Today’s Huawei event finally brought us the Mate 9 phablet, with dual camera in tow, relying on Leica tech, just as expected. There’s also a special version, but it’s not the Mate 9 Pro as leaks called it, but rather the Mate 9 Porsche Design. All about the newcomer is revealed below.
One thing to notice first is the increasing number of partnerships that Huawei has formed over the past year. We’ve got Leica on the camera front and then Harman Kardon for the acoustics of the MediaPad M3, plus Porsche Design for the Mate 9. Now let’s see what this phablet has to offer.
Design
Huawei Mate 9 adopts a metal unibody case, with slightly rounded edges and 2.5D glass panel upfront. The waistline is rather slim for a 5.9 incher, at 7.5 mm and the device will be available in 6 color versions, including grey, silver, gold, brown, ceramic and black. The weight is an excellent 190 grams and the facade looks typical for a Huawei.
Hardware
Inside we find the very powerful HiSilicon Kirin 960 processor, an octa core unit clocked at up to 2.4 GHz. There’s also an ARM Mali-G71MP8 GPU, 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage, as well as a microSD card slot. The battery is a 4000 mAh unit with support for Super Charge tech, that juices up the phone to 58% in 30 minutes, with the aid of a 5A charger.
Huawei Mate 9 also gets 4G LTE connectivity, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, A-GPS/Glonass and dual SIM slots. NFC is also in the mix, as well as an infrared emitter, letting you control TV sets and other gadgets around the house. We must also mention the screen is a 5.9 inch IPS Full HD unit.
Camera
This may be the core aspect of the phone, since it’s a dual camera setup with Leica tech, that evolves what the Huawei P9 and P9 Plus already offered. This second gen Leica camera setup includes a monochrome 20 megapixel sensor with F/2.2 aperture and a 12 MP F/2.2 color sensor. Both sensors have optical image stabilization and rely on a brand new 4 in 1 hybrid autofocus, with laser, phase detect, depth and contrast detection in the mix.
There’s also a dual tone/dual LED flash in the mix and continuing with novelty, we find a Hybrid Zoom feature, that lets you zoom up to 2X without losing too much quality. 4K video capture is also here. Selfies are taken with an 8 MP shooter with F/1.9 aperture and autofocus.
Porsche Design Limited Edition
Remember the Huawei Mate 9 Pro? Well, the dual curved edge version of the Mate 9 has turned into a Porsche Design model, with 6 GB of RAM and a hefty price. The back is also curved symmetrically to match the front and their meeting point is just 3 mm thick, meaning the metal frame is very slim here. There’s a flexible AMOLED panel curved towards the side and the Porsche Design Mate 9 keeps the 5.9 inch diagonal of the main model, but offers Quad HD resolution.
It shares the same Kirin 960 CPU, but the RAM goes to 6 GB and storage to 256 GB. The same Leica camera setup is at the back, but the fingerprint scanner is upfront this time.
Price and availability
Both models run Android 7.0 Nougat with Emotion UI 5.0 and they’ll reach European countries, plus Japan, Kuwait, China, Saudi Arabia and more. The price of the Mate 9 is $775, while the precious Mate 9 Porsche Design goes for $1547, which is simply mental, even for a precious limited edition device. Even the Huawei CEO seemed puzzled when saying this price…
