Listen, Progress： A Detail of the Huawei Ascend P7

Last week, Huawei invited us to a product briefing on the Ascend P7 to explain in detail almost all the details behind the development of this new flagship. Leaving with a white version of the P7 in my hand, I think this is a very sincere but risky move by Huawei, because on the one hand Huawei has given us a full understanding of the ingenuity behind the product – but at the same time, it will arouse my curiosity to taste the product carefully, which means that no details will be missed in the process.

The hardware information about the P7 will not be repeated, and interested readers can rewind it toTake a look hereAfter a week of use, the outline of this Huawei’s annual flagship has gradually become three-dimensional. In appearance, the P7 still adopts the same design as the P6But unlike the metal back shell of the P6, the P7 this time uses front and rear glass (Corning’s Gorilla III), with a sandwich structure with a full metal frame in the middle. Huawei said that the advantage of using Gorilla III as the back cover material is that it is wear-resistant and has a flatter feel.

The 7-layer coated back cover mentioned in the promotion does have a bonus. If you take a closer look, you will find that the back cover of the P7 is not simply milky white, but has countless fine dots and lines interlaced. Especially when there is external light hitting the fuselage, you will see the unique "ripple pattern" that is unique to the brushed metal shell.

As for its grip, one word, cold. 6.5mm thickness, 124g weight, all-metal frame, the feeling that feeds back to the fingers is light and cold. This kind of finger feels out of place with body temperature as it slides over the glass and metal of the fuselage, giving the fuselage a sense of cheapness. I think even in 2014, all-metal frame can still make an excellent, timeless design.

The newly designed power button has a good texture, but it seems to have a trace of Sony

Compared with the previous generation of P6, the production process of P7 has made a big leap. We will no longer see the SIM card holder and frame with inconsistent paint color. There are no terrible gaps, and there are more delicate spiral texture all-metal power keys. In addition, Huawei revealed that the P7 is assembled using "zero labor". In simple terms, even if the most advanced manufacturing process is used, there will be certain errors between parts. Therefore, during the assembly process, Huawei will find the component group with the highest degree of mutual fit for assembly to ensure that there will be no process problems in the product shell when it leaves the factory. At least this P7 in my hand meets this definition.

In addition to the improvement of the manufacturing process, as mentioned in the previous article, in order to better meet the user’s usage habits, Huawei has absorbed the P6 experience and readjusted the position of the P7 data and headphone interface, so it has specially designed a new miniature antenna for this purpose.

But even so, I still think the P7 has some room for improvement. For example, when Huawei designed a delicate metal frame around the camera of the P7, but the earphone jack less than two centimeters away is a simple and rough opening, this kind of "schizophrenia" in design thinking inevitably makes people feel abrupt. In addition, although it can be seen that the designer specially made a concave design for the speaker on the back of the fuselage, because the speaker is too thin, as long as there is a barrier on the back of the phone, it will greatly affect the external quality.

Regarding the introduction of hardware and performance, there are several fixed links that come and go. Review the configuration:

• Android 4.4.2 + Emotion UI 2.3;
• 4G LTE (Cat 4) with a maximum download speed of 150Mbps.
• 5 inch 1080P full fit high definition LCD (ppi 445);
• 1.8GHz HiSilicon Kirin 910T quad-core processor;
• Mali 450 GPU;
• 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM (supports up to 64GB microSD card expansion);
• 800/13 million pixel front and rear cameras;
• 2500mAh battery.

The system is based on Android 4.4.2 Emotion UI 2.3, which officially claims to have made more than 200 improvements to the previous version. In actual use, the Emotion UI system running on the P7 is stable and smooth. In terms of screen, the P7 finally swept away the haze of the P6, ppi is 445 full high definition 5 inch screen, JDI top panel with full fitting process, even if it did not catch up with the 2K screen trend, but the P7 still provides users with absolutely excellent display effect.

However, for the hardware of the P7, I believe everyone is most concerned about the HiSilicon four-core processor developed by Huawei. The Kirin 910T four-core processor running at 1.8GHz on the P7 is actually designed based on the ARM A9 standard. The rest is equipped with a display core Mali 450 and 2GB random access memory.

If we use quantitative means to measure the performance of P7, AntuTu’s running score is about 25,000 points. It is basically at the level of Snapdragon 600 or MTK octa-core processor this year. As for actual use, the P7 brings excellent experience in system interaction, daily applications, and browsing a web. Consistent with my experience of evaluating many high, medium, and low-configuration mobile phones in the past, in today’s operating system has been greatly improved and hardware performance is excessive, there is no equal sign between excellent user experience and heap hardware.

It should be pointed out that the P7 can occasionally struggle to navigate certain web portals or large 3D games, so when choosing this product, you need to ask yourself what your true performance needs are: this product can meet most of your daily needs, but if you are a serious 3D game enthusiast, there are better options on the market.

