The Best Huawei SmartPhones of 2018

You can’t ignore Huawei any more. With increasingly premium (or at least premium feeling) smartphones on the market, the Chinese company is having a very good go at challenging Samsung, LG and Sony. In fact, it now outsells Apple globally. 

The company has flagship devices in its P and Mate lines that are among the best smartphones out there. The P series is slightly more mainstream thinking, while the Mates are often photo-minded phablets but the lines are beginning to blur. Luckily, we are left with excellent phones either way.

But a Huawei phone doesn’t have to be brand new to market. The older P10 models are still excellent phones while we wait for the upcoming P20 models, and the Mate 9 is also still a solid choice.

The P Smart is a cheaper way into the Huawei world, and you may even want to look at an older P-series phone to save a lot of money. It depends if you like Huawei’s EMUI Android skin, as it changes the stock experience quite dramatically.

We are fans though, and Huawei has come from being a network equipment provider to a coveted consumer electronics brand in a matter of years. Mind you, it’s not short on cash.

Here are the best Huawei phones you can buy in 2018.

1. Huawei Mate 10 Pro

The Mate 10 Pro is the best phone from Huawei yet and although the cameras aren’t as good as the Pixel 2 XL’s, it has a better screen, better battery life and just as much processing power. 

In fact, with the AI processor there’s arguably more on board, but there’s no guarantee that apps will appear to make use of it. 

Even if they don’t, this is still an outstanding phone.

Read our Huawei Mate 10 Pro review.

2. Huawei P10 Plus

The P10 Plus is another solid smartphone from Huawei offering attractive design, high-end hardware and much improved software. However, it’s missing a few features compared to rivals such as waterproofing and wireless charging. 

You should be able to find it cheaper than the RRP given the release of the P20 line.

Read our Huawei P10 Plus review.

3. Huawei P10

The Huawei P10 is an impressive beast – it’s gorgeous, powerful and the dual cameras are a huge improvement over the 2016 flagship, the P9. Portrait mode works better than expected, photos are crisp, vibrant and detailed and even the selfie camera has had a meaningful upgrade.

Huawei’s EMUI, one of the most controversial Android overlays, is much better to use than with previous smartphones, and offers machine learning algorithms that should speed up your phone the more you use it. Even the price is competitive at £499.

The only downside? Despite being of a high capacity, the battery life of the P10 isn’t great, and some users may find that they have to plug it in to top it up once or twice a day, just to get through.

Read our Huawei P10 review.

4. Huawei P Smart

With a decent 18:9 screen, the P Smart is a fine Android phone that should appeal to anyone looking for a cheap contract phone. However, the fact it’s so similar to the Honor 9 Lite (which costs £30 less when bought SIM-free) makes it hard to recommend, especially as the Honor has a couple of extra features – dual SIM and a second front camera – which the Huawei lacks.

Read our Huawei P Smart review.

5. Huawei Nova

So, what do we think of the Huawei Nova? While it’s good on paper, it’s slightly underwhelming in real life. The processor isn’t quite as quick as the competition, the graphical capabilities aren’t great and the quality of low-light photography is less than expected, even for a mid-range smartphone. What is good is the design – it’s sleek, gorgeous and is extremely comfortable to use, and definitely doesn’t look like a ~£300 smartphone. While it’ll suffice for the likes of Facebook, Snapchat and managing email, we wouldn’t recommend it for high-end gaming or for use as a replacement DSLR. With companies like OnePlus dominating the mid-range scene with high-end internals, it makes it hard to recommend the fairly average Huawei Nova.

Read our Huawei Nova review.

6. Huawei Mate 9

The Mate 9 was once the very best Huawei phone. It has a huge screen, powerful specs and a headphone jack – something the newer Mate 10 Pro lacks.

It’s a bit of a large device unlike the slimmer 18:9 phones we have now in 2018 but if you want to save some money buying a Huawei phone outright, it’s a steal, and also has an enormous battery capacity.

Read our Huawei Mate 9 review.

7. Huawei P9

Although it’s a couple of years old, the P9 is still a solid smartphone. The old flagship can be found for about £300, under half of newer Huawei phones.

Bear in mind the cameras won’t be as good and the software won’t be updated to the newest versions for much longer, but it’s a capable device even today. Though you can get the P10 quite cheap now, too.

Read our Huawei P9 review.