Pat PilcherWhat can we expect from the much-anticipated Huawei hottie, the Mate 10? PAT PILCHER pontificates.
Huawei have come a very long way in a very short amount of time. From obscure budget brand, they’ve risen to take the Number 3 spot in the global smartphone market. Because of this, any new Huawei hardware is big news.
The next device expected from the Chinese smartphone maker is the Mate 10. Its launch may be months away, but that hasn’t stopped the rumour mill grinding into overdrive as Huawei fans speculate on what bells and whistles will be bundled with the phone.
One of the more persistent rumours surrounding the Mate 10 is that it’ll have a bezel-less edge-to- edge QHD (2560 x 1440) display. Thanks to smartphones like Samsung’s hugely successful S8/S8+ and Xiaomi’s Mi MIX, edgeless displays are now very desirable.
It isn’t hard to see why either – no bezels equate to more screen real-estate. The big benefit of this is that the phone need not be the size of a small windowless building to pack a decent sized screen. Huawei has already delivered an edgeless curved display with the Mate 9 Pro, which gives this rumour more than a hint of plausibility.
Screen tech aside, multiple rumours have surfaced around the Mate 10’s fingerprint sensor. If the gossip is even halfway correct, the Mate 10 will have its sensor placed under the screen along similar lines to what is rumoured be happening with the iPhone 8. This could mean that the Mate 10 might not need a physical home button. The net result will be more screen at the bottom of the phone. This would in effect see the Mate 10 sporting a screen-to-body ratio of anything up to 83.5 to 85 percent, which is more than Samsung’s S8+.
Huawei’s name has become synonymous with high-end phone cameras since the P9. If the rumour mill is to be believed, the Mate 10 won’t be an exception. Where twin rear mounted mono-colour image sensors are part and parcel of Huawei’s existing flagship smartphone line-up, the Mate 10 is rumoured to be packing twin front facing image sensors as well.
These front mounted dual-sensors are rumoured to consist of a 12MP and 8MP combo. Other players like Oppo with the F3 phone may have already done something similar, but there’s no doubting that this move could give Huawei an edge with the selfie crowd who’ll probably leap at the ability to add depth of field and other image processing trickery that is only possible with two front shooters. Huawei’s strategic alliance with Leica could also provide a competitive edge on the photographic front.
Other rumours also hint at Huawei using an in-house-designed Kirin 970 CPU. It’s an eight-core, 64-bit CPU crafted using the 10nm FinFet+ process, which will consist of four Cortex-A73 high-speed cores (that clock up to 3GHz), plus four slower (and more energy efficient) Cortex-A53 cores (that run at a still nippy 1.8GHz). It’ll also come with an i6 co-processor that’ll be used to handle data from the gyro/accelerometer/GPS, and so on. Graphics are said to be handled by an eight-core ARM Mali-G71 MP8 GPU.
Techy stuff aside, the long short and tall is that Kirin 970 should run cooler, and be able to wring out more battery life while offering better performance than the already quick Kirin 960.
Most punters are also expecting that the Mate 10 will come with 8GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. Prevailing consensus is that it’ll also be powered by Android Nougat, caked in Huawei’s EMUI interface.
So, will the Mate 10 be positioned? In the Huawei scheme of things, it’s an upmarket alternative to the P10 and P10 Plus. This works along similar lines to Samsung’s Galaxy Note which is a larger upgrade to the Galaxy S8/S8 Plus. As such, the Mate 10 is likely to sport more flagship design aesthetics and will be positioned to go head to head with Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8, the Galaxy S8 Plus, and maybe Apple’s iPhone 8. Either way, The Mate 10 isn’t expected to launch until October, which leaves plenty of time for rumours, speculation and of course leaks.
