Huawei P10: News and rumors

Why it matters to you

Huawei smartphones are getting better and better, and the successor to the excellent P9 is looking like another winner

The Huawei P9 was one of our favorite smartphones released in 2016, due to its superb dual-lens camera produced with the help of camera experts Leica. We’ve subsequently been even more impressed by the Huawei Mate 9, and if the rumors turn out to be accurate, the P10 is coming to challenge it for supremacy in the company’s range. Here’s what we think we know about it so far.

Design

Huawei’s P-series smartphones are always the stylish ones, compared to the business-like Mate series, blending good-looks with high-quality materials, for a fashion-forward result. Leaks have shown the P10 may look similar to the P9, with a metal body, and a glass or other material section housing the camera lenses on the back. Interestingly, a Weibo-sourced leak points to Huawei shifting the fingerprint sensor from the back of the phone to the front, in a home button beneath the screen. This is a new design direction for the P-series.

More: Everything we think we know about the Huawei Watch 2

The front fingerprint sensor also appears on a leak that shows a phone said to be the P10, but with a curved screen and back panel, making it look quite similar to the Porsche Design Mate 9. It doesn’t entirely match other leaked pictures of the P10, aside from an image linked to a post quoting Huawei CEO Richard Yu. However, while none of this has been confirmed yet, but the possibility of a P10, a P10 Plus, and a Porsche Design P10 can’t be ruled out.

Another leak, this time originating from Chinese social network Weibo, shows the P10 in additional colors — a minty green, a champagne, and a purple — where a curved edge is definitely visible on the back of the phone. The source isn’t well know though, and its accuracy can’t be judged yet. Huawei did add a gorgeous blue and red color option to the P9 after launch though, so we know it’s not afraid of experimenting outside of the usual silver, black or white options.

Release date

When will the P10 be announced? The Huawei P9 was revealed in April 2016, and the P10 is likely to follow a year afterwards. A quote attributed to Huawei CEO Richard Yu says the P10 will arrive in March or April 2017. This would put it after Mobile World Congress, which takes place at the end of February, and does fall in with Huawei’s preference for launching a P-series phone at a separate, usually glitzy event.

Specifications

The P9 may have an awesome camera, but the other specifications won’t stand up to the competition in 2017, so what’s Huawei planning for the successor? Specs supposedly for the P10 were found in a log of GFXBench, and they give some insight into what we should expect. In the log, we can see the phone being referred to as LON-L29. This year’s P9 had a model number of LON-L19, so the model number found in the benchmark log most likely refers to what will eventually be the P10.

More: Porsche Design Huawei Mate 9: Our first take

So what exactly does the benchmark log reveal? Well, for starters the device will have a 5.5-inch display with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels — that’s a bump up from the full HD display on the P9. On top of that, we should expect a new 2.3GHz octa-core Kirin 960 processor, as well as a hefty 6GB of RAM — an amount that very few phones, including the OnePlus 3, have today. The P9 has only 3GB of RAM, so the bump up to 6GB represents a pretty major upgrade. When it comes to onboard storage, the device listed boasts a whopping 256GB.

A further leak repeats the chance of a 5.5-inch screen with a 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution, but also mentions a standard P9 model with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, indicating the 6GB/256GB version will be a premium-style model for limited release.

Camera

The camera was the P9’s standout feature, so we’re hoping the P10 uses the Mate 9’s second generation Leica dual-lens setup, or even better. The benchmark report also mentions the camera, suggesting it as 12-megapixels, however the log doesn’t say whether it has two lenses. The front-facing camera apparently has 8-megapixels.

Software

The only leak mentioning the software so far indicates the device will ship with Android 7.0 Nougat. We’re hoping for EMUI 5 or later, and all the improvements it brings with it, to be placed over the top. Additionally, Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant may be onboard, following its debut on the Mate 9.

Overall, the phone seems to be shaping up to be pretty darn impressive. We’ll keep you updated with all the news and rumors here.

Article originally published November 2016. Updated on 01-27-2017 by Andy Boxall: Added in new leaked pictures, specifications, and launch date rumors.