resolve some of the issues related to the ISP such as low preview resolution and frame rate. I suspect that this won’t happen until Snapdragon 410 begins shipping to OEMs. The only issues that really mar the device are some friction points in the OEM UI, and some concerns over future update support.

From Left to Right: Nexus 7, Ascend Mate 2, Nexus 5

It’s important to get back to pricing. The Mate 2 will be sold unlocked at GetHuawei.com, and from June 12^th to June 22^nd, Huawei will be including a $50 prepaid SIM card and $30 flip case with the Mate2. The phone itself sells for $299, which is a decent price on its own. For the same price as the Moto G LTE, Huawei is giving far better battery life, display, faster SoC, better camera, and a far better WiFi module. Of course, there’s the issue of the 6” display size and phablet formfactor, but if a large device is what you want Huawei delivers incredible value for the money.