Huawei Mate 80 Pro Review

Fact Forward

The powerhouse returns! Dive into our Huawei Mate 80 Pro review to see how its camera, AI features, and battery life stack up against the competition.  Huawei Mate 80 Pro camera test, Huawei Mate 80 Pro battery life, best Huawei phone 2026, Huawei Mate 80 Pro specs  Huawei Mate 80 Pro, Huawei Mate 80 Pro Review, TechNick, TechNick Review, Huawei Smartphone, Mate 80 Pro Camera Test, Best Flagship Phone 2026, Huawei Mate 80 Pro Specs, Tech Review, Smartphone Unboxing, Huawei Camera Quality, Mobile Photography, Battery Life Test, Huawei 2026 Phone, Huawei Mate Series

Transcript

00:00The Huawei Mate 80 Pro has been out for a minute but it only just landed here in

00:04South Africa and after spending some time with it I gotta say this phone

00:08packs in a serious punch for its asking price. You only get the 16 gig RAM

00:12version here in SA which is the highest-end variant. It'll set you back

00:1622,000 South African RAM but there's currently an early bird discount on

00:20their website and as with all Huawei phones box contents are stacked. You get

00:25a clear hard shell case a charging cable and a 100 watt charging block and that's

00:30very welcoming considering this phone does indeed support a hundred watt wire

00:34charging as well as 80 watt wireless and 20 watt reverse wireless which you can

00:38definitely make use of to charge up your buddy's phone since battery capacity has

00:42now jumped up to a whopping 5750 milliamp hours. I cannot wait to throw this into

00:48one of my battery tests. Here in SA there are just two colors to choose from black

00:52or gold. I have it in gold and it has a stunning dual tone matte finish with that

00:57non-magnetic ring on the back which gives it the dual space ring design name. Pair

01:02that with the rather large camera ring and it almost looks like an 8. Mate 80. Get it?

01:10Nice touch Huawei. That backplate is made from a new vegan fiber material which is

01:15silky smooth to the touch and is supposedly five times more impact resistant. The

01:20back is now completely flat and so is the aluminum side rails which are glossy

01:24instead of matte just like the ring around the camera island. Because of its

01:28flat profile it's now even thinner at just 8 millimeters and it's lighter in the

01:32hand too. The screen is now finally also flat which makes me very happy and it's

01:37protected by second-gen Kunlun glass which is 20 times more drop resistant than

01:42standard glass. And there's now also an IP68 and IP69 dust and water certification

01:48meaning it can now also resist high-pressure water jets but unlike other

01:53flagships around this guy can get dunked a lot deeper at 6 meters for up to 30

01:58minutes. There's a full screen always-on display and a very snappy and reliable

02:02side mounted fingerprint scanner just like with the Pura 80 series devices but

02:06there's also 3D face unlock which is something I've always loved about the

02:10Mate series lineup. The actual display is now a 6.75 inch OLED panel with a 1.5k

02:16screen resolution. It's now even brighter at 3000 nits packs in 1440 Hertz PWM

02:22dimming and it even has a 1 to 120 Hertz LTPO refresh rate. Before you ask yes you

02:29can still install Gbox which allows you to gain access to Google services including

02:33the Play Store and Gemini which can even be set as your default AI assistant.

02:37Speaking of AI there's still a bunch of useful AI features including AI noise

02:41cancellation for calls and AI photo features like removing objects from a

02:46pic and best expression to choose your best facial expression for that specific

02:50photo. Software overall is very clean. EMUI allows plenty customization options.

02:56There's adjustable folders, stackable widgets and using the UI is very

03:00enjoyable thanks to fantastic optimization. Honestly this phone feels just as

03:05snappy if not more so than any other flagship out there. There's at least five

03:09years of software support, NFC for tap to pay, an IR blaster, a USB 3.1 port with

03:16DisplayPort capabilities which is always good to see and take all of that and top it

03:21off with Huawei's latest in-house built chipset and the Mate 80 Pro is

03:28definitely a powerhouse. And that's thanks to the new 5nm grade Kirin 9030 Pro CPU which boasts 9 cores

03:36with a total of 14 threads, a max clock speed of 2.75 GHz and now finally includes hardware

