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Huawei’s Porsche phone is back and still unnecessarily expensive

Huawei’s Porsche phone is back and still unnecessarily expensive

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Does a smartphone need a successor within the same year?

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Image: Huawei

The Huawei Porsche Design Mate 10 RS is just over six months old, but the company is already back with a successor, the Mate 20 RS. It’s equally as expensive and excessive.

Like the car company it’s named after, the Porsche Design Mate 20 RS is pricey; it costs a steep €1,695 (or $1,950, at the time of writing) for its base 256GB storage option. For that high price, the Mate 20 RS has three cameras: one with a 40-megapixel main camera, a 20-megapixel wide-angle lens, and an 8-megapixel telephoto camera. It should be noted that the more affordably priced Mate 20 Pro has the same camera specs. The Mate 20 Pro costs €1,049 ($1,206).

Did I mention the Mate 20 RS is encased in leather? Still, it probably should have been made of cashmere and encrusted with small diamonds to justify this price tag.

Image: Huawei

Huawei is using its latest Kirin 980 chipset, which, alongside Apple’s A12, is among the first mobile 7nm chips. The phone runs on the Android P-based EMUI 9.0 that other new Huawei flagships are also getting. There’s a new feature called HiVision that identifies paintings and landmarks using AI, which sounds similar to Google Lens. There’s an in-screen fingerprint sensor and an option to use facial recognition to unlock it, too.

As for battery power, the Mate 20 RS has a 4,200mAh battery that supports fast charging, but only with compatible wireless chargers that aren’t included in the already high price. It has 8GB of RAM and a version with 512GB of storage that costs €2,095 ($2,410). It’s also got a water resistance rating of IP68, which is the same as the latest iPhones.

The Mate 20 RS comes in black and will be available in most markets besides the US on November 16th. China is getting a limited-edition red version.