The Huawei Mate 9 will be the Chinese tech giant’s next flagship smartphone. The device has been rumored often over the past few months, and if latest developments are anything to go by, it will be unveiled officially in a few weeks’ time. Huawei has just sent out emails to the media, saying that its next flagship smartphone will be announced officially by the company’s CEO, Mr. Richard Yu, at an “exclusive press conference” to be held on November 3rd in Munich, Germany. While the company didn’t mention the Mate 9 by name, the Mate 8 was originally announced last November, so it probably wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to expect Huawei to unveil its next-gen flagship twelve months after the Mate 8 announcement.
Over the course of the past several months, Huawei has launched a number of smartphones globally, including the Nova and Nova Plus handsets that were launched at the IFA 2016 trade show in Berlin earlier this month. The company has also launched other premium handsets during this time, such as the P9 and P9 Plus that were announced in London earlier this year. Both devices come with premium hardware all around, but what sets them apart from many others in the category is a dual-camera setup that Huawei reportedly developed in association with renowned German optics firm, Leica. From what has been leaked about the upcoming Mate 9, it is also expected to come with a dual-camera setup thanks to the recently-signed agreement between the Chinese telecom giant and the German optics firm to jointly set up a research and innovation center at Leica’s global headquarters in Wetzlar, Germany.
Talking about the hardware that’s rumored to be a part of the upcoming Huawei Mate 9, the device is expected to feature a giant 5.9-inch display panel with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. The handset is expected to be powered by the powerful HiSilicon Kirin 960 SoC, which is designed in-house by Huawei. The premium version of the handset is expected to come with 6GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, and may cost as much as 4,700 yuan ($700) if rumors in the Chinese online tech media are anything to go by. The device is also expected to carry a 4,000mAh battery and run Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box.