03:43accelerated ray tracing. So Huawei have definitely stepped up their game and it shows when running

03:48different benchmark tests, especially in Antutu and multi-core scores in Geekbench. GPU scores have also

03:55increased and while scores aren't as impressive as other flagship chipsets it hardly matters when

04:01optimizations are this good. Like I said before this phone feels just as fast and just as fluid as

04:06anything else out there and gaming performance has also stepped up. There's also 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM,

04:14512 GB of UFS 4.1 storage and to top it off is Huawei's new super cool dual phase change

04:21heat

04:21dissipation cooling system which is actually an industry first and throughout all of my gaming

04:27sessions I honestly barely ever noticed the phone warm up in my hands. Unfortunately I couldn't get

04:33a real-time fps meter to work because of lack of wireless debugging so the fps that you're seeing here

04:38is just the screen refresh rate but from what I can tell these games are all running at their max

04:43available fps without any noticeable stutters or frame drops. Genshin Impact ran extremely smoothly on maxed out

04:51graphical settings and even Wuthering Waves played extremely well with all settings cranked up

04:56and that's saying a lot considering this game is pretty much the benchmark for mobile gaming.

05:01Honestly Wuthering Waves ran a lot more stable than many other flagships I've tested out and it kept

05:07things a lot cooler but unfortunately like with most Huawei phones Court of Duty Mobile is capped at 90 fps

05:13despite the game having support for 120 but as always frame rates felt very consistent throughout my

05:19playthrough. Haptics feel flagship level just like you'd expect and the dual stereo speaker system

05:24is probably the best I've heard. There's incredible 3D audio effects when in a game, bass is so impactful

05:31that I feel the speaker vibrations running through my hands, there is so much depth and clarity and they

05:38get more than loud enough. Huawei seriously know what they're doing in terms of speaker tuning and

05:57performance optimizations and adding in ray tracing is a pretty big deal for Huawei phones in general.

06:05But do they know what they're doing in terms of camera performance? Well that's the last on the list

06:11but it's certainly not least so let's get into it. There's a 13 megapixel selfie camera with autofocus

06:17on the front alongside a TOF 3D sensor for depth mapping. On the rear there's a large 50 megapixel

06:23main camera with variable aperture and OIS, a 48 megapixel periscope sensor with four times optical zoom

06:28and OIS, a 40 megapixel ultra wide with PDAF and a new gen true to color camera for more accurate

06:36color reproduction. So color accuracy is on point when taking snaps in daylight and ultra wide picks

06:41in general come out looking very good with superb detail and minimal edge distortion. It's honestly

06:46been a while since I've seen such good ultra wide results. That true color cam works wonders with the

06:52main as well in terms of color accuracy but the main sensor has a lot more going for it in

06:56terms of detail

06:57within color, dynamic range, sheer clarity and fantastic immersion and exposure compensation.

07:04The periscope presents proper results too with its native 4x optical zoom, telephotos are usually my

07:10favorite cameras to use on phones and the mate 80 pro does not disappoint at this focal length.

07:16And since this is labeled as a macro telephoto camera there's of course a super macro mode but get

07:22this it has a minimum focus distance of just five centimeters that's got to be the lowest I've ever

07:28seen. Detail is impeccable and you can even dial in all the way up to 40x zoom within macro mode.

07:34Using regular photo mode lets you jump all the way up to 100x digital zoom but results aren't exactly the

07:40best. At least 10x lossless zoom still retains plenty detail. There is a portrait mode option for the main

07:47and periscope but there's also something called aperture mode which lets you fine tune the physical

07:52aperture of the main sensor and shots come out very near perfect. I always prefer hardware driven

07:58soft focus instead of software based and this proves how superior it is. The periscope also produces

08:04incredible looking snaps. The selfie camera takes very good regular photos during the day but portrait

08:10mode is a bit too copy paste for my liking and there's no way to adjust the background blur. Portrait

08:15mode looks

08:16a bit better at night but edge detection is questionable. Standard selfies are still great

08:21at night though. Taking aperture shots with the rear main and periscope sensor at night are very well

08:26lit and pack in loads of detail. My only gripe is tonal range correction when it comes to the RYYB

08:32main

08:32camera which tends to over saturate skin tones but I'm sure a future software update will correct this.

