- [Michael] Is any smartphone worth $15,000?
If there was ever a question
begging for the Betteridge treatment, this is it.
So, let me save him the trouble.
No, I wouldn't shell out one and a half G's
for this piece of luxury ludicrousness.
But then, it doesn't exist to sell.
At least, not in big numbers.
This special edition of the Mate 9 Pro
is an expression of possibility from Huawei,
a statement that says, if you didn't
pay attention to us before, you should probably start now.
I'm Mr. Mobile, and I spent a week
with the very best Huawei has to offer,
the Porsche Design Mate 9.
To clear something up that
might not be apparent to everyone,
Porsche Design does not necessarily equal Porsche the car.
You'll find its brand on all kinds of products,
from eyeglasses, to luggage, to smartphones.
Up 'till now, mostly Blackberries.
The Mate 9 brings the brand onto
the much more mainstream Android platform,
but the price is obviously anything but.
This is every bit a luxury product.
Some of that comes across in the retail packaging,
which includes bonuses like premium stereo earbuds
and a custom leather flip case.
But the standout feature is something
you won't want to hide under that case.
While the standard Mate 9 is handsome
in a conventional kind of way,
the Porsche Design variant is built on the Mate 9 Pro,
which is an entirely different class of device,
a brushed aluminum back plate,
bending upward to meet a gently curved display,
all of it here on the PD, done up in black.
The curve is less dramatic than Samsung's Edge screens,
but that also makes the phone easier to handle,
despite being heavier than most.
The added weight, plus the glass and metal build,
work together to produce a supreme in-hand feel.
The only notable downsides for me,
the casing's tendency to hold onto fingerprints,
even after a good sleeve rub,
and the unsubtle attention grab above the display.
That display takes a step down in size from the Mate 9,
but everything else is an upgrade, in my book.
A much sharper resolution and an Amoled panel
for higher contrast and deeper saturation.
I was a little worried about
the added strain on the battery,
but the sheer size of the power pack,
coupled with energy savers like the dark theme,
make this phone a long-laster.
More than once I forgot to top it off overnight,
and it still carried me through the following day.
Under the hood, the specs continue to impress,
with standouts like six gigs of RAM
and large 256 gig storage capacity,
with Huawei's own Kirin 960 Silicon at the core.
The trickin' out even extends to acoustics,
with a top and bottom split speaker setup
reminiscent of the HDC 10,
and four steerable microphones
for impressive audio recording capabilities.
My least favorite thing about this phone is the software.
Now, Huawei is improving steadily here,
already having fixed much of what plagued
my early Mate 9 experience.
Plus, the Android 7 underpinnings are strong.
But the skin still introduces weird problems,
like Spotify tracks skipping when you rotate the phone,
or the notification shade cropping some messages.
And many of the things Huawei thinks are improvements
over stock Android aren't,
like the intermittent lock screen notifications,
the two persistent warnings of
battery drains running in the background,
and the elimination of one of my
favorite Mate 9 features,
the fingerprint shortcut to trigger the notification shade.
In place of that, you get an optional
gesture-based system for the home key,
which might actually be cool if the home key
worked more reliably, but it's inconsistent,
which isn't a good look for any smartphone,
much less a luxury product.
Finally, we come to the camera,
which is the same dual lens, dual sensor module
as on the standard Mate 9.
I put this up against the camera
in the Google Pixel for a few shots,
and while I prefer the more saturated output
of the Google phone,
public opinion sure doesn't seem to agree,
at least on my Twitter feed.
The Mate 9 often produces a balanced, authentic photo.
And while I had pretty bad luck
with noise and blur in low light,
Android Central's Alex Doby coaxed
some incredible photos from his device,
so your mileage will certainly vary.
As for video, the optical stabilization
did a fine job keeping things relatively smooth,
but once more, plenty of noise
in even mid to low light.
And the front facing camera
has the same issues, only moreso.
And I'll also say that complex,
option-packed viewfinders like this are
much less welcome after the simplicity of shooting
with something like the Pixel.
Again, the Porsche Design Mate 9
exists to make a statement,
to show that Huawei can make a splash,
not just in terms of scale, but in style as well.
Maybe the intention is to give a little
William Sonoma-style boost to sales
of the standard Mate 9s.
If you like what you see here,
the Mate 9 Pro is the same phone as this,
and it sells for a more reasonable price,
while the non-pro Mate 9 is yet more affordable.
Still, I don't think any of these
would be my first choice,
and most the improvements I'd like to see are in software.
I'll look forward to seeing what the company has on offer
at CES 2017, and beyond.
To see some more accessible,
and certainly more affordable smartphones from 2016,
check our Mr. Mobile's other reviews on YouTube,
and subscribe so you don't miss more
mobile tech video landing every week.
'Till next time, thanks for watching,
and stay mobile, my friends.