Huawei is stepping up in the flagship smartphone area with the launch of the brand new Mate 8. Needless to say, this would replace the Ascend Mate7 as Huawei’s resident phablet which was surprisingly enough one of the first devices from Huawei to feature a fingerprint scanner back in 2014. With an eye towards the big boys in the industry, the Mate 8 is targeting the high-end market with a premium design and state of the art hardware.
Similar to the outgoing Mate7, it still gets a 6″ Full HD IPS display that features a pixel density of 386 ppi and is reinforced with Gorilla Glass 4. Under the hood, this metal unibody phablet has the Chinese tech giant’s own top of the line octa-core 2.3 GHz Kirin 950 processor that’s been accompanied by a Mali-T880 MP4 GPU.
As for its optics, the Mate 8’s rear camera uses a Sony IMX298 16 MP Sensor which is similar to the one that’s on the Xiaomi Mi 5. It is further assisted with Optical Image Stabalization (OIS), dual-LED flashlight and Phase Detection Auto-Focus (PDAF). For selfie junkies, it gets a large 8 MP front camera. Like other recent offerings from Huawei, it too gets a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner that unlocks instantly with a single tap.
Powering the device is a huge 4,000 mAh battery which Huawei has boldly claimed can last 1.5 days on a single charge. The battery is so large in fact that it can even be used to charge other smartphones should the need arise. The Mate 8 supports dual-SIM 4G LTE functionality and it accepts a MicroSD card on its hybrid SIM tray slot.
Also announced at today’s launch event are the Huawei MediaPad M2 10.0 and two new variants of the Huawei Watch being dubbed Elegant and Jewel.
The MediaPad M2 is said to be a great working tool, with its stylus capable of 2,048 pressure levels in order to give an authentic pen and note feeling. As for multimedia enthusiasts, the MediaPad M2 comes with speakers from Harman Kardon which ensure that the sounds would resonate with loud and quality audio.
As for the 2 new variants of the Huawei Watch, nothing much has changed really besides the overall aesthetic. This is not necessarily a bad thing however as it is still the same Huawei Watch experience that we have seen, just being slightly tailored for women this time with an elegant watch face.
As many as two variants of the Huawei Mate 8 will be offered: the Standard – which has 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage – and Premium (4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage) models. The Standard variants come in Moonlight Silver and Space Grey, while the Premium models are available in Champagne Gold and Mocha Brown. The Mate 8 retails at RM 2,099 and RM 2,399 for the Standard and Premium models respectively. The phone can be purchased through VMall and Lazada.
Huawei also launched the MediaPad M2 10.0 that will be available by late April, with four variants priced at RM 1,299 and RM 1,699 (Wi-Fi only) and the LTE versions coming in at RM 1,599 and RM 1,999. The MediaPad M2 10.0 would be available in Gold and Silver color variations.
The Huawei Watch Jewel and Elegant editions, priced at RM 2,299 and RM 1,999 respectively. Huawei has given an approximate date in April as well for the launch, so we are expecting it to be launched alongside the MediaPad M2 10.0.
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