• Knuckle-Sense technology lets you take screenshots with a screen double tap

  • P8max features a battery lasting 2.2 days

  • Light-painting mode lets you draw on your photos in light

 

Following in numerical order of their last devices, Huawei has revealed their P8 Smartphone range and it features two beastly machines: the basic P8 with a 5.2-inch screen (13.2cm) and the P8max with a larger than normal 6.8-inch (17.3cm) display (this should really be called a tablet).

Aside from a collection of high-end competing specs (like a 2GHz Octa-Core Kirin 930 processor and 3GB of RAM in the P8max), the P8 range is focusing heavily on the picture-taking millennial, much like their P7 did.

Huawei’s official ad

Both phones feature a 13MP rear-facing camera and a relatively unimpressive 5MP front-facing one. However, Huawei is insisting that they’ve packed in enough complimentary photography technology to make up for their relatively small MP size.

The rear camera has an image sensor that includes pixels dedicated to measuring white light as well as the more common red, green and blue colour pixels, and both devices feature “best-in-class” stabilisation component that minimises camera shake.

 

Huawei has said that a mix of an advanced sensor and optical image stabilisation tech inside offers superior night photos and the ability to create “light painting” effects with real-time previews.

This mode lets the user draw inside a photo by shining a light from a small torch across the view, opening up new (and very likely irritating) possibilities for the Instagram foodie generation. Light looking doodles on your linguini. Goddamit planet Earth.

The multi-cam filming system lets up to four P8s link together to film an event from multiple angles. Awesome idea in theory but it reminds me a lot of Samsung’s Group Play feature, something I have still yet to see actually used by anyone not working for Samsung or one of its distributors.

Knuckle sense technology allows the user to double tap the screen with their knuckle to take a screenshot. Now this is something that I do see value in, albeit only to those Snapchat readers obsessed with airing their thoughts without first editing said ideas…or the spelling they’re expressed in.

The new P8max is a much larger version of the P8 and within its bigger body (which has a disturbingly thin bezel) they’ve managed to cram in a truly gargantuan 4,360mAh battery that promises about 2.2 days of typical battery life, or about 15 hours of non-stop web surfing or video playback.

Get it: Around June
From: Less than a new Samsung S6

Here’s a quick demo of the light painting feature. (Apologies for the French )