Visitors try out the Huawei Mate S smartphone at the Huawei stand at the 2015 IFA consumer electronics and appliances trade fair on September 4, 2015 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo : Getty Images/Sean Gallup)
Huawei has just unveiled its large-screened flagship smartphone series, Mate 9. Launched in soon after the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 disaster, the sturdy Mate 9 devices come in two designs - a model featuring a 1080p "full HD" display, and a limited edition Porsche brand with twice the resolution of the regular edition.
The Mate 9 runs Huawei's patented octa-core Kirin 960 processor, which the company claims to be the fastest processor developed by it. The company further claimed that it has also made necessary software tweaks to ensure that the smartphone, which is among the first to be powered by Android 7, does not slow down over time, CNET reported.
The phone packs a 5.9-inch display into an all-metal body. However, the device's display resolution is just full HD (1,920x1,080 pixels). On the contrary, the Galaxy Note 7 features 2,560x1,440-pixel display.
On its rear side, the phone houses a dual camera setup, which was first seen in Huawei's P9 phones. One of these two cameras comes with a 12-megapixel sensor and takes color photos, while the second features a 20-megapixel sensor especially meant for shooting only black and white photos. As the black and white snaps taken with the P9 are rich as well as detailed offering a satisfactory contrast, it is expected that the Mate 9 will also deliver impressive photos. Huawei has partnered with Leica for the camera.
Huawei Mate 9 comes with four microphones to cancel active noise during calls, 64GB storage, 4GB RAM, a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a USB-C charging port. The phablet also features infrared blaster to control TVs, in addition to a fingerprint scanner. It houses a modest 4,000mAh battery unit capable of fast charging. However, unlike Apple's Siri or the Google Assistant, the Mate 9 phones do not come with an artificial intelligence interface.
On the other hand, the limited edition Porsche Design of the Mate 9 comes with 256GB of storage, 6GB of RAM and a curved display with higher-resolution. Though the company has unveiled the Porsche Design along with the regular version of Mate 9, it did not confirm how many units of the phone or where it will be available.
The regular edition of Mate 9 starts at $774. The Porsche Design will cost $1,545.
While the Chinese company is trying to promote the Mate 9 subsequent to the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 disaster, many customers in the West still do not consider smartphones manufactured by Chinese first to be at par with their famed South Korean tech counterpart. "Huawei has never been a company to miss an opportunity, and it seems as though it has moved mountains to get the Mate 9 to market as quickly as possible," BBC quoted Ben Wood, from the CCS Insight consultancy, as saying.
Watch Huawei Mate 9 review below:
