People waiting for the launch of the rumored new Huawei Mate smartphones may have to wait a bit longer.
A lot of people looked forward to the launch of the purported Mate 9 and Mate S2 after Huawei sent out invites last week for its event that will be held on Sept. 1, a day prior to the opening of IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung) 2016, a consumer electronics and appliance trade show in Berlin. Contrary to everyone's expectations, however, a Huawei executive recently put the lights out of these rumors and confirmed that the Chinese smartphone manufacturer will not be launching the Mate 9 and S2 during its upcoming event.
Moreover, the said executive specified that the Sept. 1 event, appropriately titled "Defy Expectations," is meant for unveiling a new line of smartphones, which will be released into the midrange market. The statement once again brought up speculations regarding the rumored Nova series, which is purported to be designed for women.
Those who are really eager for new Mate series phones will have to wait two more months, according to the executive. A new Emotion user interface (UI) will be released along with the new Mate series smartphones.
Back in April, some speculated that the Huawei Mate 9 will be powered by Kirin 960, which is said to feature support for CDMA and LTE Cat. 12 speeds. More recently, specs of an unknown device, which many believe to be the Mate 9, surfaced on GFXBench's benchmarks database. The benchmark specified a HiSilicon Hi3660 CPU clocked at 2.6 GHz along with a Mali-T880 GPU.
While HiSilicon has not released any statement regarding the listed chip, it is believed that Hi3660 is the serial number for the Kirin 960. Note that Kirin 955's serial number is Hi3650 while Kirin 920 and 930 have Hi3630 and Hi3635, respectively.
The benchmark lists an 11-megapixel main camera that has 4K video support while the front one is a 7-megapixel shooter. New images, which were leaked earlier this week and alleged to be the Mate 9, show a dual-camera setup, which is different from previously leaked images.
The said benchmark also reveals that the device has a 5.9-inch FHD screen and runs natively on 1080p (1,920 x 1,080). This comes packed with 4 GB of RAM and a 64 GB onboard storage option.
The Mate S2 is also rumored to have a Kirin 960 onboard along with a 4 GB RAM and up to 128 GB internal storage. The screen is purported to be a 5.5-inch AMOLED that comes together with a 1080p native resolution while the main shooter uses 16 megapixels, joined by an 8-megapixel front-facing camera.
The current developments confirm previous rumors that the Huawei Mate 9 won't show up at Huawei's September event. Note that most of the details mentioned are speculations without official confirmation, thus everything should be taken with a grain of salt.
