Huawei gave the press some very early warning about its plans for the upcoming IFA technology show right at the beginning of August, by announcing a press event for the first media day of the show, which takes place in Berlin, Germany in September.
Updated on 08-29-2014 by Andy Boxall: Huawei has released a teaser video, and a leak has given us some more clues about the device itself.
As the show draws closer, Huawei continues to drop hints about what we could see launch at the event. The first invitations said the company would be “empowering a future of exciting possibilities,” a slogan which really didn’t mean anything, leaving us to speculate about what Huawei could introduce on the big day. The next teaser image was slightly more revealing. It showed the edge of a smartphone body in silhouette, which seems to highlight the number seven at the same time.
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here are no words to accompany the picture, but according to MyDrivers.com, which first published the picture, Huawei’s new smartphone could be called the Ascend Mate 7, or the D7. We’ve been given a few clues about a future Huawei smartphone over the past weeks, thanks to a leak describing what was referred to at the time as the Ascend Mate 3.
Huawei introduced the Ascend Mate 2 at CES back in January, and only recently put the phone on sale in America through its own website. The Mate 3 would replace a device not quite ten months old. One possible reason for the early introduction could be due to Huawei merging the Mate series with the D-Series devices, which could explain the naming confusion.
At the end of August Huawei posted a teaser video on YouTube, named 7 Mates for 7 Dreamers, with the footage highlighting people who will love the new phone, such as gamers and business people. Again, the number 7 keeps cropping up, as does the Mate brand name.
Whatever its name, it promises to have a high spec
The specification, according to the rumor reports, will see the phone’s screen shrink down to 6-inches, and the resolution increase to 1080p. There’s also talk of a second version of the phone with a 1440p, 2560 x 1440 pixel screen, ready to take on the LG G3. If this is true, it may see a limited release.
An octa-core processor of Huawei’s own design could provide the power, replacing the Snapdragon 400 inside the Mate 2, and Android 4.4 KitKat should be installed as the operating system. Like the Mate 2, 4G LTE connectivity should be onboard, along with a 13-megapixel camera on the rear panel.
A Huawei phone showed up on the website of Chinese certification board TENAA at the end of August, and discussed a phone with a 6-inch, 1080p screen, a 13-megapixel camera, and the Kirin 920 octa-core processor. A leaked picture shows the phone with a fingerprint scanner on the rear, just like the HTC One Max.
Any big screen smartphone announced during IFA is likely to find it hard to grab attention, thanks to the Berlin show traditionally being the launchpad for the latest in Samsung’s Galaxy Note range, and we’re not expecting this year to be any different. We’ll see what Huawei has to offer on September 4, when the event takes place at 3p.m. local time.
Updated on 08-12-2014 by Andy Boxall: Added in details about a second invitation to the event, which teases a smartphone somehow related to the number seven.
Article originally published on 08-04-2014
