After making its international debut last year, the Huawei Mate 9 will soon arrive in the US.
Huawei’s Mate 9 will launch in the US on January 6 at a price of $599.99. It’ll be available in Space Gray and Moonlight Silver colors, and you’ll be able to snag one from more than 600 Best Buy stores as well as Best Buy’s website, Amazon, Newegg, and B&H Photo Video.
One notable feature that’s coming to the Mate 9 is Amazon Alexa. Yes, the same voice service that powers the Amazon Echo and other devices is coming to the Mate 9, this the first smartphone to include Alexa. With Amazon’s Alexa, Mate 9 owners will be able to control their smart home devices, check the news, and more using their voice.
It’s expected that Alexa will be added to the Mate 9 in February.
The rest of this Mate 9 is similar to the international model that launched in 2016. The Mate 9 features a 5.9-inch 1920x1080 display, octa-core Kirin 960 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, dual SIM slots (one of which doubles as a microSD slot), a rear fingerprint reader, a 4,000mAh battery with fast charging, and a USB Type-C port.
One highlight feature of the Mate 9 is its rear camera setup. There are two rear cameras here, with one 12-megapixel RGB sensor and a 20-megapixel monochrome sensor, the latter of which helps to capture details and depth in photos. The cameras also include optical image stabilization, laser focus, phase detection focus, depth focus, and contrast focus.
The Huawei Mate 9 runs Android 7.0 Nougat below Huawei’s custom EMUI 5.0 interface.
It’s great to see Huawei bringing the Mate 9 to the US, and at $599.99, it’s a pretty compelling option for anyone interested in a new phablet smartphone, especially with the demise of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. At that price, the Mate 9 is a bit cheaper than competing flagships, but you’re still getting a pretty solid spec list and Android 7.0 out of the box.
