Huawei Mate 9 Pro review: The Magician

Performance

The Huawei Mate 9 Pro is powered by the same Kirin 960 SoC we first met in the original Mate 9. It is developed in-house by Huawei's own chipmaker HiSilicon. Kirin chipsets have been around for a while now, but there are a lot of firsts that come along with this particular chipset - most notably, new ARM CPU cores and a new GPU.

The main processor within the chipset consists of a quad-core Cortex-A73 cluster clocked at 2.4GHz, plus a quad-core array of the familiar Cortex-A53 cores ticking at 1.8GHz. The Cortex-A73s boast a 30% power efficiency compared to the previous A72 design, while also promising improved performance.

We kick off our benchmark routine with CPU testing, and that means some GeekBench-ing. In version 4 of the popular benchmark, the Mate 9 Pro easily tops the flagship chart in multi-core, though it scores a few points less than its Mate 9 sibling. The iPhone 7 Plus score is 8-9% lower, followed by the Exynos-backed Galaxy S7 edge. The highest-ranked droid with a Qualcomm core - the Snapdragon 821-powered Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus - is behind by a country mile.

GeekBench 4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei Mate 9
  6112
• Huawei Mate 9 Pro
  5845
• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  5664
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (E8890)
  5583
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  4333
• Google Pixel XL
  4152
• Meizu Pro 6 Plus
  4142
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (S820)
  4128
• LG V20
  3824

In the single-core test the Kryo cores inside Qualcomm's top-of-the-line SoC make up for it, nearly matching the Mate 9 and Mate 9 Pro's A73s. The iPhone 7's Fusion cores are in a league of their own in single-core computation powers, though.

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  3473
• Huawei Mate 9 Pro
  1939
• Huawei Mate 9
  1898
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (E8890)
  1860
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  1815
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (S820)
  1696
• LG V20
  1576
• Google Pixel XL
  1507
• Meizu Pro 6 Plus
  1467

While the Kirin 960 choice of graphics - the Mali-G71MP8 - didn't ace any test with the Mate 9, it is an enormous improvement over the previous generations of HiSilicon chips and is finally worthy for a flagship. Now that the Huawei Mate 9 Pro has 1.78 times the resolution of its Mate 9 sibling, we expected some noticeable drop in the GPU performance.

The BaseMark X test is a perfect demonstration of the GPU performance gap between the two devices - there is a 25% drop in the Mate 9 Pro score courtesy of the higher screen resolution. On the other hand, the lower score is still a top-notch one, consistent with the grades of other flagships with QuadHD screens.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Huawei Mate 9
  36519
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  36062
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (S820)
  32160
• Google Pixel XL
  30861
• LG V20
  29385
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (E8890)
  28480
• Huawei Mate 9 Pro
  27600
• Meizu Pro 6 Plus
  23513
• Huawei Mate 8
  15593
• Huawei P9 Plus
  15058

Moving on to GFXBench and the framerates, the Mate 9 Pro didn't quite leave us raving, posting only average scores. It trails behind the current crop of flagships, but not by a large margin.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  39
• Google Pixel XL
  32
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (S820)
  32
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  30
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (E8890)
  29
• LG V20
  29
• Meizu Pro 6 Plus
  25
• Huawei Mate 9 Pro
  22
• Huawei Mate 9
  22
• Huawei P9 Plus
  10
• Huawei Mate 8
  10

GFX 3.1 Car scene (offscreen)

Higher is better

• LG V20
  20
• Google Pixel XL
  19
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (S820)
  18
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  18
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (E8890)
  15
• Huawei Mate 9
  13
• Meizu Pro 6 Plus
  13
• Huawei Mate 9 Pro
  12
• Huawei P9 Plus
  6.2

The onscreen tests matter the most, though, as the native resolution performance is more important for flagships with 1440p screens or more. Here the Mali-G71MP8 does better and catches up with the Adreno 530 (LG V20) and the Mali-T880MP12 (Galaxy S7 edge). While the Huawei Mate 9 Pro falls off short of the competition, these scores still mean it will provide you with top of the line performance.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  42
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  32
• Huawei Mate 9
  23
• LG V20
  17
• Google Pixel XL
  17
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (S820)
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (E8890)
  15
• Meizu Pro 6 Plus
  13
• Huawei Mate 9 Pro
  12
• Huawei P9 Plus
  11
• Huawei Mate 8
  11

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  19
• Huawei Mate 9
  14
• LG V20
  12
• Google Pixel XL
  11
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (S820)
  10
• Huawei Mate 9 Pro
  8.2
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (E8890)
  7.8
• Meizu Pro 6 Plus
  7
• Huawei P9 Plus
  6.8

The final GPU test we did is the BaseMark ES 3.1, which was topped by the Huawei Mate 9. Due to the higher resolution, the Mate 9 Pro posted a lower score but is on par with the Adreno 530 (Galaxy S7 edge, Mi 5s Plus).

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  1517
• Huawei Mate 9
  794
• Galaxy S7 edge (E8890)
  733
• Meizu Pro 6 Plus
  642
• Google Pixel XL
  626
• Galaxy S7 edge (S820)
  624
• Huawei Mate 9 Pro
  616
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  538
• LG V20
  526
• Huawei Mate 8
  311
• Huawei P9 Plus
  214

The original Mate 9 scored great in the compound benchmark tests such as AnTuTu and BaseMark OS II 2.0, but with its 1440p resolution, the Mate 9 Pro was slightly handicapped here. The good news is the Mate 9 Pro still tops the chart in the BaseMark OS test routine. In Antutu it's just on par with the competition.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  3796
• Huawei Mate 9
  2637
• Huawei Mate 9 Pro
  2496
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  2434
• Galaxy S7 edge (S820)
  2352
• Google Pixel XL
  2281
• LG V20
  2159
• Huawei P9 Plus
  2099
• Galaxy S7 edge (E8890)
  2050
• Huawei Mate 8
  2017

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  173110
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  155185
• LG V20
  141945
• Google Pixel XL
  141186
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (S820)
  132849
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (E8890)
  129229
• Huawei Mate 9 Pro
  128719
• Huawei Mate 9
  122826
• Meizu Pro 6 Plus
  113397
• Huawei P9 Plus
  97392
• Huawei Mate 8
  91609

Huawei Mate 9 Pro has the fastest processor around, while its graphics skills are very good, though fall short of the excellent mark. Yet, the all-round benchmarks we ran put the Mate 9 duo on top of all other Android-based smartphones we've tested so far, and that's something you can't ignore.

The Mate 9 Pro is a properly equipped flagship and its Kirin 960 chip is future-proof for the years to come. Thanks to the superb fabrication process, the Mate's internals don't get hot even at full throttle. Another benefit is the energy efficiency, which we already praised in our battery life test.

Long story short - the Huawei Mate 9 Pro is a pure-bred flagship with stutter-free performance and great multi-tasking potential thanks to those six gigs of RAM. The artificial tests show it is a great all-round performer and we only have overwhelmingly positive real-life impressions.