HUAWEI has surprisingly (and quietly) revealed the newest Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro in China — just ahead of the Apple event for the upcoming iPhone 15 series.

Base and Pro

Unlike last year’s Huawei Mate 50 series featuring four different models (at least in China), HUAWEI decided to launch just the base and Pro models this August 2023. However, rumors are floating around the web that they will have a follow-up launch. That will feature the more powerful Mate 60 Pro+ and the expected premium-line RS Design (without Porsche anymore).

UPDATE: HUAWEI has released the full-on Mate 60 Pro+ and Mate 60 RS Ultimate Design flagships as well.

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The Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro both feature an LTPO OLED Full HD+ display with an adaptive 1 to 120Hz refresh rate and 300Hz touch sampling rate. The differentiating factor? The Mate 60 Pro has a tad bigger 6.82-inch screen over Mate 60’s 6.69-inches.

Still, both have DCI-P3 Wide Color Gamut and 1.07 Billion Colors plus 1440Hz high frequency PWM dimming. These provide better colors, smoother brightness levels, and extend the display’s overall lifespan.

Both phones are also covered with Second Generation Kunlun Glass for drops and IP68 for water and dust resistance protection. And just like any HUAWEI phone in China, it’s powered by HarmonyOS 4 (or HongmengOS).

A new breed of punch hole

While it was first rumored that the upcoming Mate 60 series will have a Dynamic Island-like punch hole, HUAWEI decided to implement a rather unique way or should we say “pill-less” cutout, removing the iPhone’s software-optimized pill and just left the holes intact on screen.

Graphics by Vincenz Lee | GadgetMatch

This new cutout implementation is a first of its kind as most Android smartphones are either with single or dual pill-shaped ones. This also ditches the aging notch of the previous Mate model.

Graphics by Vincenz Lee | GadgetMatch

The trio punch hole houses its selfie camera plus its 3D face recognition sensor. This is also the main differentiating factor against its Mate 60 sibling with a single punch hole cutout on its front instead.

If you have trypophobia (or the fear of seeing multiple small holes), don’t fret! There’s a built-in option to hide the three hole cutout and transform it into a pill-shaped punch-hole.

Kirin comeback

HUAWEI has finally ended its reliance towards Qualcomm and their Snapdragon chipset. The Mate 60 Pro is now powered again by Huawei’s in-house chipset — making a comeback ever since the Kirin 9000-equipped Mate 40 Pro from 2021.

While this isn’t officially listed in their website (just like how they don’t mention official RAM information in the P60 series), leaked benchmarks show that it’s powered by a Kirin 9000s chipset based on a 5nm process. The latest Kirin processor also brings back 5G connectivity to Huawei smartphones — a must in a tech-advanced country like China.

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The P60-exclusive feature also made its way on the Mate 60 series with its satellite communication technology. This feature enables a user to send and receive messages when there’s no ground signal — much like Apple’s Emergency SOS via Satellite.

Quite similar hardware

The Mate 60 series are available in a lone 12GB RAM with three storage choices: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. Storage expansion is still possible thanks to its NM Memory Card slot support of up to 256GB.

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Battery capacities and charging speeds are also not identical. The Pro variant has a bigger battery capacity at 5000mAh with 88W wired SuperCharge support. On the other hand, the Mate 60 instead has a lower 4750mAh battery and slower 66W charging. Both can be charged using the fast 50W wireless SuperCharge charger but only the Mate 60 Pro supports 20W reverse wireless charging.

Lastly, HUAWEI boasts its new “Xuanwu architecture” (or Xuanwu design). The fusion of an ultra-strong basalt body and ultra-durable brocade fiber material alongside their tougher second-generation Kunlun Glass gives the phone an added three-layer of protection and strength, as well as overall reliability.

Familiar camera system

You can barely tell the camera improvements on the HUAWEI Mate 60 Pro over last year’s Mate 50 Pro, at least on paper.

It still has that XMAGE Camera System that debuted during last year’s model. Its 50MP wide camera is similar with a dual-variable aperture between f/1.4 to f/4.0. Selfie camera seems unchanged too with its 13MP f/2.4 ultra-wide shooter.

Graphics by Vincenz Lee | GadgetMatch

So what has changed in the Mate 60 Pro? Well, the ultra-wide angle lens was changed to a 12MP (versus 13MP), but still has the same f/2.2 lens opening and 120-degree Field of View (FoV).

Even the telephoto zoom lens isn’t safe from the megapixel downsizing as its lowered from 64MP to 48MP — though similarly having a 3.5x optical zoom but with a slightly wider f/3.0 aperture (vs f/3.5).

Graphics by Vincenz Lee | GadgetMatch

For the base Mate 60, the setup is quite interesting because it has a 12MP f/3.4 periscope telephoto zoom lens that optically zooms in farther at 5x instead of Mate 60 Pro’s 3.5x. Digital zoom is limited to 50x though (vs 100x on the Pro variant).

8K video fans shouldn’t expect anything grand as video recording is limited to 4K 30/60fps, still with OIS.

Pricing and availability

The HUAWEI Mate 60 Series are available in four different dual-tone shades: Yachuan Green, White Sand Silver, Nannuo Purple, and Yadan Black.

The green and silver options have a Kunlun Glass top while the purple and black variants have a faux leather texture instead.

Graphics by Vincenz Lee | GadgetMatch

Despite having three storage options, only one configuration option (12GB + 512GB) is listed per model:

• Mate 60 = CNY 5999 (US$ 822 / EUR 761 / GBP 654 / SG$ 1155 / PhP 46,673 / INR 68,085)
• Mate 60 Pro = CNY 6999 (US$ 956 / EUR 888 / GBP 763 / SG$ 1301 / PhP 54,453 / INR 79,435)

Unfortunately, based from Android Authority’s report, HUAWEI has no plans launching the Mate 60 Pro globally. This is mostly due to the fact that it ships with the new Kirin 5G chipset.