Huawei is releasing their Mate 9 in the US starting January 6th. This is the same Mate 9 they previously released in China, except for one big thing. The Huawei Mate 9 will be the first phone to have Amazon’s AI Alexa on board.
Alexa won’t be immediately available but instead will come in an update later. With Alexa you’ll get many of the features you do with the Echo devices. Such as controlling your smart home or getting news updates.
After Google made their AI exclusive to their own Pixel phones, and Samsung is rumored to have their own AI debuting on the S8 series. It looks like AI is the new killer feature. Huawei has now guaranteed they won’t be a step behind by including a proven AI like Alexa.
Besides Alexa, the Mate 9 comes with a 5.9 inch screen with a 1080p resolution backed by some serious hardware. Inside is their in house Kirin 960 SoC, Mali-G71 GPU, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage plus a microSD slot, and a 4000mAh battery.
Least we not forget the dual camera Leica branded setup on the back, featuring a 20MP monochrome sensor and 12MP RGB sensor. The lens has an aperture of f/2.2 along with optical image stabilization.
It also supports SuperCharge, giving you a full day’s worth of battery life from a 20 minute charge through it’s USB-C port.
Impressive hardware aside the Mate 9 also includes machine learning and what they call “born fast stay fast”. Promising your phone will stay quick and speedy for 18 months. Instead of feeling the lag creep in over time as the phone ages.
While the Huawei Mate 9 certainly packs in a lot with the hardware with the dual camera, the 5.9 inch screen, the long battery life, and even Alexa. The most exciting part for me besides Alexa that is, would EMUI 5. The new EMUI 5 is a massive upgrade from the previous versions of EMUI we’ve had to suffer with in the past.
Instead of having impressive hardware that was marred by poor software. Huawei seems to be improving their user experience and making their hardware worth using. By staying slightly closer to stock and breaking less features it’s come a long way from EMUI 4.
The Mate 9 is available in Space Gray and Moonlight Silver with a price tag of $599. Not a bad price tag at all considering what many other flagships are charging these days. It can be purchased from Amazon, Best Buy, B&H Photo, and Newegg starting today.
