Huawei Mate 9

Huawei Mate 9 release date and price

The Huawei Mate 9 has been available since November 2016 in its first-wave launch markets (12 countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East). Huawei has confirmed the official US release date for the Mate 9, which will go on sale on January 6 for $600. The Mate 9 will be available from major retailers such as Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg and B&H in either Space Gray or Moonlight Silver.

The Mate 9 comes in the following color variants: Black, Space Gray, Moonlight Silver, Champagne Gold, Mocha Brown, and Ceramic White. The Porsche Design Mate 9 is Graphite Black. It is unknown which colors will be made available to the US market. The standard Mate 9 has only one option for memory, the 64 GB version with 4 GB of RAM. The Porsche Design version has 256 GB and 6 GB of RAM. The handset comes with a USB Type-C to Micro USB adapter, a headset for the 3.5 mm headphone jack, a clear protective sleeve, and a SuperCharge charger.

Huawei Mate 9 design and build quality

Huawei got the curve-itch and moved away from the edgy look of its predecessors. This comes with a big benefit: the device is much more ergonomic than the Mate 8 or even the Ascend Mate 7. Otherwise, the normal Huawei design is maintained and is dominated by metal and glossy cut edges.

The Huawei Mate 9 is quite large and heavy. With almost six inches diagonally and 190 grams in weight, it's not designed for small hands. Compact smartphone enthusiasts should look elsewhere. But before you let the size of this device dissuade you, it's important to look at the benefits of this phablet.

The large internal space allows for the large battery and high-quality hardware. The battery life is almost two days and the chipset won't choke thanks to the large cooling area. Even in the toughest benchmark tests, the Mate 9 consistently receives high scores.

The round frame improves the build quality considerably. / © AndroidPIT

The elegant design of the Mate 9 is only surpassed by the 5.5 inch Porsche Design version, which also has more powerful hardware and about twice the price tag.

Huawei Mate 9 display

The 5.9-inch full HD display is based on traditional IPS technology. It achieves exceptionally high and low brightness with the manual controls. The minimum value is 5 cd / m² and is therefore unobtrusive, even in dark environments. In our everyday test of the Mate 9, the display is reliable, even in sunlight.

The brightness control offers a wide spectrum. / © AndroidPIT

The display of the Huawei Mate 9 does not come close to the exceptionally high-quality display of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 (the Mate 9 display isn't fiery) but it should nevertheless be good enough for everyday use. The 373 ppi resolution is sharp enough for ordinary viewing distances.

We will have to wait and see if the VR performance is satisfactory, as there was no final support for Daydream at the time this review was conducted. Since the Mate 9 is one of the Daydream-ready devices, we will experience it soon anyway. Until then, we have to assume that the relatively low resolution of the Mate 9’s display will lead to an underwhelming VR experience.

The colors are rich and the display is sharp. / © AndroidPIT

The display is protected against scratches and impacts by Gorilla Glass 3. In contrast to the newer versions of Gorilla Glass 4 or 5, GG 3 offers better protection against scratches but not as much against impacts.

Huawei Mate 9 software

Huawei's software interface has been overhauled. EMUI 5 is based on Android 7.0 Nougat and is brighter and rounder than its predecessor. The Mate 9 uses new Android features like Vulkan API for better gaming performance and Daydream for a smoother VR experience. EMUI 5 also has an app drawer by default.

Huawei hurried and became one of the first manufacturers with Nougat. / © AndroidPIT

So far, I've always considered Huawei's software to be its biggest hurdle. Non-removable features, ominous optimization tools and Apple's patented surface elements plague it. My favorite Huawei is the Nexus 6P because its software came directly from Google and not from Huawei.

With EMUI 5 on the the Mate 9, I was swayed. Notifications were punctual, background services stopped only when I told them to, and the software was generally reliable.

A software feature introduced already by Nova, is the App Twin function. With it, you can install Facebook or WhatsApp twice. The latter is particularly useful is you have the dual-SIM version the Mate 9, so you can use WhatsApp with both of you cell phone numbers. Instead of having two of the same app, you can also set up a second Android user profile on this device.