The Mate 8 is now officially Huawei’s top large-display phone, with a 6-inch FHD (Full HD, or 1080p) display and a Display to Body ratio of 83%, which is at the top of the scale. Don’t miss our complete review of the Mate 8.
The industrial design uses an evolution of the design language from the Mate 7 and Honor 7, which has proven to be successful. Huawei has not yet revealed all the information related to the size and weight of the product, but looking at the photos, the phone seems thin and premium-looking.
The build quality should be very similar to the Honor 7’s which is reassuring. We will definitely compare the two when a unit arrives to the office. The phone comes in white, black, champagne and mocha and will feature a 2.5D display which is slightly curved towards the edge. This is a premium touch that makes the feel of the screen smoother when holding the phone.
The 1080p display may be curious to some users, but it’s consistent with Huawei’s long-standing policy of using that resolution in order to save battery – and cost. With the LG G3, we already know that battery can be minimally affected if the display refresh is kept under control when nothing is animated, therefore cost control seems to be quite important here.
Inside, Huawei is using its own Kirin 950 processor aka, which is the most powerful at their disposal. Equipped with 8 Cores (4xA72 cores at 2.3GHz+ 4xA53 cores at 1.8GHz), it should position the Mate 8 quite well relative to the competition (read: Are more cores, better?). Huawei typically doesn’t aim for the absolute speed, but for a great speed/price ratio.
There’s also the i5 sub-processor, which is used for constant awareness of the sensors (sensor fusion), but also offloads tasks such as music playback firewalls, voice-controls and other display-OFF activities. The i5 should consume orders of magnitudes less power than the Kirin 950, so the more things it can handle, and the better for the battery life.
The Mate 8 will be powered by Android 6.0 (aka Android M), and will be first available in China. Although the press release does say “currently available in China” (today), it also says “will be unveiled at CES”, so we assume that the actual U.S availability will happen post-CES 2016.
