Huawei's new smartphone series “Mate 70” without Android with yet unknown chip
The cell phone models come with HarmonyOS and high-end cameras. They offer 3D face recognition and satellite reception, but there are only rumors about the chip.
Huawei Mate 70 Pro
(Image: Huawei)
Huawei has unveiled the new Mate 70 series of premium smartphones in China. The four models in two sizes feature a high-quality camera with variable aperture and support 3D facial recognition in addition to the obligatory fingerprint sensor. In emergencies, help can be called via satellite even without mobile phone reception. The Mate 70 no longer use an Android operating system, but instead use Huawei's own HarmonyOS, but we can only speculate about the chip used so far.
Mate 70, Mate 70 Pro, Mate 70 Pro+ and "Mate 70 RS Ultimate Design" will still be delivered with HarmonyOS 4.3 when sales start next week in China, but can be upgraded to 5.0 when the next version becomes available. This operating system, previously known as "HarmonyOS Next", will not only be pre-installed on the Chinese manufacturer's smartphones in the future, but also on its own notebooks from 2025, defying Windows and Linux as Huawei's PC operating system.
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This year, however, HarmonyOS is still reserved for smartphones such as the Mate 70 series. These will be available in 6.7 and 6.9 inch sizes, with only Huawei's Mate 70 being available in the small size. The most affordable model in the new series is also the only one with a flat design and, at 7.8 millimetres thick, also the thinnest. The Pro versions are 8.2 to 8.25 mm thick and have a rounded frame. All Mate 70s are IP69 water and dust resistant.
AMOLED screens with variable frequency
While the screen of the Mate 70 has a resolution of 2688x1216 pixels, this increases slightly to 2832x1316 pixels on the 6.9-inch Pro models. All 70 models have an LTPO AMOLED display with a variable frame rate of 1 to 120 hertz. The screens of the Mate 70 series are protected by second-generation Kunlun glass, the Chinese version of Gorilla Glass, which is designed to minimize damage caused by dropping.
Huawei Mate 70 Serie (4 Bilder)
Huawei
)At the top center of the screen is an ultra-wide-angle front camera with an f/2.4 aperture for selfies with 13 megapixels. This is the same for all Mate 70 models, but the Mate 70 Pro offers a 3D depth camera for unlocking the smartphone using facial recognition, in addition to the fingerprint sensor in the power button, to which users of the Mate 70 are limited. The power button also allows the control of various functions such as an AI assistant or muting by double or long pressing.
Promising camera equipment
The main camera of the Mate 70 series delivers 50 megapixels via a variable aperture of f/1.4 to f/4.0 and optical image stabilization. There is also an ultra-wide-angle sensor with 40 megapixels and f/2.2 aperture. While the Mate 70 also offers a 12-megapixel periscope lens with 5.5x optical zoom via an f/3.4 aperture, the Pro models have 48 megapixels and 4x zoom with f/2.1 aperture.
A special feature of the Mate 70 series is the new and dedicated spectral image sensor in the center of the camera module on the back of the smartphones. Compared to previous RGGB or RYYB sensors on earlier Huawei phones, this sensor is able to capture more color data in order to improve the color fidelity of photos, render skin tones more naturally and better represent shadows. According to the manufacturer, this sensor works together with the other lenses and should be able to reproduce colors naturally even in low light.
Huawei Mate 70 Serie in Szenen (4 Bilder)
Huawei
)The Mate 70 has a battery with a capacity of 5300 mAh, which can be charged with 66 watts via USB-C and 50 watts wirelessly. The Mate 70 Pro has a 5500 mAh battery and the Mate 70 Pro+ even has 5700 mAh. Both models can be charged via cable at 100 watts and wirelessly at 80 watts.
Mate 70 chip still unconfirmed
Due to the US sanctions, Huawei is no longer allowed to import smartphone chips to China and has to rely on its own developments, for example from the Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon. Last year, the predecessor of the Mate 70 series showed that China produces competitive 7-nanometer chips, such as the Mate 60 Pro's Kirin 9000S processor manufactured by SMIC. Although Huawei does not reveal which chip is in the Mate 70 models, there is speculation.
According to this, it is the Kirin 9100, which is manufactured by SMIC in China using 6-nanometer technology (SMIC N+3). Although this is an improved production stage compared to the 7 nm chip of the Mate 60 Pro, it is still significantly behind Qualcomm or Apple chips in terms of development technology, which are currently produced using 4 or even 3 nm technology. According to Gizmochina, the Kirin 9100 is made up of eight ARM cores: one Cortex-X1, three Cortex-A78 and four Cortex-A55. Huawei's chip would therefore be several generations behind, as this chip configuration roughly corresponds to the Snapdragon 888, Qualcomm's first smartphone processor with a Cortex-X1 ARM core, which was unveiled at the end of 2020.
It remains to be seen how this will affect the performance of the Mate 70 series. The new smartphones will not be available in China until December 4. Depending on the model, the phones are equipped with 12 or 16 GB of main memory and 256 GB to 1 TB of storage space, with prices starting at the equivalent of 723 euros for the Mate 70, 855 euros for the Mate 70 Pro and 1118 euros for the Mate 70 Pro+. Huawei has not yet announced whether these smartphones will also come to Europe.
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