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The camera on the Mate 8 is particularly impressive. On paper it has a 16MP sensor, a slight upgrade to the 13MP sensor on the Ascend Mate 7. In practice, that makes a big difference, and I've found results much better on the newer phone.
Shooting with the Mate 8 is reasonably simple. You can just take the phone out of the box, turn it on and get a great image without having to fiddle around in the settings. The auto-photo mode is good in itself and I got acceptable results by just pointing and shooting the phone.
Other options with the rear camera include video, time-lapse, beauty and light painting. Light painting is useful for when you want arty images of car headlights but not much else. It takes a small segment of video and then blurs together all the images to give you what it expects the image should look like. Light graffiti, silky water and star track modes all vary the effect on your photos.
Huawei sticks beauty mode on all its devices. It automatically blurs out blemishes, creating an inhuman mannequin effect. Here you have 10 levels of "beauty" to choose from: anything over five takes you to waxwork town, but it could save the most exacting selfie takers some time with Photoshop.
Above is the shot with beauty mode off; below is with it on five out of ten.
You can also use beauty mode on the rear facing camera but it didn't work as well as when using it on selfie shots, probably because the the camera struggles to identify faces from a greater distance.
One big negative about the Huawei Mate 8 camera was blur. I found it quite easy to blur an image with the slightest movement of the camera and I think Huawei could do with putting some time into its autofocus technology to improve that.
The Sony Xperia Z5 series comes with an incredible autofocus that means you get steady shots almost every time, no matter what you're doing. I'd like to see Huawei adapt a technology like that into its next range of cameras.Night shooting was particularly impressive on the Mate 8. I got some really good shots of street lighting, including one of the tip of the Shard.
On both the front and rear facing cameras, there's a little button in the bottom right that gives you a variety of lenses for your photos. It means you can shoot your photos in that Instagram-feel sepia before you upload it.
Those options range from mono to nostalgia to dawn – but are mostly useless. If you want a treatment on your photo, just apply it after taking the image.
In terms of video recording, the Huawei Mate 8 doesn't offer 4K, which is featured in many of its rivals. Instead it goes all out on the Full HD recording, and I think it's all the better for it. I don't find much use for 4K video recording and it's especially useless when the phone only has a 1080p screen.
There is a slow-mo mode, but few other options for processing video, and some will miss 4K recording. But I don't, and pointing and shooting for a quick video clip will suit most users.
