Huawei Mate 7 coming to Australia Nov 17 (and it’s awesome)

Chinese telecoms powerhouse Huawei will have its new flagship device in Aussie stores from next Monday and it could be the device that introduces local phone lovers to what Huawei is capable of.

The Ascend Mate 7 is the full name of the flagship; a 6-inch phablet-sized handset boasting all the bells and whistles in the devices made by Apple, Samsung, LG and others, but with a considerably smaller price tag.

For an RRP of $699, the Mate 7 packs an octa-core processor (that’s 8 cores, folks) 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage and super-fast Cat 6 4G LTE speeds. If this last part about 4G reads like empty tech jargon to you, believe us when we say it is capable of super fast download speeds. Indeed faster speeds than you’ll need for the foreseeable future, but has this ever been a bad thing?

Most impressive is the 6-inch LCD display, which appears to pack the same crisp, colourful punch found in screens from market leader Samsung. Huawei engineers have worked hard on a near invisible bezel around the display, making it seems enormous, but in a handset which is still marginally smaller than the iPhone 6 Plus.

The feature the Huawei team spoke about most at a launch event for the device in Sydney is it's rear-facing fingerprint scanner. Like similar scanners on Apple and Samsung phones, this pad can be used to unlock the phone, but it is unique in that it can be used to turn the phone on at the same time -- a very handy addition.

To keep all these components humming along, the Mate 7 comes with a huge 4100mAh capacity battery. This is 25 percent larger than the battery in the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, and is the largest battery available in a phone in Australia by a vast margin.

Huawei has also retooled its Emotion UI (now called EMUI 3.0) and stripped out a lot of the confusion and bloat, leaving quite a clean-looking design. It comes with a Themes manager too, meaning you can quickly change the look and feel of the phone through icon designs and fonts.

Where you can get it

The Mate 7 will be in Harvey Norman and JB HiFi stores from November 17, in an Amber Gold colour with 32GB storage and 3GB RAM. Dick Smith will also sell the Mate 7 soon, on contract plans through Vodafone. This model will be slightly different, coming in a black colour with 16GB storage and 2GB RAM.

Joseph Hanlon

Editorial Director | X | LinkedIn

Joe Hanlon has been immersed in mobile phones, plans and the internet for over a decade, having written for publications like CNET, Techradar, Gizmodo and Lifehacker. He steers the editorial ship and makes sure that we are always serving up the most useful guides and recommendations. If you ever bump into Joe on the street, don't be afraid to ask for a phone recommendation. It's embarrassing how much he enjoys talking about this stuff. He also loves listening to podcasts, so feel free to email Joe with recommendations.

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