Huawei Mate70 Series: The King's Return, Can It Revive the Glory?

Huawei Mate70 Series: The King's Return, Can It Revive the Glory?In October, OPPO, Xiaomi, vivo, and Honor all released their flagship products, and the fierce competition has made many people eagerly awaiting Huawei's latest flagship the Mate70 series. On November 4th, Yu Chengdong, Huawei's Executive Director, announced on Weibo, The most powerful Mate ever! See you in November!, officially starting the preheating for the Mate70 series

Huawei Mate70 Series: The King's Return, Can It Revive the Glory?

In October, OPPO, Xiaomi, vivo, and Honor all released their flagship products, and the fierce competition has made many people eagerly awaiting Huawei's latest flagship the Mate70 series. On November 4th, Yu Chengdong, Huawei's Executive Director, announced on Weibo, The most powerful Mate ever! See you in November!, officially starting the preheating for the Mate70 series. Following typical phone manufacturer release patterns, the Mate70 series is expected to launch as early as November 18th.

As Huawei's annual flagship, the Mate70 series is garnering a lot of attention. Can it live up to expectations, become a showstopper among domestic flagship phones, and redefine the "strongest Mate"?

Pureblood HarmonyOS: The Super Ace of Mate70

The most anticipated feature for the Mate70 is undoubtedly its HarmonyOS NEXT (native HarmonyOS) operating system. Since its release in 2019, HarmonyOS has relied on compatibility with the Android app ecosystem. In 2024, however, the released HarmonyOS NEXT finally breaks free from Android dependence and establishes a brand new app ecosystem.

As the first flagship phone to feature native HarmonyOS, the Huawei Mate70 will be a milestone for Huawei phones, and even the domestic hardware industry. The product's reputation, experience, and market performance will determine the future development of the native HarmonyOS ecosystem.

Currently, HarmonyOS NEXT has already adapted over 15,000 apps and microservices, covering mainstream apps, including the highly anticipated WeChat native HarmonyOS version, which has entered the public beta testing phase.

Beyond compatibility with the mobile app ecosystem, the more anticipated feature of HarmonyOS NEXT is its native AIOS attribute. As an OS born in the era of large language models, HarmonyOS NEXT provides stronger support for AI and IoT (Internet of Things) across multiple terminals.

AI Empowerment: Reshaping the Phone Experience

At the recently concluded HarmonyOS Developer Conference, Huawei showcased the significant improvement in AI capabilities for phones equipped with HarmonyOS NEXT:

• Imaging: The AI expansion function allows for natural background completion or expansion in photos, the AI elimination function can quickly and easily remove unwanted elements from the background, and AI cutout can quickly extract the main subject of an image, facilitating user post-creation. The AI best expression function, first launched on the nova13 series, will likely be integrated into HarmonyOS NEXT. In addition, it can leverage AI learning to achieve powerful image processing capabilities, such as real-time portrait beautification and aesthetic composition.

• System level: The AI capabilities in HarmonyOS NEXT are not just about built-in AI assistants, but rather a deep integration with the system level, capable of reacting to and addressing users' every action. For example, it can directly recognize tables in images and automatically generate Excel, and can also recognize the content within images, making it easier for users to take further action, such as querying the image content or reading the image content out loud. You can say that HarmonyOS NEXT will anticipate your needs before you even think of them.

Privacy and Security: Safeguarding User Information

The Mate70 series, equipped with HarmonyOS NEXT, enhances privacy and security. For instance, when an app frequently accesses internal phone folders, HarmonyOS NEXT will first prohibit 9 types of unreasonable permissions at the system level, such as reading messages, app lists, etc.

When users need to upload an image in an app, HarmonyOS NEXT provides more granular privacy and security protection. For example, when users are preparing to post on their Moments, WeChat cannot access their local photo library, only the selected and ultimately uploaded images can be successfully read by WeChat, while all other images fall outside of WeChat's read permission, fundamentally preventing privacy leaks.

Performance Experience: Kernel Upgrade Brings Significant Improvement

Huawei states that due to HarmonyOS NEXT abandoning the Linux kernel and shedding a significant amount of unnecessary code and components, it has achieved a 30% overall performance improvement and a 20% reduction in power consumption.

Huawei even claims that the overall performance improvement will be around 20% to 30% annually, but the specific results remain to be seen.

