14 DAY TRIAL // The last couple of months have been pretty exciting for the smartphone industry, as both Apple and Samsung launched their flagships. However, as we're nearing the end of the year, other handset makers are trying to offer consumers their takes on the best phone on the market.
Xiaomi recently unveiled its amazing Mi MIX, which, sadly, won't be available outside China. Huawei, on the other hand, is expected to announce its next Mate device in early November.
The number two smartphone maker in China, Huawei, confirmed a launch event for November 3 and has already released a 35-second teaser that suggests its next month event might be one of the most important of this year for all Android fans.
The Mate 9 Pro is expected to pack quite an amazing hardware configuration, which won't come cheap though. Rumor has it Huawei will price the phablet at no less than $1,300 outright, which could make it the most expensive flagship available on the market.
However, the Mate 9 Pro is said to pack the most powerful SoC (system-on-chip) developed by Huawei, the Kirin 960, which was unveiled only recently. The chipset is the first to come with Cortex-A73 cores and also the first to feature ARM's Mali-G71 graphics processing unit.
Rumor has it that Mate 9 Pro will boast a large 5.9-inch dual-curved edge display that supports Quad HD (2560 x 1440 pixels) resolution, something that Huawei has been avoiding since the first QHD phones were launched on the market.
We also expect Huawei's new flagship smartphone to debut with Android 7.0 Nougat right out of the box, but the Chinese company is likely to market the device as Daydream-compatible.
VR technology hasn't been that popular on mobile devices, but Huawei hopes the Mate 9 will change that. It remains to be seen what kind of technology the Chinese company will employ to make the Mate 9 Pro's display compatible with VR technology.