Huawei’s latest phablet is a high-powered device with design help from Leica and Porsche.
It was in May 2016 that Huawei revealed local plans for the Mate 8 handset it announced back at last year’s CES. Huawei didn’t wait for CES 2017 to roll around to reveal its latest smartphone, the Mate 9. The Mate 9 will come in two different variants, with a very high-end (and high priced) Porsche Design Mate 9 model alongside the regular Mate 9 handset.
Huawei Mate 9: What is it?
In terms of specifications, the regular Mate 9 is a 5.9 inch Full HD (1920×1080) phone running Android 7.0 (“Nougat”) on an octa-core Kirin 960 processor with 4GB of RAM. The pricier Porsche variant bumps the storage up from 64GB on the regular Mate 9 to 256GB storage, 6GB of RAM and a 2K-capable screen. Charging is via Huawei’s own proprietary “SuperCharge” fast charging standard with a claimed 58% battery charge possible within 30 minutes of charging time.
Like Huawei’s very nice Huawei P9, the Mate 9 features a dual camera setup developed with Leica that uses a 12MP colour and 20MP monochrome sensor. When the Mate 9 takes a photo, it merges the two pictures together for a richer overall experience, although it should also be able to shoot in just black and white if that’s to your taste. Charging will be via USB C, which is fast becoming the norm for non-Apple premium handsets.
Huawei Mate 9: Australian release date
The regular model of the Huawei Mate 9 will go on sale in Australia on 7 February 2017 for outright sale through JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman in Mocha Brown, and on contract through either Optus or Vodafone in Space Grey. The model sold outright will be a Dual SIM variant, while the Optus and Vodafone variants will be single-SIM phones.
Huawei Mate 9: Price
Huawei’s announced price for the regular model of the Huawei Mate 9 is $999.99.
Huawei has informed us that it has no plans at this stage to launch the deluxe Porsche variant of the Mate 9 on local shores. If you were both super-keen and rather cashed up you could feasibly import one. Have your heaviest credit card at the ready however, as overseas pricing for the Porsche version starts at 1395 Euro, which means that after conversion you’d pay more than $2,000 for one.
Huawei Mate 9: Review
The Huawei Mate 9 impressed us with both its processing power and photographic ability. For its asking price it’s a very impressive phone, as our reviewer noted:
The Mate 9 is an exceptional entry into the 2017 smartphone space, and one that puts every other phone maker on notice. Even if Huawei has jumped into the premium pool first, giving everyone else time to engineer further phone miracles, it has set a very high performance bar indeed.
You can read our full review of the Huawei Mate 9 here.
Huawei
Mate 9
OS
Android 7.0 (“Nougat”)
Screen size
5.9in
Resolution
1080×1920
Display density
373ppi
Storage
64GB
Weight
190g
Processor
Octa-core Kirin 960
Rear camera
20/12MP
Front camera
8MP
Battery
4000mAh
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