According to an exclusive report by serial leaker Evan Blass, popularly known as @evleaks on Twitter, Huawei’s next flagship device will have two versions. One, pictured in the top row in the image above and code-named Manhattan, features the usual phone design you see these days. The other model, shown in the bottom row and code-named Long Island, is the more interesting one; it supposedly sports a curved display. Familiar, right? If it were not for the Huawei logo at the top, we’d think it’s a Samsung phone at first glance.
Long Island is reportedly the more premium Huawei Mate 9 version. It gets a higher-resolution screen at QHD or 2560 x 1440 pixels compared to Manhattan’s FHD or 1920 x 1080 display resolution. There’s one problem if ever you’re interested in that, though: It may be available only in China.
We had reported (see details here) that the Mate 9 is another Huawei-and-Leica dual-camera affair, the partnership’s second collaboration after the Huawei P9 series (click this for complete specs of the P9 and this for the P9 Plus). It supposedly runs on the Chinese manufacturer’s own Kirin 960 system-on-chip, has Android 7.0 Nougat on tap, and boasts a RAM-and-internal-storage combo of as high as 6GB RAM/256GB ROM. It will be officially launched in Munich, Germany, on November 3.
MY THOUGHTS: If it’s true that Huawei is planning on making the Mate 9 with curved screen available only in China, we hope the company will reconsider. If there’s one thing to learn from Samsung’s disappointing earnings in the second quarter of 2015, it’s that the Korean giant had thought that demand for the Galaxy S6 would be higher than that of the S6 Edge. Samsung was left with many regular S6 units in its inventory and not nearly enough of the curved-screen variant.
We hope the curved-screen Mate 9 will be available worldwide. If there’s one thing to learn from Samsung’s disappointing earnings in Q2 2015, it’s that the company had thought that demand for the S6 would be higher than that of the S6 Edge.
MY PARTNER RAMON LOPEZ’S TAKE: Huawei has churned out some pretty impressive original designs recently, so it’s a bit surprising to see its next phone allegedly follow in the footsteps of one of Samsung’s own. However, I won’t take it against the company for coming out with a big-screen phone that bends over its own bezels. People loved that about the Note 7. I kind of did, too (it got in the way of usage sometimes). So yeah, I’m okay with Huawei’s Note 7 clone. And I’m pretty sure this one won’t spontaneously combust like the original.
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