UPDATE: Company has revealed the pricing for the three variants. The 3GB + 32GB version starts at 2999 Yuan ($469), 4GB + 64GB at 3699 Yuan ($578) and finally 4GB + 128GB at 4399 Yuan ($688).
After so many weeks of teasers and rumors, Huawei has unveiled the brand new Huawei Mate 8 flagship. This is the second device in the Mate family this year, with the Mate S launched just a couple of months back.
Huawei Mate 8 will stand right on top of the Mate family, featuring top-end specs. The device, as confirmed earlier will feature the company’s brand new TSMC’s 16nm based Kirin 950 chipset. The chip is one of the fastest available SoCs in the market, at least according to the recent benchmark tests. It features quad Cortex A72 cores clocked at 2.3GHz and quad Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.8GHz making sure there’s balance between high-performance and efficiency. Huawei revealed at the unveiling that the new CPU provides 100% improvement as compared to previous generation. The GPU is even better with 125% improvement.
There will be three variants of the device, one with 3GB RAM and 32GB of storage, another with 4GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage and finally the third one with 4GB RAM and 128GB of storage. We still don’t know whether there will be a MicroSD card slot present.
As for the display, the phone comes with negative LCD screen with 95 percent color gamut, better than the iPhone 6S Plus, as the company pointed out at the launch today. Its a large 6-inch screen with FHD 1920 x 1080p resolution. There’s a diamond cut 2.5D glass on top to improve the looks. The company has particularly focused on the quality of workmanship. The Mate 8 comes with an all metal body as we saw in the earlier leaked renders. What’s more, the company has kept the bezels to a minimum, measuring just 2.7mm on the sides.
Coming to the camera department, you get the latest Sony IMX298 16MP camera sensor at the back with dual LED flash. This is a larger sensor as compared to the one found on the Mate 7 as well as iPhone 6S. It also features a brand new ISP and features such as intelligent scene recognition and slo-motion video capture at 120 fps. Up front, you get an 8MP shooter with special beauty algorithms for better selfies.
As for battery, Huawei has smartly incorporated a 4000mAh capacity high-density battery inside, which should be able to power the device for a day long. In fact, according to company’s official figures, the phone should last for about 2.36 days on average usage and 1.6 days of heavy usage.
The phone also features the fast fingerprint sensor at the back like the Mate 7. Other notable specs include VoLTE, dual SIM dual standby with 4G support and NFC.
Finally, for software, you will get the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow version with Huawei’s own Emotion UI on top. There are many software specific features such as Knuckle Touch 2.0, Split Screen multi-tasking, smart SMS etc.
Unfortunately, the company has not revealed the exact date of availability or even the pricing. For that we will have to wait until next year, as Huawei will showcase it at CES 2016.
So, what do you think about the Huawei Mate 8? Impressed?
