If there’s one thing you want to say about Chinese smartphone brands, it’s that they really know how to up their game. Huawei’s latest phablet, the Huawei Mate 7 (Also known as the Ascend Mate 7 internationally), is no exception.
Just a month after their announcement of the Mate 7 at its international launch, we’re already seeing the phablet here in Malaysia.
So what exactly can we expect from this new phablet from Huawei? First off, you can expect some pretty good looks. The Mate 7 is encased in what Huawei says is 95% metal with an aluminium alloy structure. It only weighs 185g and is 7.9mm thin. Think HTC’s One M8 except with a bigger screen.
It has some pretty impressive innards as well. It touts Huawei’s own octa-core processor, the Kirin 925. The processor is made up of four large A15 1.8GHz cores and four smaller A7 1.3 GHz cores. By utilising the cores based on app configurations and power needs, the Mate 7 is able manage its power a lot more efficiently.
Huawei has claimed that by utilising the A7 cores, the Mate 7 can save up to 50% of power consumption on apps that wouldn’t usually need the power of a larger processor. And if you need to kick it up a notch, like say in gaming, the Mate 7 will then switch over to the larger A15 cores.
Being a phablet, the Mate 7 of course comes with a larger than usual screen, in this case a 6-inch, Full HD touchscreen. There’s also a 13-megapixel snapper on the back that uses Sony’s 4th gen BSI sensor and has an f/2.0 aperture.
For storage and memory however, the Mate 7 has two flavours. A standard version which comes with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, and a premium version, which has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. Of course both can be expanded up to 64GB via microSD. The Premium version has the additional feature of dual-SIM support. This is where it gets interesting. It seems that their microSD slot in the premium version can double up as a second SIM slot. The downside however is that if you choose to run two SIMs on the premium version, you won’t be able to use the microSD slot for memory expansion.
The phablet also comes with a single-touch fingerprint sensor that’s located at the back of it. Users can pair up to five sets of fingerprints that can be tied to either the phablets normal or guest modes for better privacy and protection. And if you’re worried about battery life, the Mate 7 comes with a whopping 4100mAh battery. That ought to last you a while. Also it comes with LTE Cat6 connectivity.
The Mate 7 will be running on Android 4.4 KitKat and it’ll be enhance with Huawei’s own Emotion UI 3.0.
So how much can we expect to fork out for the Mate 7? Since it comes in two variants, there’s of course two prices. The Standard version will be retailing at RM1,799 and it comes in two colours, Moonlight Silver and Obsidian Black. The Premium version on the other hand, will retail at RM1,999 and will come in Amber Gold. Both will be available from 14 November onwards.
Additionally, if customers purchase the Mate 7, they will be entitled to a free RM128 smart cover as well, that is until stocks last at least.
You might also want to read:
Lenovo brings in new YOGAs to Malaysia
Casio unleashes new G-Shock in Malaysia
5 free gaming documentaries on YouTube
