Huawei launches Mate 70 phone series with Android rival HarmonyOS Next

Chinese phonemaker Huawei unveiled its latest flagship smartphone series, the Mate 70, on Tuesday. The phones, pre-installed with the company's own HarmonyOS Next operating system (OS) that is no longer compatible with Android apps, carry many people's hopes for a ground-breaking change in the smartphone market.

At the launch event in south China's Shenzhen, Yu Chengdong, head of Huawei's consumer business, told the audience that the only phone that can be better than a Mate is a new Mate.

Yu didn't reveal the system-on-a-chip (SoC), the most important chip in a phone, of the new series, just like in the previous few launch events.

Instead, Yu emphasized a lot on Mate 70's AI abilities, including photo and video enhancements, recognizing strangers looking at the screen, and translating phone calls realtime.

Starting at 5,499 yuan (about $760), the new series has attracted over 3 million pre-orders on the company's online store.

A new walled garden

Another important change from the Mate 60 series is the OS – the Mate 70 no longer supports Android apps, as it is packed with the self-developed HarmonyOS Next, creating a new mobile app ecosystem apart from Apple iOS and Android.

Previous testing shows that average users of the new OS can only install apps through the included store, while advanced users can sideload third-party apps.

The HarmonyOS Next features a new way to protect privacy by further limiting apps' permissions. On older OSes, if users wanted to send a photo through an app, they would have to allow the app to access the entire photo gallery. But with HarmonyOS Next, users can allow the app to only access specific photos, pretending the rest of the gallery doesn't exist.

Such measures create a new app ecosystem that is mostly under the control of Huawei and the users – a "walled garden," as described by many software developers.

Many smartphone lovers on Chinese social media welcomed the new OS for bringing more competition to the smartphone market, while others expressed concerns that building a brand-new ecosystem could be hard even for large companies like Microsoft.

Huawei had previously announced that there are currently over 15,000 apps and meta-services ready for users to download, and the number is still expanding.

Beta testers of the OS have posted videos on social media showing Tencent's WeChat, one of the most popular apps in China, running on the system.

Other products

Huawei also introduced the Mate X6, the company's latest double-fold series. The most high-end variation of the Mate X6 supports Beidou satellite messaging, Tiantong satellite network, and a new low-orbit satellite internet service set to launch in the second half of 2025.

The company's luxury smartwatch, the Huawei Watch Ultimate Design, is upgraded with a bezel made of sapphire crystal for a more luxurious experience. Another watch that measures blood pressure, the Huawei Watch D, also gets an upgrade with decreased size and weight.

Huawei also released other gadgets, including the FreeBuds Pro 4 with lossless audio playback and a home network router Q7 with Wi-Fi 7 and Nearlink support.