Huawei Ascend Mate 2 Review: Incredible Battery Life & Value
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Joshua Ho on June 12, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Huawei
- Mobile
- Ascend Mate 2
CPU Performance
For those that have been following recent reviews, they might notice that the CPU performance section is now mostly similar. In short, the Ascend Mate 2 uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon 400. This particular version has four Cortex A7s for CPUs, and an Adreno 305 for the GPU. Because this is the 8x28 variant, rather than 1.2 GHz maximum the CPUs can reach as high as 1.6 GHz. Based upon some testing, it doesn't appear that the GPU has a higher clock, so performance in 3D/2D applications generally remains equivalent to other Snapdragon 400 SoCs. While I'll cover my thoughts in more detail in the software section, this SoC doesn't have any issues with performance in general day to day tasks, and the UI isn't too heavy for the SoC.
GPU Performance
In GPU and this SoC in general, there's very little to talk about by this point that hasn't been said before, so I'd refer to the One mini 2 review or the Moto G review. Across the board, performance results are as expected for this platform, although the older Android version can hurt performance.
NAND Performance
Like much of the rest of the phone, the Mate 2's internal NAND performance is surprisingly competent for its price class. In fact, when it comes to random write performance, the Mate 2 is not far off present generation flagships (and ahead of the Galaxy S5)
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JoshHo - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
Unfortunately, until Microsoft steps up and starts allowing fine grained control of brightness and the ability to disable the screen timeout, we will be unable to test the battery life of Windows Phone devices.uhuznaa - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
Well, you did this so-called "review" and didn't test the battery life either (or anything else to be more precise). No WP phone ever being reviewed (or hardly even just mentioned) because of WP lacking fine grained brightness control seems a bit over the top if you ask me.uhuznaa - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
Ah, sorry, missed the battery life section here... Still, the point about WP still stands.Death666Angel - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
It also fucks with the stand-by mode and they had to invent stuff that acted like a fake finger, but Microsoft of Synaptics closed that down. So yes, thank Microsoft for making their WP so efficient it doesn't battery test at all.mikedice - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
You mention that it is a value, but am I missing something...I never actually see the price listed.jimjamjamie - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
Final Words page, last paragraph.jjj - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
I fail to see how is this incredible value at 300$. Decent maybe but not good or great.Gunbuster - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
Is that MSRP? If so I would expect to see this going on sale in the $220-250 range.Goodnight $700 phone price fleecing.
JoshHo - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
For the same price as a Moto G LTE during pre-orders, this is a great phone. The 300 dollar price is about right, all things considered.josephnero - Thursday, June 12, 2014 - link
Please do a Xperia Z2 review.i love your reviews