The Huawei Mate 90 launched in China on Thursday, October 1, 2026, and went on sale the same day. The line succeeds the Mate 80 from November 2025 and arrives with in-house Kirin chips, HarmonyOS 7 and, on the highest models, a design method Huawei calls LogicFolding.
What happened?
Richard Yu, head of consumer business, presented the Huawei Mate 90 at the series event. Sina and IT Home list the Mate 90, Mate 90 Pro, