The Chinese telecom giant launched HUAWEI Mate 8 as its flagship smartphone for the second half of 2015. It has been almost 5 years since the handset’s initial release. For context, it debuted around the time when iPhone 6s/6s Plus, Galaxy S6/S6 Edge, and Galaxy Note 5 were the talk of the town. But even after these many years, the phone is getting a new system update, which is unheard in the Android world.

Out of all the smartphones launched in 2015, the Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are the only devices to get regular software updates. These two are even eligible for iOS 14, which is set to release this fall.

Surprisingly, Huawei is rolling out a new system update to Mate 8 with build number 8.0.0.850 (C00) in China. It is probably the first time a five-year-old Android smartphone is getting an official software update from the company.

This handset currently runs EMUI 8.0 based on Android Oreo. For those unaware, it was the first Huawei device to launch with EMUI 4.0 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It got two major Android and EMUI updates as promised by the firm.

The new update for the HUAWEI Mate 8, which is being seeded out after the end of its software support bumps up the security patch level to July 2020. Most importantly, it adds the “Smart Charge” feature, which reduces battery ageing by adapting and preventing the battery from being continuously charged when full.

That said, the OTA update weighs 222MB in size and is currently limited to the Chinese variant of the phone with model number NXT-AL10. We expect the global variants to get it in the coming days.

It is worth noting that a similar update was also rolled out to HUAWEI Mate 9/Mate 9 Pro (2016), HUAWEI P9/P9 Plus (2016), and HUAWEI P10/P10 Plus (2017).

UP NEXT: Huawei to build 45nm chip fabrication lines, HiSilicon Engineers walking out: Report

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Huawei has been on a roll with its EMUI 8.0 update. It has been pushing out the update which also brings Android 8.0 Oreo to a number of its devices. While a large percentage of these devices were released in the last one year, Huawei has now extended the update to older devices.

About a month ago, it announced that phones like the 2015 Mate 8 and 2016’s Honor Note 8 will get updated to Android 8.0 Oreo. And true to its words, the update is now available for these devices and more. The announcement was made yesterday on Weibo.

If you own the following devices you should check for the EMUI 8.0 (Android 8.0) update:

1. Huawei Mate 8
2. Huawei P9
3. Huawei P9 Plus
4. Honor 8
5. Honor Note 8
6. Honor 6X
7. Mate 9, Mate 9 Pro, and Mate 9 Porche Design
8. Huawei P10, Huawei P10 Plus
9. Honor 9
10. Honor V9
11. Nova 2, Nova 2 Plus, Huawei Nova Youth
12. Honor 7X

READ MORE: Huawei Mate 20 Lite may come in two variants

To get the update, head to the Huawei member app on your device, select services and apply for the upgrade to be pushed to your device.

(Source, Via)

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Huawei has announced the rollout of updates to seven models which would usher in EMUI 8.0 based on Android 8.0 Oreo. The models include the Huawei Mate 8, Huawei P9, Huawei P9 Plus, Honor 8, Honor V8, Honor Note 8 and the Honor Play 6X. This isn’t the first time the models would get EMUI 8 updates but the updates have not been across the board. This is the second time and it is still for some a limited time. The updates would be available from 10 am every day from July 9 to July 15. Curiously, just 5000 units of each model will get the upgrade daily for the seven days making a total of 35000 updates for each model will be available.

All those who use the affected models and are interested in the upgrades will be able to access the upgrade page using the member service app that comes along with their phones. After the application is confirmed, the new version can be found in system update section.

Read More: Honor Play Review – A Solid TURBO GPU Smartphone!

Considering Huawei system upgrade pattern, this update which is done using the membership app is basically similar to the OTA upgrade version in terms of functionality, stability, and compatibility. So, there is no fear of bugs on this version. The update brings the total number of Huawei models that have been successfully upgraded to Android 8.0 based EMUI 8 to 20. Before now, Huawei had pushed updates for 13 old models which include the Huawei P10, P10 Plus, Honor 9, Honor V9, Honor 8 Youth edition, Honor 7X, Huawei Nova, Nova 2, Nova 2 Plus, Maimang 6, among others. These are in addition to models like the Mate 10 series which was launched with Android Oreo as well as the Mate 9, Mate 9 Pro and Mate 9 Porsche edition.

(source)

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Recently, Huawei announced the beta testing program of its EMUI 8.1 update with GPU Turbo for the users of Huawei P20 and P20 Pro. Now, the company has announced that it will soon roll out EMUI 8.0 based on Android 8.0 Oreo operating system to its seven smartphones.

The list of older smartphones from the company that will receive the new software update includes Huawei Mate 8, P9, P9 Plus, Honor 8, Honor V8, Honor Note 8, and Honor Play 6X. The company says that the update rollout will begin from 30th June.

This is interesting given that most smartphone manufacturers drop support for devices older than two years. But Huawei is showing that it supports older devices and is rolling out new software update with an aim to further improve the performance of the older devices.

Among the list of older Huawei smartphones that will get the EMUI 8.0 update, the oldest smartphone is the Huawei Mate 8 which was launched in the year 2015. At the time of the launch, the smartphone was running EMUI 4.0 out of the box.

EMUI 8.0, which is based on Android Oreo operating system, comes with artificial intelligence that makes the software experience smarter and quicker. It packs features like Real-Time Scene and Object Recognition, Smart Tips, and AI-accelerated language translation, among others.

The company had previously stated that users can witness a faster and smarter phone experience, powered by advanced AI technological features. Huawei claims that the update significantly cuts down on the number of steps needed to achieve the desired function through its smart applications like navigation dock and smart screen, and enables the user to reach 90% of the core functions in just a single click.

Read More: Huawei Rumored To Launch Its First 5G Phone In June 2019

It also brings some artificial intelligence-based capabilities such as resource allocation, context awareness as well as user behavior prediction. Thanks to Android Oreo, users will also have access to features like split-screen interface, navigation dock, one-hand operation and smart view.

(Source)

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Huawei has launched the beta testing phase of Android 8.0 Oreo for some of its most important handset announced in 2015 and 2016. We are referring to Huawei P9, P9 Plus, Mate 8, Honor 8 and Honor 6X. Yes, even the old Mate 8 and the Honor 8 which was confirmed to stay with Nougat forever due to hardware limitations, will receive the update to Android Oreo. Unfortunately, for now, the beta firmware of Android Oreo has only been launched in the Chinese version.

We do not know when the beta Android Oreo firmware for Huawei P9 and the other handsets will be available outside of China, or when the stable version of the update will be released. According to reports, we will see the final update to Android Oreo on these handsets within H1 2018, so within the end of June. Even the Asian-exclusive Honor Note 8 has been included in the beta testing phase. Note that on all of these handsets, Android Oreo may be the latest major Android update that will be rolled out; it is unlikely that they will be updated to Android P which should instead arrive on more recent and powerful handsets like Huawei P10 and the following ones.

The variants of Huawei P9 and P9 Plus eligible for the beta testing phase of Android Oreo are EVA-AL00, EVA-AL10, EVA-CL00, EVA-TL00, EVA-DL00 and VIE-AL10. Huawei Mate 8 variants included in the beta testings phase are NXT-AL10, NXT-CL00, NXT-TL00. Honor 8 eligible variants are FRD-AL10, FRD-AL00 and FRD-DL00. At last, you can adhere to Android Oreo beta testing in China if you own one of these variants: BLN-AL10, BLN-AL20, BLN-AL30, BLN-AL40, BLN-TL10 or BLN-TL00. The Android Oreo update is obviously customized by EMUI 8.0 and it contains several new features such as Oreo’s picture-in-picture mode, autofill APIs, notification channels and much more.

When do you think these handsets will receive the final update?

(via)

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Huawei first used the dual Leica  cameras on the P9 released earlier this year and perhaps buoyed by the successful outing of the P9, the company did unveil its latest Mate 9 flagship sporting the same Leica camera setup. The Huawei Mate 9 even featured the same pixel size on its dual cameras as those of the P9.

For sake of clarity, the Mate 9 sports a 12MP main color sensor at the rear along with a 20MP monochrome lens which is said to deliver only black and white images and is capable of achieving bokeh effect. The rear cameras came with support for 2X optical zoom and 6X digital zoom, as well as Optical image stabilization (OIS), large aperture, four-in-one hybrid focus, 4K ultra-high definition video.

Right now, though, Huawei has pushed a new system update to the Mate 9. The latest update comes with version number MHA-AL00C00B153 and this update brings in some new features to the flagship. Perhaps, the most prominent of the new features is that the Mate 9’s camera lens is now capable of achieving 10 times optical zoom. What effect that would give to the already powerful Leica dual-lens camera

Read Also: Huawei Mate 9 Teardown Photos Surface Ahead of U.S Release Date

Also, the update has optimized the display of the drawer desktop as well as optimize the loading time of some of the core processes in order to improve performance. In addition, the system update also pushed the latest Google security patches to Mate 9.

source

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Huawei’s next flagship device Mate 9 is expected to drop next month as the company push harder to meet its set target for the year. However, the launch has not been officially confirmed but changes in the prices of its soon to be predecessor, the Huawei Mate 8, seem to strongly suggest the launch may be very near.

The Huawei Mate 8 initially carried a 2999 Yuan price tag but we had seen that reduced to around 2699 Yuan before the IFA Berlin in September. Now the Mate 8’s price has been reduced further to 2199 Yuan on the Jingdong (JD.com) global buy. This price is for the version with 3GB RAM + 32GB of internal storage. In addition, the dual-SIM 4G version has also seen its price reduced to 2299 Yuan from 2699 Yuan, while the version with Full network options took a slight reduction to 2659 Yuan, down from 2999 Yuan.

That is not all, the Huawei Mate 8 China Unicom version with 4G, 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM has got the biggest of price cut seen so far, as it is listed with price tags of 1999 Yuan. Of course that is a hot buy and it is already sold out presently.

Read More: Huawei Mate 9 Rumours: 20MP & 12MP Dual Leica Cameras and 50% Charge in 5 Minutes

The Huawei Mate 9 is expected to come with Kirin 960 Processor, dual Leica cameras, iris recognition, 4GB RAM and 6GB RAM versions as well. The device is expected in three storage versions of 64GB, 128GB and the top most with 256GB which would only be available on the 6GB RAM version. As for the expected price, the Mate 9 would likely start at 3199 Yuan for the 4GB RAM + 64GB ROM carrier specific version, while the version with entire network support would come in at 3399 yuan. The 4GB RAM + 128GB version with full network support comes in at 3899 Yuan, while the 6GB RAM + 256GB ROM full network version starts at 4699 Yuan.

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But in a new twist, the Huawei Mate 8 price has been slashed in China from the 2999 Yuan ($470) the device was initially being sold for, to 2,699 Yuan ($404). This could suggest that the Mate 9 may be closer to being released, even if not at IFA 2016 but sometime very soon.

The 2699 Yuan price tag was spotted in China’s online shop Vmall for the silver-colored 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage version of the Mate 8 and on top of that buyers get a 500 Yuan ($75) coupon to purchase any other product. That means the actual price buyers would be paying for the Mate 8 is 2199 Yuan ($330). Isn’t that an amazing offer? You can also pay on delivery, with free shipping available in China.

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The much anticipated Huawei Maimang 5 has successfully gone through TENAA and has been certified. The device which looks like a smaller version of the Huawei Mate 8 had earlier been tipped to launch on July 14.

Around this time last year, Huawei released the Snapdragon 616 – powered Huawei Maimang 4 which was sensationally tagged the Chinese version of the Huawei G8. And one year on, what is obviously an upgrade of the Maimang 4 is about to shoot.

In appearance, the Maimang 5 sports a striking similarity in design with the Mate 8 albeit an inferior one at that. The device has a borderless design and also features a 5.5-inch Full-HD Touchscreen display.

At the back, the device packs a 16MP camera with LED flash just beside the camera and just under the camera, there is a fingerprint sensor. The Maimang 5 also features an 8MP front facing camera.

The TENAA listing showed the Huawei Maimang 5 is equipped with a 2.0GHz octa-core processor which is thought to be a Snapdragon 652 SoC, although it is likely that it turns out to be the Kirin 650 spec. The device offers both 3GB and 4GB RAM versions as well as 16GB, 32GB and 64GB of on-board storage variants all of which are expandable up to 128GB via microSD card. However, only the high-end 64GB internal storage version will come packing a 4GB RAM.

The listing also reveals the Huawei Maimang 5 will boot Android 6.0 Marshmallow out-of-the-box and crams a liberal 3270mAh battery under its hood.

The Maimang 5 will come in three different color variants; silver, pink and gold and will likely carry a price tag of around 2,000 Chinese Yuan (about US $300). We’re not sure about that though, but the entire information about the price will be made known when the device is officially unveiled come July 14.

(Source)

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IFA 2016 which will be held in Berlin starts from September 2 and ends on September 7. This means that there is still a few months left for the event. However, that didn’t stop Huawei from sending out invites for a launch event, just a day before the IFA.

IFA has always been an important event for Huawei since for the past few years, we have been meeting the new Mate series flagships at the event. The company announced the Mate 7 in September IFA 2014, and last year, we saw a new flagship, the Mate S at IFA 2015. So, this year, we can expect to see a brand new Mate smartphone at IFA 2016. However, considering that last year, the Mate S was announced at this event and the Mate 8 was released only a couple of months later, we wonder whether that will be the case this year as well.

Huawei could unveil the successor to the Mate S, and there are some things which support this possibility. An upgraded Mate S, which could be called as the Mate S2 may debut with Huawei’s new version of Force Touch which is said to come with more functions. But we also have to take into account that Huawei Mate S wasn’t really a big success for the company. So, it’s still doubtful whether this Chinese giant will update the lineup this year.

RELATED: Mate 9 Said To Come With Dual 20MP Cameras Certified By Leica

Another possibility is that, instead of waiting till the very end of 2016, Huawei could unleash its big guns, the Huawei Mate 9 at this event. This would be an ideal time for the launch, since then, the phone can take on the Galaxy Note 7 (another phablet flagship launching in Aug this year) and the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus which should be announced a few weeks later.

Anyway, it’s too early to speculate on the device that will meet us at the event. So, let’s wait for more details in the coming weeks.

(via)

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Huawei released the Mate 8 flagship back in November, and the phone has managed to do well for the company so far. Recently, we spotted a new Huawei smartphone on the Chinese network certification website TENAA and from the overall design and specs, it looks like a variant of the Huawei Mate 8 flagship. So, what is new in this model? While TENAA fails to point out the difference between this version and the one announced last year, it is said that this updated model could come with an improved version of Force Touch.

Huawei was one of the first Android smartphone makers to announce and release a Force Touch enabled device in the market. However, when compared to Apple’s 3D Touch, the Force Touch on Mate S lacked many functions. But now, with this new Mate 8 model, it looks like the company is going to update the version of Force Touch and add many new features.

Design wise, this new Mate 8 version looks identical to the earlier released model. So, you get the same all metal body as well as a 6-inch 1080p display. The phone is quite compact as well, coming with an 8.2mm body. Inside, the device comes with an octa-core 2.3GHz processor which should most likely be the Kirin 950 chip. For memory, you have 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The phone supports dual 4G networks and comes with a 16MP camera with PDAF and CAF along with an 8MP front facing camera sensor. Finally, for battery, you have a 3900mAh capacity one inside. For software, it’s running Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

We are not quite sure under what name will Huawei release this device. Last year, if you remember, Huawei had unveiled the Mate S flagship with Force Touch in September and a couple of months later, i.e. in November, the company unveiled the Mate 8 flagship. We could see a similar launch strategy this year, with Huawei releasing this model as the Huawei Mate 8S (just a possibility) and then unveiling the Mate 9 flagship with improved Force Touch and much more powerful specs sometime late 2016.

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As Chinese smartphone makers are trying to expand their reach to international markets, they often sign up big names to promote their brand. We saw Huawei signing the popular Lionel Messi as the global brand ambassador and just recently, Nubia made its move by signing Messi’s equally popular rival, Cristiano Ronaldo. These two footballers are not just highly popular in Europe but also worldwide, which means associating their name with the brand would be a big leap for these companies.

Now that Huawei’s ambassador is Messi, the company has released the Mate 8 Messi Limited Edition model which will be signed by the footballer. This customized version will feature Messi’s signature at the back. Rest of the features of the phone as well as appearance, seem to be similar as the regular model.

However, Huawei has released just 5000 limited edition models, each coming with a unique number etched on the back. So, each limited edition model will feature a number at the back, starting from No. 0000 till No. 5000. This will be the top-end version of the Mate 8 flagship and comes with 4GB RAM and 128GB of storage. Also, it is priced at 4399 Yuan which comes to around $670. And guess what, it is said that this limited edition model is already sold out in China! Hard luck, if you even thought of getting this Messi signed version.

To recap, the Huawei Mate 8 comes with a 6-inch 1080p display along with the company’s own Kirin 950 octa-core chipset. At the back, the phone features a 16MP rear camera with OIS while up front, there is an 8MP shooter. The phone features a massive 4000mAh battery, a rear placed fingerprint sensor and comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow with EMUI 4.0 on top.

Although this limited edition doesn’t come with its own theme like that we saw on the FC Barcelona Edition of the OPPO R9, Messi’s signature seems to be enough to get this phone out of stock already.

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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?

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Huawei is all set to announce the Mate 8 flagship on November 26, which is just three days away. While we wait for the official unveiling, the company has started sending out invites for the official event. And the company has hidden a clue inside these invites.

Several Chinese media outlets have reported of receiving a disk with 32GB of storage inside their invites. So, what is Huawei trying to tell us? This most likely represents the internal storage of the Mate 8 flagship. Usually, flagships start at 16GB of memory with 32GB, 64GB and even 128GB options available. However, it looks like the Mate 8 will start at 32GB of storage.

As for the other specs, the Huawei Mate 8 will feature Kirin 950 chip with 3GB and 4GB RAM options. There will be a large 6-inch display like the previous generation with FHD 1080p resolution. At the back, the phone will feature a 16MP shooter and up front, an 8MP sensor. Like the Mate 7, the battery is expected to be large, around 4000mAh. As for software, the phone will come with the new Android 6.0 Marshmallow update out of the box.

A recent benchmark listing on AnTuTu had showed that the phone managed to score an impressive 79K points. However, with such powerful specs, don’t expect the phone to retail for a cheap price. In fact, a recent report suggested that the cost of manufacturing the device was well above 1700 Yuan ($266), so you can expect the final price to be quite high as well.

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Today, we have come across a lot of new information about the Huawei Mate 8 flagship. First, it was a report which revealed the cost of manufacturing the device and then, it was another leak which showed us some real life pictures of the device along with possible pricing. Now, the same device has just passed through AnTuTu, which means we know its specifications and benchmark performance.

The Huawei Mate 8 will reportedly come in two different variants, one with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage while the other with 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage. It will be powered by the octa-core Kirin 950 processor and will feature a large 6-inch display with FHD 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. There will be a 16MP camera at the back along with a 8MP front facing shooter. Also, it will run the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS.

With these specifications, we can expect pretty good scores on AnTuTu. According to today’s listing, the phone scores between 76K and 79K on AnTuTu. This is higher than the Meizu Pro 5 handset with Exynos 7420 on board. What’s even more interesting is that this is the v5.x of AnTuTu and it is said that Huawei’s Kirin chips should post better results in the new AnTuTu v6.0. The new version is said to be developed in consideration with a number of chipmakers including Huawei for an open and fair evaluation of all chips.

Huawei Mate 8 will be the first smartphone to feature the Cortex A72 powered Kirin 950 chipset. From today’s listing we can see it posts great results on AnTuTu. Hopefully, it will be able to fulfill our expectations in real life as well.

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Huawei has confirmed that the Mate 8 flagship will launch on November 26. While we patiently wait for the unveiling, the device has just hit China’s 3C Quality Certification website, revealing a few more information.

The Huawei Mate 8 flagship is expected to come in three different variants, NXT-AL10, NXT-CL00, NXT-TL00. These three version will most likely be for the three different state-run carriers in the country, namely China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile. The listing reveals that all the three version of the flagship will support fast charging at 5V 2A and even at 9V 2A taking the maximum effective wattage up to 18W. Given that the phone supports fast charge at 9V 2A, we can expect a large battery (most likely 4000mAh+) on this device.

Other specs of the device are also expected to be pretty high-end. First of all, the phone will run on the newly announced Kirin 950 chipset, which according to the company’s own test rig, managed to score around 83,000 on AnTuTu, well above competitors. It is said that there will be two versions of the device, 3GB + 32GB and 4GB + 64GB. As for the display, you can expect a 5.7-inch screen with FHD 1080p resolution. At the back, there should be a 13MP Sony sensor, while up front, expect an 8MP shooter. Finally, for software, the phone will most likely come with EMUI 4.0 based on the latest Android 6.0 build.

Apart from the Kirin 950 chip inside, the company is yet to confirm the key specifications of the Mate 8 flagship. But from the recent rumors and leaks that we have been seeing about the device, the phone is going to be a high-end device for sure. Naturally, the pricing is also expected to be high, so you can expect it to be higher than $500.

Stay tuned for more details.

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Yesterday, Huawei officially unveiled the Kirin 950 chipset with quad Cortex A72 cores clocked at 2.53GHz and quad Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.8GHz. Later in the evening, the company confirmed that the upcoming Huawei flagship, the Huawei Mate 8 will feature this chip.

The Kirin 950 seems to be a great chip on paper and we would really like to see its performance in real life. With Huawei Mate 8’s launch just a couple of weeks away, we will soon be able to judge the real life performance of the chip. In fact, in the initial test rig set out by Huawei at yesterday’s event, the Kirin 950 powered smartphone managed to score a whopping 83000 points on AnTuTu which is better than any other chip we have seen lately.

Moreover, with Mate 8’s high-end specs and 1080p display (since Huawei doesn’t believe 2K is required on smartphones), the performance should be pretty good. According to a recent listing on GFXBench, we came to know some of the possible specifications of the Mate 8 handset. The flagship will be powered by Kirin 950 with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. There will be a 1080p 6-inch display up front. As for the camera, you can expect to see a 16MP shooter at the back along with an 8MP front facing one. The specs are definitely going to be high-end, so the overall performance should be better than most other phones we have seen recently.

With the efficient yet powerful Kirin 950, the phone should definitely attract the interests of power users. Stay tuned to the site for more updates on the Mate 8 flagship.

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After months of rumors and speculations, Huawei has officially announced the Kirin 950 chipset in China. The company had a special event for the unveiling in the capital city, Beijing earlier today.

The Kirin 950 chipset will come with four Cortex A72 cores clocked at 2.53GHz and four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.8GHz. The A72 cores will make sure that the phone delivers super fast performance while the A53 cores will maintain efficiency of the chip. Unsurprisingly, the chip will be using the big.LITTLE architecture and will be built on the 16nm FinFET process from TSMC. There will be the Mali-T880MP4 GPU on board which Huawei claims is 100% better than Kirin 930’s GPU. Also, the chip will support Cat. 6 LTE networks ensuring download speeds of up to 300MBps.

Another interesting thing about the new Kirin 950 chip is the i5 co-processor on board. This is an always on processor which can work together with Cortex A72 and A53 cores for the best performance. The best part of the i5 co-processor is that its super efficient, using just 6.5mA, that’s 90% drop from the 90mA as compared to its previous generation i3 processor. This controls the various sensors on board the chip even when the phone is in sleep, which means you can expect tremendous improvement in the battery life, especially in the standby mode.

Also, like the previous Kirin 930 and 920 chipset, the new Kirin 950 comes with VoLTE which should enable better voice calls. Overall, it looks like the Kirin 950 a worthy upgrade to the existing Kirin 930.

In case, you are wondering about the benchmarks, the chip powering a device was kept in the presentation, and the phone scored about 83,000 on the AnTuTu benchmark. That’s better than existing chips like Exynos 7420.

Anyways, we expect the Kirin 950 powered Huawei Mate 8 to be announced on November 26, which is just a couple of weeks away. So, stay tuned for more details.

The post Huawei’s Kirin 950 Chip Is Official, Features Cortex A72 & i5 co-processor appeared first on Gizmochina.

Just earlier today, Huawei confirmed the launch of the Mate 8 flagship on November 26. The phone is supposed to come with pretty high-end specs, and in particular, we are all excited to see the performance of the Kirin 950 chipset that will power the flagship.

Just a few hours after the confirmation of the launch, we have got a glimpse of how the Huawei Mate 8 might look like. Like the predecessor i.e. the Mate 7, the upcoming Mate 8 is also expected to feature an all metal build. The Mate 7 was praised for its premium looks and from this image, we feel that the new flagship could also turn out to be quite the looker. Another thing highlighted by the image is the round fingerprint sensor at the back. The Mate 7 had a square one. The sensor is located just below the rear camera.

You can check out the image from down below.

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We have been patiently waiting for the Huawei Mate 8 flagship for the past few months. But instead of Mate 8, we got a Mate S flagship last month. At that time, we thought there won’t be any more releases in the Mate family, but Yu Chengdong surprised us recently by saying that the company will release the Mate 8 before the end of this year.

Now, the CEO has confirmed once again that Mate 8 will release by the end of this year. He revealed that the phone will have a very good display and a powerful camera. Along with this the phone will be powered by the upcoming Kirin 950 processor. He added that the Mate 8 release has been delayed because they wanted to use this chip.
According to the recent leaks, the Kirin 950 will be powered by quad-core Cortex A53 and quad-core Cortex A72. The chip will be clocked at 2.4GHz with Mali-T880 GPU on board. A recent benchmark showed that the chip performed even better than Exynos 7420.
So it would really be interesting to see Mate 8 with Kirin 950 on board. Since we are just a few weeks away from the year end, we can expect a launch pretty soon.

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Huawei’s CEO Yu Chengdong had earlier hinted that the company will release its Mate 8 flagship smartphone before the end of the year. This was just a few weeks after the company unveiled the Huawei Mate S smartphone with Force Touch. Now, the latest news from China states that the Huawei Mate 8 will reportedly enter production stage. It is said that Foxconn has received the Mate 8 smartphone for mass production.

This further confirms that we will see the Mate 8 pretty soon. Since Chengdong had said that the release should be before the end of the year, we can expect it sometime in December i.e. a few months after the Mate S debuted. It should be much more powerful as well, as it is said that the phone will come with the next generation version of Huawei’s Kirin chipset, namely the Kirin 950.

The Kirin 950 is expected to be much powerful than existing offerings in the market right now. Even Chengdong had said earlier that the chip is faster than MTK and Qualcomm chips. But, how powerful is it exactly? Well, the chip was spotted on Geekbench in August and it managed to beat the current leader, the Exynos 7420 pretty easily.  The Kirin 950 reportedly scored 1909 in single-core and 6096 in multi-core test. That’s way higher than the powerful Exynos 7420 in both the test (1486 & 4970 respectively). So, we are all excited to see the performance of the chip in real life.

According to rumors, the Kirin 950 will come with quad-Cortex A53 and quad Cortex A72 cores with Mali-T880 GPU. Other specs include Tensilica Hi-Fi DSP, dual ISP, i7 co-processor and Cat. 10 LTE support.

You can expect the Mate 8 to be a high-end device, with a 6-inch force touch display, a large battery, 21MP camera and an all metal body.

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There’s no denying in the fact that people love phablets. Although initially, not everyone was convinced that a super sized smartphone was the solution to all problems, the tremendous success of the large screen phones like the Samsung Galaxy Note series and the iPhone 6 Plus just proves this point. We have seen the number of phablets increase in the past couple of years, and it is said that the figure is only going to increase further in the coming years. So, its not surprising that almost every manufacturer has a phablet in their smartphone lineup.

A few months back, Yu Chengdong the CEO of Huawei said that the company aimed big, and was looking to compete with the likes of Samsung and Apple. Unlike other Chinese manufacturers who are competing to get a share of the mid-range and low-end market, Huawei has already said that it aims to take a piece of the premium segment. The recently announced Huawei Mate S does confirm the company’s intentions, but a new leak reveals that the company is preparing itself for something even bigger.

According to a report from South Korea, Huawei is said to be working on a new phablet that would directly compete with Samsung’s Galaxy Note 5 flagship. What’s more, since the display size is going to be big, Huawei is reportedly talking with different stylus manufacturers for its new phone. In fact, this Chinese company is said to have already contacted Wacom for developing the stylus for its new device, but due to reasons unmentioned in the report, the deal didn’t quite work out. So, Huawei seems to have partnered with another Stylus manufacturer for competing with Wacom’s products. While there could be many reasons for the deal not working out with Wacom, the fact that Samsung owns a piece of the company could have affected the decision.

Anyways, we can see that Huawei is slowly and steadily making its mark in the premium segment. The Huawei Mate S is a worthy device and this Samsung Galaxy Note competitor, (is it the rumored Huawei Mate 8?) with a stylus could be another hit too. For this to work out, the new Huawei device should be powerful (Kirin 950?) as well as feature rich.

Since we have very little information about this new flagship, lets wait and watch what Huawei has in store for us in the coming months.

The post Huawei Working On A New Phablet With Stylus To Take On The Galaxy Note 5? appeared first on Gizmochina.

Huawei was supposed to incorporate the upcoming Kirin 950 chipset inside the Huawei Mate S that was announced earlier this month. However, the company sticked with its existing Kirin 935 chipset, the same one that powers the Huawei P8 and the Honor 7.

To be honest, Kirin 935 is not really a full fledged flagship SoC, given that there are many chips in the market that can easily outperform it. Agreed that the Cortex A53 cores will offer better battery life, but then performance matters a lot in a flagship device.

Well, it looks like we won’t have to wait too long to see the next generation Kirin 950 chip and if rumors are to believed, then the upcoming processor will be quite powerful. Huawei’s CEO Yu Chengdong had earlier hinted that the Kirin 950 was going to be very powerful, even faster than Mediatek and Qualcomm chipsets.

According to the latest information, Huawei will debut its Kirin 950 chipset next month and there will be at least two smartphones before the end of this year that will be powered by this processor. One of these will be the Huawei Honor 7 Plus, which is expected to launch sometime before the end of 2015. The second smartphone to feature Kirin 950 is believed to be the Huawei Mate 8.

As for the specs, the Kirin 950 chip will be based on the TSMC 16nm process. It is said that TSMC’s issues with 16nm FinFET is the reason for the delay of the chip to the end of the year. The SoC will feature quad Cortex A72 cores and quad Cortex A53 cores with a maximum clock speed of 2.4GHz. There will be ARM Mali T880 GPU on board, with support for LPDDR4 dual channel RAM, UFS 2.0 and eMMC 5.1. Further, the chip will come with a self developed ISP, i7 co-processor, Tensilica Hi-Fi 4 independent audio DSP and support for LTE Cat. 10 connectivity.

As you can see, the specs reveal that the Kirin 950 is aimed for the high-end market. The Cortex A72 cores will make sure that the performance is top-notch while the remaining four Cortex A53 cores will help maintain power efficiency. In fact, in the leaked Geekbench benchmark result, the Kirin 950 reportedly scored 1909 in single-core and 6096 in multi-core test. That’s way higher than the powerful Exynos 7420 in both the test (1486 & 4970 respectively).

Anyways, before we get too excited with the news, let wait for some more details about the chip. Huawei has not yet officially announced any details about its Kirin 950 nor has it revealed any event for next month. So, lets hope to hear more about the chip in the coming days.

