Today at the iconic Old Billingsgate Market in London, CEO, Huawei Consumer Business Group, Richard Yu has introduced two new phones to be released in the coming months – the Huawei P8 and the P8 Max.
Huawei P8
The P8 hardware continues the same elegant, luxurious design of previous P-series handsets, which started with the P1 in 2012 and continued with the P6 in 2013 and P7 in 2014.
The P8 comes with a sleek, solid design which is is absolutely flat, which Huawei say is instantly reconisable. The Huawei P8 is made of a beautiful looking one-piece aluminium body, which takes 810 minutes per device to carve from a single block of aluminium. The P8 will be available in four colours: Mystic Champagne, Titanium Grey, Prestige Gold, Carbon Black.
In a small twist the P8 will come in a unique translucent box, making for an interesting unboxing experience. The phone is mounted with the spine facing up, reminiscent of removing a book from a shelf.
Along with a great looking device, and some pretty decent specs under the hood, Huawei has continued their low-light capabilities on previous P-series devices. The Huwaei P8 also introduces DSLR-level independent Image Signal Processor, a 4-colour 13 MP RGBW imaging sensor and Best in-class Optical Image Stabilisation giving up to 1.2° anti-shake.
With all these new features combined, there will be better overall photographs taken all-round, with great looking low-light shots, as well as with auto-scene recognition it will allow for better multi-frame, dynamic time exposure. The camera can combine photos into one image taking into account all lighting conditions to make one great looking photo.
The best part of the Huawei P8 camera design is that even with a 6.4mm thin frame, the camera does not stick out from the back, instead sitting flush with the body.
Huawei have also introduced a light painting mode, which lets you take shots of trailing rear lights from cars, in traffic lights, as well as taking pics of light painting and ‘silky water’ and star tracks for the astronomers out there. With the ISP included in the P8, you can also get instant previews.
An interesting new mode in the camera is ‘Director Mode’ which lets you take up to 4 video sources from any smartphones onto the P8 and cut them into one video with 4 angles included to make one cohesive story.
Huawei has also included a number of their own innovations in mobile antenna design, incorporating a new Signal+ design incorporating a primary antenna and a secondary antenna – one at the top and one at the bottom of the phone. This setup lessens the so-called ‘death hold’ found in other metal body designs. It also allows to track signal even when travelling at high-speed.
It’s not just looks and great camera though, the P8 comes with some great hardware inside. Huawei are using their Kirin 930 Octa-Core 64-bit chipset in the P8. The new processor means a power-efficient device, which Huawei advise gives a 20% performance improvement without any further impacts on the 2,680 mAh battery. Other hardware included in the P8 includes :
- 5.2″ IPS-NEO FullHD 1920x1080P display
- Hisilicon Kirin 930/935 64-bit Octa-core in big.LITTLE (A53 4×2.0GHz and A53 4×1.5GHz)
- 3GB RAM
- 16/64GB on-board storage with microSD Card
- 13MP Rear camera with OIS and dual-tone flash and 8MP front-facing camera
- 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.1 LE, GPS/A-GPS/Glonass/BDS(BeiDou Navigation Satellite System)
- G-sensor; Gyroscope sensor; Ambient Light sensor; Proximity sensor; Compass, Accelerometer
- Radios:
- GRA_L09:
- TDD LTE: B40
- FDD LTE: B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B12/B17/B18/B19/B20/B25/B26/B28
- UMTS: 800(B6,Japan)/800(B19,Japan)/850/900/1700/1900/2100MHz
- GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
- GRA_UL00:
- TDD LTE: B38/B39/B40/B41 (2555MHz~2655MHz)
- FDD LTE:B1/B3/B4/B7
- UMTS: 850/900/1700/1900/2100MHz(B8/B5/B4/B2/B1)
- GSM :
- Main card: 850/900/1800/1900MHz;
- Second card: 850/900/1800/1900MHz
As well the P8 will have what Huawei are calling an APPs power consumption firewall. This will bock all abnormal power usage from apps, giving you up to an extra 2.3 days standby time on a single charge. The P8 will also come with a Quick Charger to get your phone back up to full power quickly.
Huawei has also introduced a new gesture, called ‘Knuckle Sense technology’. It’s a new way of touching the screen in what they say is a step beyond multi-touch. The Knuckle Touch will detect X,Y position + type of touch, meaning you can double tap to capture a screen capture, You can also use your knuckle to select different areas of the screen, meaning you can select odd areas by drawing around them.