08:38Light noise is handled decently with the ultrawide, a lot more so than other ultrawide sensors I've tested in

08:44the past and colour accuracy and detail is still fantastic even in a dim lit situation. The main

08:49camera continues to impress me even at night with pinpoint white balance and warm colourful detail

08:55with a decent amount of dynamic range for nice cinematic looking shots. The periscope tends to

09:00produce the most natural looking colours at night and detail and depth is still very much apparent in

09:05a dark scene and just like with day shots 10x lossless zoom is decent but higher zoom levels tend to

09:12fall off a bit. Using the ultrawide to shoot video drops the focal length down to 12mm for a 0

09:17.4x wide

09:18angle so it captures pretty much everything that you can see and it does it very well and very stable

09:25at a solid 4k 60fps. The main camera can shoot video at 4k 60fps as well and the level of

09:32detail is

09:32just next level. Everything is in detailed sharp focus from top to bottom and stability is also very

09:39controlled. The periscope offers an equal amount of detail at the same 4k resolution and 60 frames per

09:45second and I was very impressed to see how well it performed while panning. There is still a very

09:50slow 960fps option at 1080p when shooting slow motion video but there is still no 4k slow-mo option

09:56and it's still limited to only the main camera regardless of what frame rate is being used but

10:01even then slow motion detail is very good and the actual effect is probably the best around given that

10:07very smooth very high frame rate. There is still no portrait video mode but there is an aperture

10:12video mode which is better since you can physically adjust the aperture of the main cam producing

10:16DSLR like bokeh however the main amperiscope don't even need a special mode due to their large sensor

10:23sizes and wide apertures allowing standard 4k video to look even better. Alright so I'm currently using

10:29wide mode with the selfie camera and we can shoot silky smooth 60fps at crystal clear 4k resolution which

10:36is great to see so unfortunately there is still no portrait video mode option when using the selfie

10:42camera not that it really needs it though I mean this looks so good let me know your thoughts of

10:45the video quality as well as the microphone performance. Selfie video during the day looked

10:49incredible and it's good to see 4k 60 but 30fps is preferred at night for extra exposure and while

10:56selfie video at night isn't perfect it's still a lot better than most flagships when trying to do the same

11:01thing. Tonal range with nighttime video is a lot better than when compared to when we took photos at the

11:06same scene. Aperture video still looks good but again standard 4k video is still the best option

11:11here in terms of clarity. The ultrawide doesn't exactly handle light noise the best when shooting

11:16nighttime video but it's still plenty detailed, very stable and there's practically no noise grain

11:22particles at all. Shooting 4k video with the main sensor at night produces a bit of lens flare but that's

11:28pretty normal with so many lights in the scene. Light noise is handled better than the ultrawide, detail is

11:34even better and stability is great. The best thing about it is its incredible use of dynamic range

11:40and lack of noise grain. And I was not expecting periscope video to look this good at night.

11:45Again light noise handling isn't perfect but the detail it provides at night is seriously good.

11:51There is once again no noise grain and stability and panning is just as good at night as it was

11:58during

11:58the day. There are a few setbacks here and there like further focal length zoom shots as well as

12:04tonal mapping but those can definitely be improved with software. Honestly I was not expecting the

12:09cameras on this phone to be so good but they are and they complement everything else that's so good

12:14about this phone. Performance is significantly better than past Huawei flagships with very stable

12:19gameplay and incredible heat dissipation thanks to that new cooling system. Software is optimized

12:24very well and this thing honestly feels just as fluid if not more so than other flagships on the market.

12:31The display is stunning and is now finally flat just like its side frames and back plates giving it a

12:37very good feel in the hand especially with its top-notch build quality and protection. It has a massive

12:42battery with very fast wired and wireless charging, it looks absolutely gorgeous and packs in a serious

12:49punch when it comes to camera performance. The only reason I could think that you wouldn't want to buy one

12:53is

12:54due to the lack of Google services but Gbox works exceptionally well and even without 5G in certain

12:59markets 4G plus speeds are still very fast and with everything else that this phone has to offer

13:05which we just went through right now this is a lot of phone for a very fair price. As always

13:12this is

13:13Technic and I'll catch you in the next one.

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended