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Huawei had a rocky start to 2018. The company with huge ambitions of becoming the largest smartphone vendor player, would not have been this type of start. For beginners, AT&T backed out at the eleventh hour from selling its Mate 10 flagship device which was quickly followed by Verizon also leaving them without any carrier support in a market that is 90% dependent on them. Adding fuel to the fire was when the heads from almost all the government agencies FBI, CIA, and NSA advised people from buying Huawei devices over the concern that the Chinese government might use them as a means to spy on American people. Carriers were discouraged from using Huawei’s network equipment or selling Huawei devices on their network.
Huawei despite so many factors working against its favor, is not backing out of the fight. And to prove this, the company recently released the Huawei Mate SE in the US. The device is available at major retailers unlocked.
Form-Factor
The device bears a similar resemblance to the Honor 7X, another device released by Huawei under its Honor sub-brand last year, with some bumped up specifications.
Specifications
Hardware
It has a 5.93inch FHD+ display with a resolution of 2160×1080, and has an, as you might have guessed, an 18:9 aspect ratio, thereby giving it minimal bezels. The processor on board is the same as the 7X, a Kirin 659, manufactures by Huawei on a 16nm architecture. The RAM has been increased to 4GB as compared to the 3GB found in the previous one and with 64GB of storage, against the 32GB found in the previous one. The device is powered by a 3340 mAh battery and has dual nano-SIM cards.
Cameras
For imaging, it has a 16MP+2MP main camera and supports the now common portrait mode and an 8MP secondary camera.
Software
On the software front, the device is running Huawei’s own custom skin of Android EMUI 5.1, which is based on Android 7.0, a kind of disappointment here.
Shortcomings
Another major disappointment here is the use of a USB 2.0 and support for only 2.4GHz type connectivity.
The device is available in Gray and Gold and is available for $229.99 on Amazon, a bump up from the $199 of the Honor 7X.