Huawei is also adding special support for noise suppression on their microphones which will reduce noise. The reduction of noise means that up to 90% of wind noise is eliminated from calls. There’s also a high-quality hands-free call mode for meetings, which will capture voices up to 2m away in super high-quality.
Huawei is also introducing a very cool ‘find my phone’ feature which will let you simply call out to your phone. You can use a user preset phrase to wake up the phone, and then ask the phone ‘Where are you?’ and the phone will respond, helping you find it.
Huawei will have a number of shells, covers and flip covers available for the phone, but one of the coolest accessories is the e-ink back cover display. The e-ink back cover includes a 4.3″ e-ink display which is a low-power consumption device which is legible in bright sunlight. You can use this display to view ebooks, as well as schedule, weather and clock.
Finally, availability. The Huawei P8 will be available in a standard version with 16GB storage and 3GB RAM in Titanium Grey and Mystic Champagne for €499 and a premium version for €599 with 64GB on-board storage in Carbon Black and Prestige Gold. Availability in Australia will be in the coming months.
Huawei P8 Max
The Huawei P8 Max draws on the same design stylings from the Huawei P8, he body of the P8 Max also consists of a single aluminium unibody design, but in a larger form factor with a larger battery allowing up to 16 hours of video viewing.
The P8 Max as its name suggests is a larger form-factor device which has a 6.8″ display, blurring the lines between small form-factor tablet and phone. The 6.8″ display is a 16:9 FullHD resolution JDI panel incorporates in-cell touch, making it the largest display in the world to do so.d
The P8 Max brings the same light-painting and low-light capable camera as found on the P8, which gives you a 13MP camera on the rear and 5MP front-facing camera. The P8 Max also comes with a dual-tone flash and optical vibration reduction to lessen issues for low-light photos.
- 6.8” FHD Screen, 1920p, 1080 IPS, 326PPI
- Hisilicon Kirin octa-core,GPU: Mali-T628 MP4
- 3GB RAM
- 32/64GB storage with Micro SD: Up to 128GB
- IEEE 802.11ac/a/b/g/n, 2.4&5 GHz; BT 4.0 (compatible with 3.0, 2.1 + EDR), GPS GPS/A-GPS/Glonass/BDS Location & Navigation
- 13MP Rear Camera with autofocus and OIS, 5MP Front-facing camera
- Radios
- LTE (up to 300 Mbit/s DL(support intra-band contiguous Carrier Aggregation; (CA), carrier network dependent) /50 Mbit/s UL); DC-HSDPA+ (up to 42 Mbit/s DL/5.76 Mbit/s UL)
- Sensors Ambient Light Sensor, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, Gyroscope
- Android 5.0 with EmotionUI (EMUI) 3.1
- 182.7x93x6.8mm @ 228grams
- 4360mAh, Li-Po Battery
The P8 Max will also have an interesting case available, involving a dot-pattern leather case which will allow users to view alerts without opening the cover, while also protecting the device. The leather cover will also support a ‘standing’ mode to enable users to watch videos conveniently on that ultra-large display.
The P8 Max will have limited availability but like the P8 will also come in standard and premium versions. The P8 Max will be available in standard, which includes 32GB of storage in Titanium Grey and Mystic Champagne for €549, while the premium version will be available with 64GB of storage in Titanium Grey and Prestige Gold for €649. Availability in Australia isn’t likely but we’ll keep an eye out in hope.
For some odd reason I find the e-ink cover the most exciting thing announced here… Maybe I’m becoming a cynic when it comes to new smartphones.
It could be a good alternative to the YotaPhone 2, offering a bit more bang four your buck.
Can’t believe some manufacturers are still offering such relatively small batteries though.
Trust me, you’re not alone. But after using the P8 all day, it’s got some great other features. The Camera is actually quite decent taking a number of great shots today around London, it’s also really fast. Software wise the find my phone feature is pretty damn cool too.
But I know what you mean, the e-ink cover is pretty awesome. We’ve got enquiries in for more info on the e-ink cover and hope to have more information soon.
“The P8 will be available in three colours: Mystic Champagne, Titanium Grey, Prestige Gold, Carbon Black”. Something’s not right. ;P
It seems like nice hardware. If only the battery was bigger. 3000mAh should be the minimum now. If LG and Sony can squeeze one in and keep their devices slim, why can’t the other OEMs?
I can see the problem with the available colour options as well.
And the problem extends to the P8 Max.
I was referring to Daniel not being able to count. 🙂
What did you mean?
I thought you meant that there is no actual white colour available.
There’s black, grey, and 2 shades of gold. No white.
Though now, I do realise the typo you were talking about with the available colours for the P8.