Smartphone manufacturers are constantly updating their lineup, and so it was no surprise when once such device popped up briefly, before it was noticed to have already been released.
This particular rumor about a new phone in the Huawei lineup surfaced via prolific tipster Evan Blass who has the Twitter account with the handle @evleaks. Blass posted a tweet with an image of an upcoming device with the codename GR5, and it seemed to be running an old version of EMUI.
This tweet was soon picked up and reported as "mysterious new" smartphone by 9to5 Google on their website. However, shortly thereafter Blass deleted the tweet.
While Blass did not provide any reason for deleting his tweet about the rumored smartphone, it appeared that he had realized the device had already been released. Even as his tweet was deleted, several smartphone aficionados were quick to point out that the dual cameras on the rear were similar to that of the Mate 9 Lite which was quietly release this month by Huawei.
Others speculated that the image tweeted by Blass was the Honor 6X which has also been released. However, with more similarities being noticed in the image of the rumored phone compared the Mate 9 Lite; most of the buzz around the device has died down.
Regular updates to smartphone lineups, is a tactic that has borne fruit for Chinese manufactures. Huawei has also bought into this trend and has a number of high end and mid range devices. Earlier this month, the company even bought out the Mate 9 Lite and added it to the Mate 9, Mate 9 Pro and the Mate 9 Porsche Design. The Mate 9 Lite was billed as a mid range model when it popped up on the Huawei website and the company did not make much of its arrival according to GSM Arena.
As for the Mate 9 Lite, it has a Kirin 655 processor onboard and sports 3 GB RAM. The onboard storage is 32 GB and it does not have a microSD slot for expanding storage. However, when it comes to pricing the Mate 9 Lite has been attracting attention as it is cheaper than the other models in the range.
Video introducing the Huawei Mate 9 Lite smartphone.