Huawei has thrown every possible feature at the P10, its new flagship phone that debuted yesterday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The phone is available in eight colours and even with a ceramic white finish. In a word it's gorgeous, and while it looks slippery like the jet black iPhone, it actually has some stickiness to it, which gives it grip, but more on that later.

Like the LG G6 and the new Sony Xperia line up – also unveiled at Mobile World Congress – the Huawei P10 now includes Gorilla Glass 5, so the phone should survive most drops from up to 1.6 metres.

The device is stupidly thin – much thinner than the other flagships on display. Like those other flagships, it is also quite narrow, making it easier to grip and still hit most touch targets on the screen. Huawei was quite proud to tell us that despite its thinness, there is no camera bump on the back of the phone, in a nod to current iPhones.

The P10 continues the maker's partnership with Leica, first seen in the P9 and continued in the Mate 9. It's utilises similar dual lens technology as seen in the iPhone 7 Plus. I've written many times on the dual lenses of Huawei phones, and how I prefer it's portrait mode to the iPhone's. It's sometimes more aggressive in applying "fauxkeh", or fake bokeh, making the images look a little odd at times, but at any time you can pull focus after you've taken the photo, to calm it down a little. The ability to pull focus in post is something I wish the iPhone 7 Plus would adopt. And at least in my testing, when shooting an 18-month-old toddler, the Huawei always grabs a useable shot whereas the iPhone needs a subject that moves a little slower.

The camera of the P10, which is an improvement from the P9's, is branded the Leica Dual-Camera 2.0 Pro Edition. Seriously. It has a wider aperture of f1.8, making it a better camera in low-light conditions. And the main camera, the colour sensitive one, has optical image stabilisation, making it much better for video.

The new selfie camera is also supplied by Leica. While it doesn't have the same portrait dual lens, it does seem like a nice upgrade its new wide f1.9 aperture and a wider angle.

Huawei specified the phone to be water resistant, but interestingly it has not received the IP68 certification. When pressed, the company said the phone is good enough to tweet in the rain, but don't try taking photos of your kids in the surf – the one disappointment for me.

Huawei compared the P10 Plus to the iPhone 7 Plus in many of its slides, pointing out that while the hardware is slightly smaller and thinner than Apple's flagship, it has a larger screen and battery.

But the range of colours and finishes was the highlight of the announcement. The Huawei P10 comes in eight colours - familiar black, silver and "rose gold" (pink), and introducing new Pantone-inspired green and blue variants. And if that's not enough, there are three different finishes – diamond cut that is designed for better grip, the smoother "sand blasted", and the mentioned ceramic white that is actually highly polished white aluminium. It will be interesting to see which variants Australian carriers order - I hope our normally conservative carriers splash out a little and support the variety of colours on offer.

Like most of Huawei's phones, the P10 punches well above its weight. It has all the feel and features of a flagship, while still being priced well below the current market leaders. Its predecessor, the P9, is the camera we use most to capture our baby's first moments, and I'm looking forward to testing the new and improved Leica camera over the next few weeks.

The author travelled to MWC in Barcelona as a guest of Huawei.