Reality has caught up to rumour, with Chinese company Huawei (you know who they are) announcing its Mate 70 Air smartphone for its home country. As expected, both from the name and prior leaks, it’s a skinny little critter. The handset measures just 6.6mm through its middle — it has a way to go to beat the Galaxy S25 Edge’s 5.8mm or the iPhone Air’s 5.6mm — but Huawei has chosen to keep as many features as possible intact.
Performing a 70 Air
The Mate 70 Air uses a frankly massive-for-a-smartphone 7in display, a 2,760 x 1,320 AMOLED effort with a 120Hz refresh rate. The company has made a slightly odd choice, with different processors supporting the RAM options. Buyers who opt for 12GB of system memory get Huawei’s Kirin 9020A chipset, while those with the 16GB version have the Kirin 9020B. No, we’re not sure what the difference is either.
The phone’s rear camera island hosts three image sensors. These aren’t as extravagant as Huawei usually lays out, probably because there’s not enough internal space for the really good stuff. Still, a 50MP f/1.8 main sensor, with optical image stabilisation, a 12MP secondary telephoto and 3x optical zoom, and a 1.5MP colour sensor are there for the snapping. A mere 10.7MP front-facing camera lives in the screen.
The standard run of connectivity options, including 5G (probably because it’s a China-only release for now), and an IP68/69 waterproof rating, are included in the Mate 70 Air’s toolbox. Pricing for the phone is expected to start at R10,300 for the 12GB/256GB model, while the 16GB/512GB Mate 70 Air will run buyers R12,700. Don’t expect those prices to carry over to South Africa, though. We’ll see a markup, if and when it makes its way over here.
