The Huawei Mate 9 rivals high-end smartphones for only a fraction of the cost

YOU probably haven’t heard about the Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t scaring the world’s tech giants.

JUST because you haven’t heard about the Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei, doesn’t mean the company isn’t rivalling the industry heavyweights.

Having already surpassed Apple and Samsung for smartphone sales in China — only slightly behind fellow Chinese manufacture Oppo — Huawei has its attention on the western market.

The Chinese company is hoping to convince customers to make the switch and its latest flagship is more than impressive enough to achieve this goal.

The Huawei’s Mate 9 is one the best smartphones currently on the market and at only $999, it’s just a smidgen of the price of its competitors.

DESIGN

Huawei’s Mate 9pushes more into the phablet market with its massive 5.9-inch display, which comes complete with full HD resolution.

The device has a rounded metal body and curved edges that blend perfectly with the glass display, which comes fitted with a screen protector for extra durability.

Similar to most Androids, the display only features navigation keys — the physical home button/fingerprint scanner is located on the back on phone.

As is the case with the Google Pixel, the fingerprint scanner can be programmed to open your notification panel by pulling down with your finger.

Huawei also opted to ignore Apple’s lead and kept the 3.5mm headphone jack, which is located at the top of the device.

The rear of the phone houses the Leica dual lens camera, with the design only slightly protruding from the body of the device.

The Mate 9 also includes a SIM card slot on the left-hand side, which can house two SIM cards or a SIM card and Micro SD expansion — taking the phone from 64GB up to 256GB.

CAMERA

Understanding consumers’ insatiable appetite for quality smartphone cameras, Huawei has delivered in a big way.

The Mate 9 includes a Leica rear-facing dual-lens camera with a 12-megapixel RGB sensor and 20-megapixel monochrome sensor.

By combining separate RGB and monochrome sensors, the Mate 9 is able to capture the finest of details and vivid colour signals.

One of the best features of the dual camera is a shallower depth of field, which enables you to set the focus point to make subjects stand out.

Impressively, the camera will allow you to refocus photos after the fact, giving you the freedom to shoot first and tweak later.

Dual camera pixel-binning technology on both lenses promises to double image brightness in lowlight conditions, with optical image stabilisation helping achieve clarity.

The front-facing camera shoots in 8MP and autofocus to help with selfies, while the Mate 9 also supports 4K video recording.

The Mate 9 includes a Leica rear-facing dual-lens camera with a 12-megapixel RGB sensor and 20-megapixel monochrome sensor.

EVERYTHING ELSE

The Mate 9 has a massive 4000 mAh battery, which blows Galaxy S7 Edge’s 3600 mAh Google Pixel XL’s 3450 and iPhone 7 Plus’ 2900 mAH battery out of the water.

While battery life will vary depending on how you use your phone, it has been more than sufficient for use over a whole day from a single charge.

Huawei also offers the ability to “supercharge” the device from zero to full in just 90 minutes.

The phone is backed up by 4GB of RAM and runs on Huawei’s latest octa-core Kirin 960 processor.

Huawei has included the latest Android V7.0 Nougat, with the company’s Emotion UI 5.0 overlaid.

Thankfully, the company listened to a lot of the criticisms from the past versions of the software and have made the themes much more user friendly.

One of the most exciting features of the device is Huawei’s machine learning algorithm, which promises to analyse users habits to allocate processing resources accordingly.

The phone also has a feature called “app twin”, designed with the ability to duplicate the same app for two different logins — think of having different apps for your personal and work Facebook accounts.

Another good app is “Phone Clone”, which scans a QR code from your current device and copies the content and layout to your Mate 9.

In terms of audio, the smartphone has a dual speaker set up, with a downward firing speaker at the bottom of the phone which plays the lower notes, while the forward facing outlet at the top plays treble.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you are looking for a premium smartphone that wont break the bank, this product is for you.

With the market becoming flooded with more and more devices, this phone will make Huawei a name that stands out.

What do you think of the product? Continue the conversation in the comments below or with Matthew Dunn on Facebook and Twitter.