South Africans will have fond memories of Huawei‘s premium Mate lineup. The opportunity to make more memories should arise soon since the Chinese brand has unveiled its new Mate 70 handset.
The announcement was made at an event in Shenzhen by Huawei Consumer Business Group Richard Yu, who claimed that this handset is “the most powerful Mate phone ever”. He wasn’t referring to all four models unveiled, of that we’re fairly certain. That accolade possibly belongs to the Huawei Mate 70 Ultimate Design.
My new Mate 70
It could also belong to the Pro or Pro+ models announced alongside the vanilla Mate 70. Weirdly, there’s little specification detail for the basic and Ultimate Design model but we’ve got a fair idea of what the other pair will consist of.
The Pro and Pro+ share a camera system — Huawei is stacking a main 50MP variable aperture sensor (f/1.4 to f/4.0), though the pixel colour system is subtly different between the two phones. Both have a 40MP f/2.2 ultrawide and a 48MP f2.1 telephoto with optical image stabilisation, as well as something called a “red maple primary colour camera”. We’re guessing that’s like a black-and-white sensor but with a specific colour tint. The function should prove much the same as its retro counterpart.
The Mate 70 Pro and Pro+ share a display — a 6.9in 2,832 x 1,316 OLED with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate will throw images at users’ faces. The stock phone drops to a mere 6.7in 2,688 x 1,216 OLED. The Pro models host three hole punches in their displays that provide space for 3D sensors and the front cameras. They will also support gesture controls.
The Mate 70 Pro/Pro+ have 5,700mAh batteries, 100W wired charging, and generative AI and LLM support will be built into the handsets from launch.
Speaking of launch, there’s no information on an international release yet. The handsets are confirmed for China and while we’re expecting them to turn up here (and most other countries), that’s not official. Yet.