However, this still prompts me to think. Since it is a flagship, I think the most conventional way of thinking should be to apply the latest and best to this product. Because consumers are emotional, everyone wants a product that is known as a flagship and has the best "indicators" – who cares if there is excess performance! I try to use limited IQ to explore the reasons why Huawei insists on using HiSilicon from the perspective of products:

1. Heat dissipation. For the P series, Huawei has always been proud of the ultra-thin body record that this series has maintained. As a 4G LTE mobile phone, the 6.5mm thickness of the P7 is actually an excellent set of numbers. However, correspondingly, the ultra-thin makes the power consumption of the mobile phone core a key consideration. The HiSilicon four-core chip on the P7 undoubtedly meets Huawei’s requirements in this regard. Specifically, in the copy machine process, the shell temperature of the P7 is only slightly hot throughout. Imagine that if such a thin body is equipped with a Snapdragon 800-level processor, the heat will be very amazing.

2. Profit margin.

3. A little bit of ambition. HiSilicon has been used many times on flagship models, which shows that Huawei, which has a technical background, wants to support its ambition to develop mobile chipsets independently.

But in general, I still Huawei only relies on thin and light to make up for the lack of performance, and does not use the brand perception between the core high-end user base.

If the performance of the P7 can’t surprise consumers too much, then I believe that taking pictures can make it save a game. First of all, the P7 has made a great favor to female users who like to take selfies, equipped with a front-facing camera with pixels up to 8 million and an aperture of 2.4, and built-in automatic beauty function.

The rear camera uses Sony’s fourth-generation stacked photosensitive elements, with 13 million pixels and 2.0 aperture. And the front and rear two of the P7 are designed with 5 aspherical lenses, which the official claims can maximize the picture clarity, and the anti-distortion and purple edge capabilities are also better.

From the proofs, the P7’s photo quality is solid. Although we can still see slight dispersion and purple edges at the edges of the photo, the overall photo is quite sharp. In addition, I specially took pictures in some backlight and dark environments, and found that the P7 film still maintains good sharpness and retains rich details in low-light environments. The color of the film is too bright, it is a matter of opinion.

In addition, the P7 provides the function of quickly starting the camera. As long as you press the volume-button twice in a row in the sleep state (and this button also acts as a shutter), the P7 can automatically take a photo and then open the camera application, providing a very convenient mechanism for capturing. In the communication, Huawei revealed that in order to keep the entire capture process at 1.2 seconds, in addition to the customized ISP (image processor), the team has also optimized the bottom layer of the system.

In actual use, if the photo is output at the maximum resolution, the P7’s fast capture can basically be completed at the nominal speed. However, I found that such a fast capture also comes with a certain price. For example, when you start the capture quickly, the camera will automatically ignore the "focus" process and shoot at an infinite focal length. That is to say, if you are capturing objects at medium and long distances, it will be very suitable for using this function, but if you are capturing at close range, you will get a photo that is out of focus.

normal mode

Snap mode only supports infinite focus

Emotion UI is already very familiar to many people. It adopts the single-layer interactive interface that is common in domestic ROMs, and even new users have no learning cost. Another major feature of Emotion UI is that it supports the bottom system bar, which has the advantage of making full use of the screen area in videos, games, and browsing a web. However, I found that some games do not support the hidden low bar very well. Users need to hide the low bar in advance before entering the game, otherwise if the low bar is hidden after entering the game, a blank bar will appear. However, this problem is not big, and I hope it can be solved through software updates in the future.

In addition, if the user hides the low bar, Huawei also provides an auxiliary floating button (similar to the small dots of the iOS).

A good thing for small white users is that the built-in mobile housekeeper of Emotion UI can intelligently manage the programs that consume resources and power in the background, and automatically block some applications that will pop up. In terms of ease of use and peace of mind, Emotion UI is very considerate.

Huawei has also made a lot of efforts in UI design, which has been criticized in the past. It has to be said that after so many iterations of Emotion UI, great progress has been made in art design, and the official also provides a very rich backup theme for users to choose from, such as the "Impression Merry" theme used in the evaluation of P7, which is very popular with us.

However, the fly in the ointment was that even though the theme was changed, the lower-level menus such as the notification center and the settings interface still retained the original ecology, which gave people a clear sense of incompatibility. In addition, for example, the pull-up toolbar under the lock screen and some desktop plug-ins used too much glass element effect, which was not very harmonious with the overall design.

Some UI designs still have some traces of inspiration

The 2500 mAh battery is considered a qualified line in the Android camp. Under moderate use in one day, the P7 will have about 30% of the power left, and it is inevitable to charge one battery at a time. However, this time Huawei has added the "super power saving" function that has been popular in recent years, that is, turning off all functions except initial phone calls and text messages in exchange for the most optimized standby ability. I really did an experiment. At 12 o’clock in the evening, the P7 entered the super power saving mode when the power was left at 9%, and found that there was still 9% power at 8 o’clock the next day. Therefore, in special cases, this kind of function still has great practicality.

Last year, the P6 was a product with obvious shortcomings. This year’s P7, we saw Huawei listening. Even though it remains thin and light, the P7 has successfully changed the various shortcomings caused by last year’s thin and thin, and the whole machine design has become very reasonable. As a dual-card dual-mode 4G LTE mobile phone with excellent workmanship and a body thickness of only 6.5mm, the Ascend P7 reflects Huawei’s strong hardware integration capabilities. We believe that in addition to the slight regret in performance, from all aspects, the P7 is definitely qualified to become Huawei’s representative model in 2014.