Fall is typically a big time in the smartphone world, with many companies unveiling flagship hardware in time for the holidays. So far this fall we’ve gotten new devices from Apple, HTC, LG, and Samsung, and now Huawei has introduced a new hero product, too.
The Mate 8 is the big — literally — new phone from Chinese smartphone maker Huawei, running Android 6.0 on a 6-inch 1920x1080 display with 2.5D curved glass. As with many of Huawei’s past devices, the Mate 8 is running a customized version of Android, with Huawei’s EMUI 4.0 user interface appearing on top of Google’s software.
Powering the Mate 8 is a Huawei Kirin 950 processor, an octa-core chip that’s made with a 16nm FinFET+ technology. The Kirin 950 also offers what Huawei is calling an i5 intelligent processor to improve battery life by doing things like managing the Mate 8’s sensors, including its gyroscope, compass, and accelerometer. Also packed inside the Mate 8’s full metal body is 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a microSD slot for adding more storage, and a 4000mAh battery.
Like many other flagship smartphones that’ve been released lately, the Mate 8 offers a fingerprint reader for added security beyond a traditional PIN unlock. Huawei says that the fingerprint reader offers improved fingerprint security by recognizing three features of your print: level 1 global features, level 2 local ridge characteristics, and level 3 minute details of your print’s ridges. Rounding out the Mate 8’s feature set is a 16-megapixel rear camera with a Sony-made IMX298 sensor that includes optical image stabilization and an f/2.0 aperture, and around on the front of the Mate 8 is an 8-megapixel camera.
The Huawei Mate 8 will be offered in Champagne Gold, Moonlight Silver, Space Gray, and Mocha Brown color options. It’ll be available in China at a starting price of 3199 Chinese Yuan, or around $500 USD, for the base model with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. Huawei will also offer more beefed up versions of the Mate 8, like one model that includes 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for around $690 USD.
The Mate 8 appears to check most of the boxes that you’d expect from a flagship Android smartphone in late 2015. It’s got a big display, octa-core processor, fingerprint reader, and so on. That 6-inch display might be a bit too big for some folks, even with the phablet trend that’s taken over mobile lately, but the bezels surrounding the Mate 8’s display do seem thin. Huawei says that it’ll show the Mate 8 at CES 2016 in January, so we should get the chance to handle this 6-inch display for ourselves at that time.
