Huawei Mate 8 with 6-inch display, Kirin 950 SoC, Android 6.0 goes official

Huawei has outed the Mate 8, the company's latest smartphone at an event in China. The body of the Mate 8 is made from aerospace-grade aluminum and comes with thinner edges and 2.5D curved diamond cut glass.

The Huawei Mate 8 features 6-inch Full HD IPS display with 2.5D curved diamond cut glass. Under the hood there is an octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 950 SoC that has four Cortex-A53 cores running at 1.8GHz and four Cortex-A72 clusters spinning at 2.3GHz paired with Mali T880 GPU. It comes with 3GB RAM w/ 32GB storage or 4GB RAM w/ 64GB or 128GB storage. It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Emotion UI 4.0 on top and the storage can be expanded via microSD card.

For imaging, it is equipped with 16-megapixel rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, Sony IMX298 sensor, PDAF, OIS and f/2.0 aperture. For taking selfies you get a 8-megapixel front shooter.

It houses hybrid dual-SIM slots, which means users can either use two SIM cards or a Single SIM card alongside a microSD card. In terms of connectivity, the Mate 8 supports 4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz/5GHz), Bluetooth 4.2 LE, GPS and NFC. It has a circular fingerprint sensor which sits on the back and takes just 0.5 seconds to unlock the device. It is fueled by 4000mAh battery. 

The device measures 157.1 x 80.6 x 7.9mm, weighs 185g and comes in Champagne Gold, Moonlight Silver, Space Grey and Mocha Brown colors.

Pricing of various variants of Huawei Mate 8 are as follows-

• 3GB RAM + 32GB storage China Unicom Version - CNY 2999 ($470 | Rs. 31,000)
• 3GB RAM + 32GB storage Standard 4G version - CNY 3199 ($500 | Rs. 33,500)
• 4GB RAM + 64 GB storage model - CNY 3699 ($580 | Rs. 38,500)
• 4GB RAM + 128GB storage model - CNY 4399 ($690 | Rs. 46,000)

The Huawei Mate 8 is now available for order via vmall in China and will go on sale from December 9. It will also be showcased at CES 2016, and will be made available in other markets starting from Q1 2016.

Huawei Mate 8 leaked teaser points to November 26 unveiling, Possible specs, pricing and more details

Huawei will launch its upcoming phablet, the Mate 8 on November 26, for which the company has sent out invites. Like always details of possible specs and pricing are already out.

The Huawei Mate 8 is expected to ship with the company's own Kirin 950, which is set to be announced on November. The smartphone is expected to pack the same Force Touch technology as the Mate S.

Already, a Huawei handset under the Alias NXT-AL10 said to be the Mate 8 has been listed on GFXBench. As per the listing, the Mate 8 features 6-inch 1080p display and is powered by Huawei's home brewn 2.2GHz octa-core Kirin 950 processor with Mali T880 GPU and 4GB RAM. On-board storage is 64GB, out of which 53GB will be available to users. There is also a second variant with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage. 

It is equipped with 13-megapixel rear camera with a maximum resolution of 4806 x 3456 and 8-megapixel front facing camera with maximum resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels. The device will run Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

In addition a leaked photo that were taken from Foxconn factory points out that the Mate 8 sport metal frame. It will house hybrid dual nano SIM tray, in which one slot can be used either for a microSD card or nanoSIM card. Another photo that surfaced online, indicates that Mate 8 will have round camera, round fingerprint sensor, and the lozenge shaped dual LED flash on the back.

Coming to the pricing of the Huawei Mate 8, the 3GB RAM w/ 32GB and 4GB RAM w/ 64GB storage will purportedly set you back by $520 and $610 respectively. Considering the specs the Mate 8 has to offer, the pricing is justifiable.