Beleaguered telecom and equipment giant Huawei has launched its latest flagship smartphone, called Mate 60, this time with the capability to make and receive satellite phone calls and texts inside China.
Satellite technology is an interesting aspect in the smartphone considering it will allow those in remote areas to have access to cellular networks where previously it may have been a landline or dedicated satellite phone. Considering these dedicated technologies are already in use, could this be another area where cell phones become the dominant form factor like MP3 players and digital still cameras?
The phone includes an interesting feature where the three cameras are placed in a central location where the selfie camera and the 3D time of flight sensor are housed. The smartphone features a 6.82 inch double-curved organic light emitting diode (OLED) display with a resolution of 2720 x 1260 resolution and can display 1.07 billion colors in the P3 wide color gamut.
The smartphone includes pre-installed Harmony0S 4.0 operating system and is designed with Huawei’s proprietary three-layered protection system for security.
Other features of the smartphone include:
- 12 GB RAM
- 512 GB to 1 TB of storage
- USB Type-C interface
- IP68 water and dust resistance
- HiSilicon’s Kirin 9000S processor
- Huawei’s Maleoon 910 GPU
5G chip?
While some reviews of the smartphone have noted that the Mate 60 comes with a 5G chipset, Huawei has not confirmed it. Huawei has had a difficult time acquiring 5G technology due to imposed export restrictions on the country from the U.S. and other countries. If it does come with a 5G chipset, it may mark a significant turning point with the company developing its own proprietary technology.
Huawei may have also been stockpiling existing chipsets prior to the ban from the U.S. or may be working with Chinese pure-play foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) to start producing the in-house 5G chipset.
