Huawei has unveiled its new flagship smartphone, the Mate 9, at a press conference in Munich. The 5.9-inch phone with a full metal body and full HD screen comes with the company's latest processor, the Kirin 960 with machine learning. This runs a quad-core, 2.4 GHz Cortex A73-based processor alongside a 1.8GHz quad-core based on the Cortex A53. The Mate 9 also comes with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB internal storage.
The Mate 9 features a new dual-lens camera developed with Leica, Huawei's second cooperation with the company. The camera is based on a 12-megapixel/F2.2 RGB sensor and 20-pixel/F2.2 monochrome sensor that merge images to create sharper photos. It also comes with optical image stabilisation and a 4-in-1 auto-focus with laser focus, phase detection focus, depth focus and contrast focus. In addition, the smartphone features a 4,000 mAh battery with Huawei's SuperCharge technology which promises a full day's charge in 20 minutes.
Huawei also presented a complete update of its EMUI user interface with the Mate 9, which runs Android 7.0. Huawei said the EMUI 5.0 helps the phone become more intelligent and efficient over time by understanding consumers’ behavior patterns, and ensures the highest priority applications are given preference subject to system resources. This should lead to a longer life for the phone, according to the company.
In addition to the Mate 9, the company introduced a new fitness band and sleep tracker, the Huawei Fit, as well as a high-end version of the Mate 9 designed with Porsche, with a smaller 5.5-inch, curved screen.
The Mate 9 will launch in mid-November in a choice of six colours for a recommended price of EUR 699, while the Porsche version will cost EUR 1,395. The first markets to receive the phone will be China, Malaysia, Thailand, Germany, France, Poland, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Japan, Kuwait and the UAE. Additional markets will follow, and a person familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that the Mate 9 will also be Huawei's first smartphone to reach the US. It should launch there in January, through online channels rather than operators, the paper said.
The Huawei Fit costs EUR 149 and will launch first in the US and later this month in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal.
