Battery life had been simply in one word amazingly good!!
Based on my usage mix of wifi n LTE on mainly internet based stuffs ( browsing, RSS, tweeter, facebook, mail, news feed, youtubes) n plenty whatsapp (50+ a day), some calls, audio I could easily record at least 9-10 hours SOT. With only wifi on I projected it could go up to  12 hours !!
Is overall even much better than previous Mate7
The battery app function is very useful n I basically turn off all background auto load app except for whatsapp n maildroid

Depend on how seller declared it. Both my V10 n this Mate 8 was declared as digital camera with value I remember about us100+
So both phones delivered to me directly and I need not pay any GST or apply sirim permit
If custom hold it is quite easy to apply sirim - I have posted a guide on Nexus6 thread page1 on how to do it. GST of 6% you can pay directly to courier company
Don't ever allow courier to apply sirim as they usually charge another expensive service fee of rm200-300 on top of the rm100 for sirim permit. Just do yourself all online