huawei chief executive for consumer business Richard Yu confirmed that its upcoming flagship, the Mate 10 and its sister phone, the Mate 10 Pro, will be launched on October 16 in Munich. Also, Yu unveiled its first artificial intelligence chip to deliver faster processing and lower power consumption.
A faster phone processor
The Huawei-built Kirin 970 is the company's new 10-nanometer mobile processor.
It has an 8-core CPU and 12-core graphics processor. A dedicated Netural Processing Unit (NPU) is also incorporated in the chip. The NPU integrates classic computing, graphics, image, and digital signal processing power. These features typically require separate chips, but the Kirin 970 brings them all together. All these capabilities result to a faster and more efficient smartphone.
The new mobile chip is the first in a series of advances that will incorporate AI features in Huawei devices. The move allows Huawei to control their smartphone design to differentiate it from its competitors. In this way, the company continues its efforts to provide a significantly better user experience.
A dual-camera setup for Mate 10
Huawei previously posted a teaser photo of the Mate 10 on Twitter, which appears to be part of the brand's dual camera lineup. In the photo, the phone is showcased together with other smartphones that come with dual rear cameras. Huawei's partnership with Leica in producing a dual camera setup seems like a promising joint effort to give users a high-quality mobile photography experience. All former models including P9, Mate 9, P10, and P10 Plus delivered excellently in the camera, photography, and videography department.
With the latest handset boasting another Leica lens, customers and followers have set the standards pretty high. The video teaser released prior to the photo also showed that images captured by the phone's rear camera feature color contrasts and Bokeh effects.
Further, it will have a 20MP monochrome sensor and a 12MP RGB sensor pair, which is similar to the P9 phone series features.
What's with the tagline?
The company has associated the hashtag tagline #beyondthegalaxy with the Mate 10. Perhaps it is a reference to the recent flagship of Samsung, but that is subject to anyone's interpretation. Based on what we know so far, the newest Mate smartphone will have a bezel-less display, which the brand has termed as 'EntireView' display. In comparison to its competitors such as Samsung Galaxy S8, LG G6, and the upcoming iPhone 8, the Mate 10 also has an 18:9 aspect ratio. Further, in an effort to raise the bar high in competition, Huawei has expressed their plans to include facial recognition, support AR, and 3D sensing into its latest flagship.