China’s Huawei has unveiled its Mate 70 series, a move that unequivocally signals a comprehensive decoupling from US technology, encompassing both hardware and software aspects.
The latest Mate 70, Mate 70 Professional, Mate 70 Professional+, and Mate 70 RS phones boast an innovative feature: they don’t rely on hardware from a US-based company and, crucially, won’t run mainstream Android applications.
Without question, getting your hands on Huawei’s latest smartphones in the US is a daunting task.
Despite nearly five years of US-imposed sanctions, Huawei has achieved remarkable double-digit growth in China, where it traditionally dominates the market.
The Mate 70 series also boasts a unique triple-camera setup, which enables users to capture stunning high-definition images and videos. Additionally, the phone features advanced AI-powered photography capabilities, allowing for intelligent scene detection and automatic adjustments to ensure optimal results.
Design
All four Mate 70 units share a common, unremarkable design language. While the standard Mate 70 adheres to modern trends with its flat body and screen, the Mate 70 Professional and Professional+ models stand out with their unique, four-sided curved displays. This design alternative appears to be an exception in the latter part of 2024.
The rear shells of all four iPhone models feature a prominent digital camera module surrounded by a distinctive ring. The system houses all cameras and sensors at the rear.
The Mate 70 Professional and its premium variant, the Mate 70 Professional+, feature a unique triple-punch hole design on their front facades, setting them apart from other devices in this category. The triple camera setup serves the selfie camera, while the other two cater to Face ID-like biometric unlocking and gesture-based navigation featured in Huawei’s latest phones.
The Mate 70 series boasts unparalleled endurance, thanks to its IP69-rated water and mud resistance capabilities, ensuring unwavering safety against powerful water jets.
The Huawei Mate 70 and Mate 70 Professional will be available in four colours: Spruce Green, Hyacinth Purple, Snow White, and Obsidian Black.
The Huawei Mate 70 Professional in Spruce Green (Image Credit: Vmall).
{Hardware} and specs
The Mate 70 model comes equipped with a 6.7-inch OLED display, while the Mate 70 Professional and Mate 70 Professional+ boast 6.9-inch OLED screens featuring an impressive 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate. According to Huawei, professionals can achieve approximately 2,500 nits of brightness.
Following the US-imposed ban, Huawei has traditionally kept quiet about its primary hardware specifications, at least in formal settings. While specifications for Huawei’s Mate 70 series remain undisclosed, it is reasonable to speculate that some or all models may employ a variant of the Kirin 9100 processor. Manufactured by Chinese semiconductor giant SMIC, this chip is built on a cutting-edge 6nm process node, showcasing the company’s capabilities in advanced lithography and manufacturing technologies.
The Huawei Mate 30 Pro’s display (Picture credit: Vmall).
While many other smartphone chipsets have migrated to more environmentally friendly 3nm manufacturing processes, Huawei’s 6nm Kirin 9100 remains a significant upgrade over its 7nm predecessor that powered the Mate 60 series. The Kirin 9100 processor boasts an all-ARM design, featuring a premium Cortex-X1 core, three mid-range Cortex-A78 cores, and four power-efficient Cortex-A55 cores.
The upcoming Huawei Mate 70 and Mate 70 Pro will boast an impressive 12GB of RAM, accompanied by a range of storage options: 256GB, 512GB, or a substantial 1TB. The Mate 70 Professional+ and Mate 70 RS boast a generous 16GB of RAM, paired with either 512GB or 1TB of on-board storage for seamless multitasking and ample data storage.
Digital camera
The Huawei Mate 70 Professional and Mate 70 Professional+, boasting a trifecta of cameras and an enhanced sensing system. The primary camera on each device features a 50-megapixel sensor, boasting a versatile aperture that seamlessly adjusts between an impressive f/1.4 for low-light conditions and a more conservative f/4.0 for everyday photography. Here’s an updated version:
The new substitution replaces traditional inexperienced pixels with yellow ones, allowing both purple and green light to pass through and potentially boosting the camera’s low-light performance, colour accuracy, and delivering more natural-looking skin tones.
The rear of the cellphone features an innovative XMage spectral imaging sensor that enables precise colour reproduction by capturing accurate data from 1.5 million distinct spectral channels.
The telephoto camera features a high-resolution 48-megapixel sensor with an aperture of f/2.1, offering impressive sharpness and low-light performance. Additionally, it offers 4x optical zoom, ideal for capturing distant subjects or compressing perspectives in your photography. Identically designed as the primary camera, each sensor features distinct pixel patterns: RGGB on the Professional and RYYB on the Professional+, showcasing unique configurations between models. The Mate 70 Professional features a 40-megapixel ultrawide camera equipped with an RGB sensor, while the Mate 70 Professional+ is upgraded to a RYYB sensor.
Huawei Mate 70 Pro camera samples (Image credit: Vmall).
Software program
The Huawei Mate 70 Pro arrives with HarmonyOS 4.3, but a forthcoming software update will introduce ConcertOS NEXT instead. The company’s proprietary HarmonyOS next-generation operating system marks a significant departure from its reliance on Android technology.
It runs on its own proprietary HarmonyOS microkernel, which means it won’t support running common Android APK files. While it primarily runs apps designed specifically for its own proprietary format, which currently numbers around 15,000 and is mostly geared towards the native Chinese-speaking market.
While running HarmonyOS 4.3 simultaneously, the operating system retains its dual-framework nature, ensuring seamless compatibility with both standard Android APK applications and HarmonyOS NEXT’s proprietary APP apps.
New AI-powered features are being added to the Mate 70 lineup, as expected with recent advancements in technology.
Worth and launch date
While some actual variants of the Mate 70 series may not be available outside of China, While there’s a possibility an international variant might emerge at some point, currently, no such plans have been disclosed.
Priced from ¥5,499 in China, the standard Mate 70 model starts at approximately $760. Priced at 6,499 yuan ($895), the Mate 70 Professional represents an affordable entry point. The Mate 70 Professional+, however, requires a more significant investment of 8,499 yuan ($1,171). The RS model is valued at approximately 11,999 yuan, equivalent to around $1,653.
