Last year at CES 2013, we saw the Ascend Mate from Huawei. Though we were no stranger to larger breeds of smartphones (like the Galaxy Note series), Huawei took things to a whole new level with the Ascend Mate and its 6.1-inch display. Now with numerous phones packing 5.5-inch displays and larger, the Ascend doesn't seem so crazy.
It stands to reason, then, that Huawei would want to refresh the Ascend Mate. Enter the Ascend Mate 2, which was announced today at a press conference at CES 2014. Perhaps wisely, Huawei has stuck with the same 6.1-inch screen size. This panel is a 720p IPS Gorilla Glass display. The device runs on either Qualcomm's MSM 8928 (Snapdragon 400) or Huawei's HiSilicon Cortex-A9 system on a chip. It's not clear if this will vary by region or shipments. We'll keep you posted on that.
Display and SoC aside, the device will pack 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage on board (with option for expansion via MicroSD), a 13-megapixel camera on the back, a 5-megapixel camera on the front, and Android 4.3. The device also has Huawei's Emotion UI 2.0 skinned on top of that Android experience.
It's Also a USB Charger
One of the more unique features about this massive phone is the battery. Any smartphone user knows that a battery needs to be big enough to get you through the day. Well, Huawei is so confident in the Ascend Mate 2's battery, it's turned the phone itself into a charger. The phone. Huawei says the 4050 mAh battery can go for 60 hours of 'normal use' or 12 full hours of browsing. However, it can also charge other devices.
We're going to go hands on with the Ascend Mate 2 later, so stay tuned for pictures!
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