Huawei Mate 9 Smartphone Unboxing and Review

I'm not going to go through all the specs and things that you can already find on the other countless online Huawei Mate 9 reviews, but I will go through a couple of the the ones that mattered to me personally, along with some quick impressions of the smartphone.

Unboxing Huawei style

A Rare Smartphone in Canada

Not available in North America, the Huawei Mate 9 phone is not a common site here in Canada. I brought it in to a Bell store to get a SIM card (so we can confirm that it works with the Bell network), and two of the guys who worked there, both without any prompting just out of the blue said "This is a good looking phone". They work with phones all day and they probably never seen this phone in person before, so thumbs up to the designers at Huawei.

The 5.9" display feels more comfortable in my hand, not nearly as bulky feeling as the 6" Huawei Mate 8 smartphone. It also feels less slippery than the Asus Zenfone 3, for what it's worth. The speaker isn't as loud as the Asus Zenfone 3, which may bother some people. I'm beginning to think that the speaker is an underrated phone feature. Talking with the phone outside in public or in a car, a loud speaker is really important.

Google Play is not available out of the box, just like the Xiaomi smartphone I reviewed, but getting it installed is fairly straightforward. Install the GSM app, then install the Google Play app and you are then free to install whatever you want.

Huawei Mate 9 Smartphone Unboxing Photos

Huawei Mate 9 sitting pretty

Huawei Mate 9 Unboxed

Rear view of the smartphone

Mate 9 screen turned on

Huawei Mate 9 Smartphone design