Huawei today took to the IFA 2015 stage to reveal its latest Android flagship and share some details on its new Android Wear offering, as well.
The Huawei Mate S is the company’s next big Android phone, both literally and figuratively. It’s got a 5.5-inch 1920x1080 screen, but Huawei promises that the Mate S is comfortable to hold thanks to its 7.2mm-thick body and side edges that measure 2.65mm thick. Adding to the in-hand comfort factor is a curved unibody design.
Huawei is also talking up the Mate S’s display features. The 5.5-inch AMOLED panel has 2.5D glass with curved edges and includes Force Touch. Similar to the feature on the Apple Watch — and possibly the upcoming iPhone 6s, too — Force Touch can detect the amount of pressure that you’re using to touch the screen and display different functions.
Huawei’s not stopping the interactivity features there, though, because the company is also including Knuckle Control 2.0 tech that lets you perform actions with your knuckles. For example, you can draw a C on the screen to launch the camera, or double tap the screen with a knuckle to start video recording the screen.
Another way to interact with the Mate S is with your fingerprint. Huawei says that its Fingerprint 2.0 tech offers 100 percent faster recognition speeds and more accurate self-learning. Like many other fingerprint readers, the Mate S’s sensor can be used to unlock the phone, but you can also use it to control the notification bar, double click to clear notifications, slide to preview photos, and hold to accept phone calls.
The Mate S’s raw spec list includes a 13-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization and a RGBW sensor that can offer higher brightness in high contrast situations as well as reduced color noise in low light. There’s also an 8-megapixel front-facing camera, 32GB of storage, 3GB of RAM, a 2700mAh battery, and an octa-core Kirin 935 processor. Software-wide, the Mate S has Android 5.1.1 running beneath Huawei’s custom EMUI 3.1 user interface.
The Huawei Mate S will launch in more than 30 countries, with pre-orders starting in Western Europe later this month. However, Huawei notes that the Force Touch-enabled version of the Mate S will only be available in “select markets.” Pricing for the non-Force Touch models will be set at €649 ($729 USD) and €699 ($785 USD) for the 32GB and 64GB models, respectively.
The Mate S looks like a nice flagship phone, offering a metal unibody and a large screen in a package that you shouldn’t have to stretch your fingers too much to hold on to. The Knuckle Control 2.0 feature is…interesting…but the Force Touch feature could make interacting with your phone easier by letting you Force Touch on items rather than having to move your fingers around the screen to press different buttons in a cluttered up UI. And it can act as a kitchen scale, too!
