Huawei has introduced its Mate 9 smartphone at an event in Germany. The high-end cellphone, boasting a dual camera setup like the P9 gets some serious hardware and is built to give the big boys a good run for their money. To start the discussion, the price of the phablet is a rather hefty €699 ($ 770, or INR 51,500) for European countries.
Powering the Huawei Mate 9 has the latest Kirin 960 chipset, with a power packed octa-core processor. Four cores here comprise the new Cortex-A73 clocked at 2.4GHz while the other four are the 1.8 GHz Cortex-A53 cores. The graphic GPU is also a power packed unit in the form of the latest ARM Mali-G71 MP8 powering it. There’s 4GB of Ram which is a full gigabyte more than the P9.
The Mate 9 gets a massive 5.9″ IPS display with a full HD 1080p resolution. Screen protection is provided by a 2.5D glass. Other dimensions and weight are pegged at 7.5mm thick 169 g heavy. The Mate 9 gets Android 7.0 Nougat with Huawei’s EMOTION EMUI 5.0.
The Mate 9 goes one up on the much talked about camera of the P9, introducing us to Version 2.0 of the Leica setup. While similar to the P9 in its dual sensor setup, this one gets a mega, 20 mp f/2.2 monochrome unit and a 12 mp f/2.2 color sensor. Unlike the P9, this one also gets an optical image stabilizer though. Focusing is also super advanced and makes used of a quad-hybrid tech which merges laser, phase-detection, depth, and contrast detection. Artificial lighting is provided by a dual-tone dual-LED flash.
The Mate 9 is also superior to the P9 in terms of video capture. While image stabilization offers its own advantage, the Mate 9 can also shoot 4K videos, unlike the P9, which was limited only to full HD 1080p resolution. Huawei is also claiming that the camera has a new Hybrid Zoom feature, allowing you to zoom in while shooting without losing much detail. We”’ not take Huawei’s word for it, though and wait until we get our hands on the phone.
On the front side, the shooter is an 8MP unit with a wide f/1.9 aperture.
The Mate 9 gets a 64GB ROM, which is expandable through an external card. You also get dual-SIM capability along with LTE. Battery too, is a jumbo 4000 mAh unit, along with support for Super Charge with a 5A charger. The finger print scanner, like in the case of the P9 is located at the rear, has gesture support and is always on.
| Huawei Mate 9 Series | ||
| Mate 9 | Mate 9 Porsche Design | |
| SoC | HiSilicon Kirin 960 4x ARM Cortex A53 @ 1.8 GHz 4x ARM Cortex A73 @ 2.4 GHz ARM Mali-G71MP8 @ 900 MHz |
|
| RAM | 4 GB LPDDR4-1800 | 6GB LPDDR4 |
| NAND | 64/128 GB UFS 2.1 | 256GB UFS 2.1 |
| Display | 5.96″ 1080p LCD | 5.5″ 2560x1440p |
| Modem | 2G/3G/4G LTE Cat 12 w/CDMA |
|
| Dimensions | 156.9 (h) x 78.9 (w) x 7.9 (d) mm |
152 (h) x 75 (w) x 7.5 (d) mm |
| Weight | ~190g | 169g |
| Camera | Dual Rear Camera #1 20MP RGB w/OIS, f/2.2 #2 12MP B/W w/EIS, f/2.2 |
|
| Front: 8MP w/AF F/1.9 |
||
| Battery | 4000 mAh | |
| OS | Android 7.0 with EmotionUI 5.0 |
|
| Connectivity | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2.4 & 5GHz BT 4.2, GPS/GNSS, DLNA, NFC |
|
| USB | 2.0 Type-C |
3.0 Type-C |
| SIM Size | NanoSIM + NanoSIM (microSD) |
|
| Launch MSRP | 699 Euro | 1359 Euro |
The Mate 9 will be available in six shades – Space Gray, Moonlight Silver, Champagne Gold, Mocha Brown, Ceramic White, and Black. The desirable new phone will first launch in China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Thailand, and United Arab Emirates. More markets will join later. Check out an image gallery of this ‘phantastic’ phablet along with its Porsche Design Special Edition cousin below below.