The post Huawei Kirin 950 Chip Details Leaked, Coming Next Month? appeared first on Gizmochina.

Huawei has confirmed that it will be announcing a flagship on September 2 just before IFA Berlin. We have already seen a video which shows us a Mate device (we are not yet sure its the Mate 8) with subtle design changes as compared to the Mate 7. Now, we have come across another video showing off a new Mate flagship in an all black body.

The video shows that the body will be extremely thin. It looks like the thickness is under 7mm. The back will be slightly rounded with a curved design, that should provide a comfortable grip. The camera placement is traditional, on the top at the back, along with the fingerprint sensor just below it.

What’s interesting is the port at the bottom. It doesn’t look like any of the USB ports that we have seen lately, not even the reversible USB Type-C. Could it be a new magnetic port? Possible, but we cannot be sure of that at the moment. Huawei had said that the new Mate flagship will bring an advanced technology that will surprise the world. Could it be this tech?

Another interesting part of the device is the unique white button at the side. It stands out from the body and looks like a special function key. Also, it doesn’t look like this device is made out of metal. Instead, Huawei seems to have used plastic or polycarbonate body on the device.

Anyways, now we have two different devices that claim to debut at IFA Berlin this year. Let’s see which one of them is finally launched by the company in September.

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Huawei is all set to announce a flagship just before the start of IFA in Berlin. We are still unsure whether it will be the Huawei Mate 8 flagship or the Mate 7 Plus as rumored earlier, but earlier today, a new video was posted on YouTube which showed off the device in action.

While the video is of just 18 seconds, it was enough for a basic walk-through of the new design of the device. Apart from a few changes, the overall design seems to be the continuation from the Mate 7 flagship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4NNQU35KZs

As for the specs, the Mate 8 is rumored to come with a 6-inch 2K display (490 ppi) along with Huawei’s latest Kirin 950 chipset. This new chip is expected to directly compete with the upcoming Snapdragon 820 processor from Qualcomm. Like tradition, Huawei is also said to offer two different versions of the Mate 8, one with 3GB RAM + 16GB of storage while the high-end model with 4GB RAM + 64GB of storage.

There will be a 20.7MP camera at the back, with a fingerprint scanner just below it. According to reviews, the fingerprint scanner on the Mate 7 was one of the best in the market at that time. So, it would be interesting to see if we find better tech on the new Mate 8. Up front, the phone is expected to come with an 8MP shooter, ideal for selfies. Finally, the battery is expected to be larger than the Mate 7. This would really be a great move since the current Mate flagship comes with a 4100mAh capacity battery and anything more than this should only increase the overall battery life of the phablet.

Unfortunately, the company hasn’t officially revealed anything about this upcoming Mate flagship. Also, the phone in the video may be a different device than the Mate 8. So, before making any more conclusions, lets wait for some concrete information about the upcoming flagship.

The post Huawei Mate 8 Leaked In A Video! appeared first on Gizmochina.

Huawei has just announced that the company will be unveiling its new flagship in the Mate lineup, namely the Huawei Mate 8 on September 2. Like tradition, the unveiling will be at IFA in Berlin this year.

We have seen a number of smartphones from the company in 2015 like the Huawei P8, Honor 7, Honor 4C, 4A, etc. This would be the third major smartphone flagship from the company this year, which clearly shows the amount of investment in the smartphone market.

The company hasn’t officially revealed any details for the Mate 8, but it is said that the phone will feature the new Kirin 950 64-bit chip with 3GB / 4GB RAM versions. Like the previous generation Mate 7, the new model is also expected to come with an all metal design. There should be a 20.7MP camera at the back along with a fingerprint sensor. Other details are scarce, but we can expect to hear a lot more information in the coming days.

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Huawei Mate 7 was one of the best flagship smartphones of 2014. The all metal design and fingerprint sensor made sure that the phone was ahead of its competitors.

Now, Chinese media has given out some information of the upcoming Huawei Mate 8. The phone is said to retain the same all metal design as the Mate 7. This is actually a good move since Mate 7 was well designed and solid looking. The display resolution will be bumped up to 2K, instead of just 1080p. Also, the screen to body ratio will be as impressive as the current generation model. The phone will sport the company’s own Kirin 930 chipset under the hood and will support Cat. 6 LTE network.

Another highlight of the phone will be its rear camera, which is expected to feature Sony IMX220 sensor with 20.7MP resolution. This will be a much needed upgrade from Mate 7’s 13MP camera unit. Other specs are still unknown but fingerprint recognition will also be available on the unit.

As always, we advise you to take this news with a pinch of salt. A recent leak (product roadmap of Huawei) revealed that the phone will launch in June, so expect more details pretty soon.

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