Huawei’s new premium device, the Mate S will be officially launched in Malaysia next week on Tuesday, 27th of October. Announced during IFA 2015, the 5.5″ smart phone aims to push smart phone interaction further with its “Force Touch” enabled display. A screen that’s pressure sensitive and it is capable to be used as a mini weighing scale during its launch event.
In terms of appearance, it looks like a bigger honor 7 especially with its metal frame and curved back. Visible at the rear is fingerprint scanner that sits underneath its main camera.
The front gets a respectable 5.5″ Full HD display and underneath it runs on Huawei’s in-house developed Kirin 935 Octa-Core processor with 3GB of RAM. There’s also 32GB of on-board storage expandable via microSD. Selected markets get larger storage options including 64GB and 128GB capacities but it looks like we are settling for only 32GB in Malaysia.
The Mate S gets a 13MP f/2.0 RGBW main camera with Optical Image Stabiliser and dual-LED flash, similar to the Huawei P8. For extra tweaks, the camera app now has professional mode that gives you manual camera settings. For selfies, the front has a 8MP f/2.4 camera that’s assisted by a soft LED flash.
With a pressure sensitive display, the Mate S allows you to do more things such as zooming and previewing with a stronger press. Also not forgotten is their knuckle sense feature that was introduced with the Huawei P8.
The Huawei Mate S is powered by a 2,700mAh non-removable battery and overall it weighs 156g with a thickness of 7.2mm. It runs on Android 5.1 with Huawei’s EMUI 3.1 skin layered on top. In terms of connectivity, it supports dual-SIM slots with 4G LTE.
For Malaysia, it looks like we’re not getting the “Force Touch” enabled model. As seen in other markets, the lower standard versions with 32GB/64GB storage lacks the pressure sensitive display and it is only found on the higher-spec 128GB model.
Stay tuned for pricing and availability details as we will be there at the Malaysian launch next week.
