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Huawei Ascend Mate 7 takes on iPhone with a fingerprint scanner and selfie cam

Huawei introduced several new smartphones at IFA 2014, the most impressive of which was the Ascend Mate 7. This high-end phablet is just 7.9 millimeters thin and sports solid specs as well as a revamped design. It has a sleek brushed metal finish made of a matte aluminum alloy. It has polished edges that gleam just like those on the iPhone 5S.

The Ascend Mate 7 features a 6-inch IPS LCD screen with a full HD pixel resolution and a pixel density of 368ppi. The Mate 7 is powered by the Kirin 925 processor, which contains four A15 cores, running at 1.8GHz and four A7 cores, clocking in at 1.3GHz. Huawei added 2GB of RAM to support the phone.

The Mate 7 comes with 16GB of storage, which is expandable via MicroSD card up to 32GB. Huawei added a sharp 13-megapixel CMOS camera on the back and a 5-megapixel CMOS camera on the front, which is great for taking high-quality selfies. The massive phablet has a 4100mAh Li-Polymer battery under the hood that should keep the Mate 7 going for more than a full day of heavy use.

Related: Huawei could launch new Ascend Mate soon

To top it all off, the Mate 7 has a slew of sensors, including an accelerometer, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, compass, gyroscope, and more. Most importantly though, the Mate 7 has a fingerprint scanner that works exactly like the one on the iPhone 5S. Instead of having to swipe your finger across it like you do with Samsung’s Galaxy S5, you can simply place your digit on the scanner to unlock your phone and perform other tasks. The fingerprint sensor is located on the back of the phone below the camera.

In terms of connectivity, the Mate 7 comes with Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, and NFC support. The phone is of course running Android 4.4 KitKat, but with Huawei’s own Emotion UI 3.0 on top, which looks a lot like iOS 7.

Huawei will offer the Mate 7 in the following colors: Obsidian black, Moonlight silver, and Amber gold. The fabulous phablet will be available in more than 30 countries including China, Germany, the UK, Italy, France, and Spain. It will cost around 500 euros, or about $651. Unfortunately, it’s unknown if the Mate 7 will ever reach the U.S. though.

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