Huawei unveiled its flagship P20 series at an event in Paris yesterday which includes the P20 and P20 Pro. The company also announced a premium Porsche Edition Huawei Mate RS which Huawei and Porsche have developed in collaboration. The Huawei Mate RS sports an 8-edge 3D curved design inspired by Porsche 911 and RS stands for Racing Sports according to Huawei. The smartphone essentially borrows its key specs from the P20 Pro but has a full-screen display without a top notch. Though the side bezels are extremely thin, the top bezel houses the earpiece, sensors and selfie camera, while the bottom bezel comes with “Porsche” branding.
Similar to the P20 Pro, the Mate RS has Leica branded triple rear cameras. However, the camera modules are placed in the middle of the rear panel, rather than being on the top left corner as on P20 Pro.
Huawei’s new tri-camera implementation features a 40MP f/1.8 RGB sensor paired with a 20MP f/1.6 monochrome sensor and an 8MP f/2.4 telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom. The camera comes with PDAF, CAF, Laser and Depth AutoFocus, 5x Hybrid Zoom and AI infused features. As for the front camera, the device comes with a 24MP f/2.0 aperture sensor along with Face Unlock feature.
The Mate RS sports a 6-inch Full View OLED display with 2880 x 1440-pixel resolution and 18:9 screen aspect ratio. Inside, the smartphone runs the same Kirin 970 octa-core processor as P20 Pro, paired with 6 GB of RAM. However, unlike the P20 Pro which offers 128GB maximum storage, the Porsche Design Mate RS offers up to either 256GB or 512GB of internal storage.
The Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS packs a massive 4000mAh battery, and also supports quick wireless charging. The smartphone also packs two fingerprint scanners, one on the rear under the vertically stacked camera modules, and the second an in-display fingerprint scanner on the front.
The Mate RS is IP67 certified for dust and water resistance, and Huawei also states that theirs is the first phone using microcapsule PCM, an aerospace cooling technology. The phone will be dual-SIM standard too, and other connectivity options include USB-C port with Display 1.2 support, Bluetooth 4.2 with aptX HD and HWA Audio, dual-band Wi-Fi. Huawei Mate RS will run the Android 8.1 Oreo with Huawei’s favoured EMUI 8.1 interface.
The limited edition Mate RS will be available in Black and Red colour options and is set to launch on April 12. Indian availability has not been announced, but Mate RS is expected to launch in Southeast Asia in middle of May. The smartphone comes in two storage options- 256GB and 512GB. The former costs €1,695 (approx. Rs 1,36,200), while the premium 512GB variant sets you back by €2,095 (approx. Rs 1,68,291).
