Huawei's Porsche Design Mate RS has crazy specs for sky high price
Wireless charging, an underscreen fingerprint sensor, 512GB of storage and triple cameras. You name it, this phone probably has it.
If you thought Huawei's P20 Pro brought the heat with three cameras on the back, then brace yourself for the Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS, which ups the ante with a fingerprint reader built into the display.
That makes this mouthful of a phone the second to boast a trio of cameras on the back (after the Mate P20 Pro) and the first non-Vivo device to host an in-screen fingerprint reader (check out this awesome Vivo concept phone). Oh, and if you're wondering, the Mate RS stands for "Race Sport".
Sporting sleek curves reminiscent of a Porsche car and an eye-watering starting price tag of 1,695 euros (which converts to $2,100, £1,500 or AU$2,700) for the model with 6GB RAM and 256GB of storage, the Mate RS is one hell of a looker. But the price isn't just for the branding, the phone packs in plenty of awesome specs -- storage goes up to 512GB, there's wireless charging, a 4,000mAh battery and an IP67 rating for water and dust-resistance.
This phone is a looker, and it knows it.
Factor in the phone's three cameras, co-designed with high-end camera brand Leica , and you have one heck of an impressive device. The three cameras include a 40-megapixel main camera, a 20-megapixel monochrome lens and an 8-megapixel telephoto lens, similar to the Huawei P20 Pro. In fact, the images they take are very similar, based on my brief time spent with the Mate RS.
Then there's the fingerprint sensor embedded in the display. This gives it a lot more space below the screen, which is taken up by a "Porsche Design " logo -- there's no home button. And if you don't want to use the underscreen fingerprint scanner, the phone also has one on the rear.
The Mate RS runs Android 8.1 with a Porsche Design skin, which looks pretty good, to be honest.
Triple Leica AI-powered cameras make for great pictures.
In my brief time with the phone, I loved the design aesthetic and high-end features, but the jaw-dropping price made me worried about accidentally dropping the phone, which wouldn't be cheap to replace.
The limited edition Mate RS was launched on April 12 in China, Hong Kong and Macau, followed by France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and Switzerland. There's no word yet on US and Australian availability.
Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS specs
- Processor: Huawei Kirin 970
- Camera: Three lenses, including main 40-megapixel sensor
- Battery: 4,000 mAh with wireless charging
- Memory: 6GB RAM
- Storage: 256GB or 512GB
- In-screen fingerprint reader
- Colors: Black, red (China only)