The AI Phone Wave: Opportunities for HarmonyOS NEXT

In 2024, the AI phone wave is surging, with AIOS becoming a key focus for phone manufacturers like vivo, OPPO, Xiaomi, Honor, Apple, and Samsung.

In this context, HarmonyOS NEXT has become a good card, even a trump card, for Huawei. It does not have the burdens of the mobile era, and it does not need to "patch up" the previous OS. Instead, it can build an OS from scratch, oriented towards the AI and interconnected world, allowing it to move lightly into the AIoT era.

The Strongest Mate: Comprehensive Hardware Upgrade

In terms of hardware, Huawei's Kirin chips made a comeback in the Mate60 series released last year. Unless there are any unexpected changes, the Mate70 series will be equipped with a new processor with an even higher energy efficiency ratio. However, there is no information available online about its name or specifications.

It is certain that the new processor combined with HarmonyOS NEXT will deliver significant improvements over the Mate60 series in multiple aspects.

Imaging Configuration: Top-Tier Hardware Creates an Ultimate Experience

In terms of imaging configuration, the Mate70 series is very likely to feature a one-inch large sensor main camera and a telescopic lens module at the highest level, while the Mate70 and Mate70 Pro will be equipped with the OV50K ultra-large variable aperture sensor from OmniVision Technologies. The built-in LOFIC technology further optimizes the speed of light capture, improving the latitude and stability in complex scenarios to preserve true-to-life tonal reproduction.

Design and Unlocking: Continuing Classic Design and Exploring New Schemes

The overall design language of the Mate70 series continues the style established since the Mate40, featuring the familiar four-sided micro-curve style and Oreo module design. Among them, the Mate70 will come with a 1.5K resolution straight screen, while the Mate70 Pro and Pro+ will be equipped with a 2K resolution micro-curved screen. Of course, features like 3000 nits peak brightness, 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate, etc., will all be included.

It is noteworthy that the Mate70 series abandons the optical in-screen fingerprint unlocking design, opting for a dual unlocking scheme of side fingerprint + 3D face recognition. This point is somewhat difficult to understand, as logically they shouldn't conflict, and it also differs from the current mainstream solution. I speculate that this is either to prepare for HarmonyOS NEXT or simply to save costs.

Top Flagship, Price and Market Expectations

The well-known tipster Digital Chat Station describes the Mate70 series as "this generation really has the feeling of the old Huawei". It seems that the Mate70 series is indeed a conscientious product and definitely qualifies as a top flagship phone.

Based on the pricing of the Mate60, I predict the starting price of the Mate70 to be 5499 yuan, the Mate70 Pro starting at 6499 yuan, the Mate70 Pro+ starting at 8999 yuan, and the Mate70 RS Kunlun Edition starting at 11999 yuan.

Fierce Competition, New Challenges for Huawei

Based on the current leaks and information, the Huawei Mate70 series is not as impressive as I initially imagined.

On the one hand, many detailed parameters have not been fully revealed, so the actual strength of the product remains to be seen. On the other hand, Huawei's competitors have made progress in the past three years that far surpass the overall market's expectations.

For example, by the time the Huawei Mate70 series finally adopts a one-inch large sensor, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo are already preparing to release their third products equipped with one-inch sensors. While Huawei's understanding of camera algorithms is at the T1 level among domestic manufacturers, the hardware gap is difficult to bridge by software algorithms alone.

Not to mention that these manufacturers have also reached new heights in their understanding of screens, charging, and system level. If Huawei had previously relied on technical differences to pull away from its competitors, then the Mate70 series, in my opinion, is a fairly ordinary iterative product, not dazzling, but still worthy of the flagship label.

A Crucial Battle, Huawei's Next Chapter

In September, Huawei released the world's first triple-folding screen phone, the MateXT Kunlun Edition, priced at 19999 yuan and above, which quickly became the new generation of "electronic Moutai" (a highly sought-after commodity).

Readers familiar with products will know that the MateXT is not targeted at the iPhone 16 series, and in itself is not a high-volume product. The real competition with Apple for the high-end phone market will still be the Mate70 series.

According to data released by Canalys, with the release of the Huawei Pura70 series, Huawei's share of the Chinese high-end phone market in the first half of 2024 rose from 1