Recently, Porsche Design made available on their website the official accessories for the Mate RS. This is a review of the official red Leather Flip Cover for the Mate RS.
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Not too long ago, we published an article talking about the release of the accessories announced by Huawei during the launch of the P20, P20 Pro and Mate RS in Paris last March. After Porsche Design made available the flip covers, wireless charger and cases on their website, we decided to purchase the red variant of the flip cover and the wireless charger. This review will only look at the red flip cover, and a different review will be made on the wireless charger.
First of all, availability. We’ve only found the case on two places: Aliexpress and Porsche Design’s webstore. We bought ours directly from Porsche Design.
This flip cover is more or less the same one as the included in the box of the Mate RS, except we’ve noticed a curious difference. We’ll talk about this more in detail a bit further.
Now, the price. The Flip cover costs 149 euro, both for black or red. It is a steep price for an accessory, but keep it in mind that, officially, there’s only three accessories for the Mate RS: the flip cover, the wireless charger, costing 89 euro, and a standard case, costing 129 euro (which we didn’t buy). Shipping, inside of the EU, is free, and VAT is included in the price.
Ordering is a quite standard experience. You just need an account on Porsche Design’s webshop, which you probably have if you bought the Mate RS directly from them, add the item to the cart, pay, and it will be delivered by UPS two or three days later, inside of the EU.
The unboxing is rather ridiculous. The case is inside a very nicely designed box, shipped inside the usual Porsche Design box (that’s the ridiculous part, that such a small item is shipped in such a big box…).
The Flip cover itself is protected with paper, and the box includes a small paper with instructions on maintenance and conservation of the product.
The first contact once out of the box is quite nice. The surface isn’t exactly soft, but isn’t too rugged either, making it quite pleasant to touch. Visually, the protector definitely screams luxury, due to its finish and colour.
Concerning the product: the “Flip Cover Leather Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS”, or basically the red flip cover leather case, is nearly identical to the case supplied with the Mate RS. We have it in black and bought the red version. The case is made of leather, with a transparent Smart View window, for notifications or the hour. The camera cut-out borders on the case has ceramic around it. The paper inside of the box claims the protector is made of high quality European leather.
The finish of the product is excellent. If anything, the quality seems even higher than the quality of the supplied case with the Mate RS. This impression comes from a few details:
- The flip cover seems to close a bit better, aligning properly with the corners
- The camera cut-out, on the bought accessory, seems to be of higher quality. The supplied case’s cut-out seems to just be made out of plastic, while the bought one is “ceramic-bordered”. Whether this claim is true or not, the cut-out is definitely of much higher quality and more luxurious. This is rather curious, if anything.
- Another difference between the included case and the bought case is the location of the Porsche Design logo and Huawei’s logo. While on the included case, the Porsche Design logo is inside the case, therefore hidden, and Huawei’s logo is outside, on the bought accessory, this is the contrary. The Porsche Design logo is on the back, visible (and even covered in ceramic too?), while Huawei’s is found on the inside.
Those are the only real differences between both products, if we exclude the colour, obviously.
Let’s move on to the colour, actually. The pictures we’ve taken don’t really showcase this properly, due to the lightning. On our pictures, it seems the case is bright red, which isn’t the case. The colour is more along the lines of… warm red. It definitely isn’t a red that immediately attracts everybody’s eyes, as it is rather discrete, but it is rather pleasant to look at it. The colour doesn’t correspond 100% to the colour shown on Porsche Design’s website either. If anything, the real colour is between Porsche Design’s shown one and our pictures, but it does look very nice.
The use of the phone with the case isn’t too different of what is expected. It can be problematic or uncomfortable to use if you plan to take a lot of pictures, but even there it’s fine. The cover can be folded 360º and holding it this way is fine too. On the table, the P20 Pro’s protector offers more resistance, with the Mate RS protector slides a bit more.
For the resistance to chocs and scratches, the protector is average in this category. It definitely resists lights chocs and small scratches are invisible, but our black protector got some pretty bad marks and slightly visible scratches on the back due to the P20 Pro’s protuberant camera (and its extremely sharp borders!). On the black cover, these scratches are only visible if you know what you are looking for, and under the right light conditions/angle. We therefore recommend being a bit more careful with this cover than with other, cheaper ones, such as avoiding putting keys in the same pocket.
We’ve compared the Mate RS case(s) to the P20 Pro official flip cover case, which is sold for 29 euro. The difference in quality and finish are definitely there, with the Mate RS flip cover being, easily, leagues ahead of the P20 Pro’s official flip cover. The P20 Pro’s protector is made of some kind of cheap-ish plastic, with a rather basic finish. Visually, anybody can tell the difference, and would probably pick the Mate RS cover immediately. If Porsche Design had a flip cover case for the P20 Pro, we would probably buy it, even at 149 euro, due to the difference it makes on the device and device usage.
A question that some people may ask is, is it possible to charge the Mate RS with the wireless charger without removing the flip case? We’ve tested it, and yes, it is possible. We don’t know whether this will have a positive or negative impact on the leather, so we’ll avoid charging the phone wirelessly with the case on. From our testing, the phone doesn’t heat up too much while using the wireless charger, so it should be fine.
So, conclusion. The product is sold for 149 euro, which is probably what most people will keep in mind. Is the product worth 149 euro? This is a rather philosophical question. We could enter in the whole debate of “luxury products are never worth their price”, and say that no, obviously not, the product is not worth 149 euro. But if we say this, then nothing is really worth its price. Especially not the smartphones we can find on the market lately, sold for 900+ euro.
Putting this aside, yes, we believe this product is worth the price tag. The finishing is of much higher quality than the included case, which, sure, outsiders won’t notice it, but the user will. We’ve definitely noticed it and enjoy using the device even more now.
On top of this, if you have the black version and would like to have the red one, well, yes, it is worth it too. Not only because there’s no real other choice for official cases for the Mate RS, but also because this is definitely an excellent product.
DRSC Media rating: Extremely recommended.
Thank you very much to the Brussels Huawei Experience Store for letting us take pictures of the product in their store.
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