The Samsung Galaxy S7 is now the benchmark
for high-end smartphones running Android, but there are lots of challengers,
including the Huawei
P8 from
Huawei Technologies.
The two smartphone vendors have had many of
the same goals when building their respective smartphones, including improving
the looks and the cameras. But there are still differences that will likely
sway you one way or the other. Here’s a spec comparison between the phones:
Design
A more premium design has been a common
theme for this year’s launches of high-end smartphones. In this regard, both
Huawei and Samsung Phone have succeeded. The Huawei P9 has a metal unibody design and the Galaxy S7
combines a metal frame with a glass back. They are both good-looking devices,
but neither design is very original. The P8 looks a little bland because Huawei
doesn’t put its logo on the front.
Processor
The Galaxy S7 and P9 use ARM-based
processors with eight cores, but the technical underpinnings and clock speeds
are slightly different. They both use four Cortex-A53 processor cores running
at 1.5GHz for easier tasks. In addition to that the P9 has another four A53
cores running at 2.0GHz, while the S7 uses the more powerful Cortex-A57
processor running at 2.1GHz. That should make the Samsung smartphone more
powerful, but the P8 kinder on batteries.
Screen
Samsung Phone and Huawei appear to be in
agreement that a smartphone in the high-end segment should have a screen that’s
a bit bigger than 5 inches. The Samsung Galaxy S7 has a 5.1-inch screen and the P9’s
screen measures 5.2 inches. But when it comes to the resolution there is a
difference; the Galaxy S7 has a 1440 x 2560 pixel resolution compared to 1080 x
1920 pixels on the P8.
Huawei said the reward doesn’t justify the
cost of adding the high-resolution screen, which is an understandable argument.
But at the same time, the S7 screen looks great and the battery life is quite
good.
Storage
Samsung and Huawei have also chosen
slightly different approaches when it comes to the amount of integrated
storage. The Samsung Galaxy S7 will come with either 32GB, 64GB or 128GB, while
the P8 has 16GB or 64GB of storage.
But users who buy the latter can expand the
capacity by up to another 128GB using the MicroSD card slot, which Samsung
decided to skip. Neither model gets it right; 16GB isn’t enough for a
smartphone in the high-end segment and Samsung should have included an MicroSD
card slot to give users more flexibility.
User interface
If the P9 has one weakness, it is the
additions Huawei has made to Android. The smartphone may run Android Lollipop,
but the user interface is almost unrecognizable. Some of the additions aren’t
half bad, such as direct access to shortcuts when you swipe down, assuming
there are no notifications. Most observers feel Huawei has made changes just
for the sake of it.
Maybe it makes more sense if you have used
Huawei’s smartphones before. But the company missed out when it let Chinese
competitor Lenovo buy Motorola, which could have taught it how to take a more
cautious approach. Samsung, on the other hand, has learned from past mistakes
and isn’t as heavy-handed as it has been in the past.
Camera
Smartphone vendors have long relied on
camera improvements to help convince users to upgrade, and the Huawei P9 and Galaxy S7 are no different. The main cameras on both models
have the same resolution as their predecessors; 16 megapixels on the S and 13
megapixels on the P8. But the addition of features such as optical image
stabilization helps improve performance in low-light conditions. The S7 has a
5-megapixel front camera and the Huawei P9 has an 8-megapixel version.
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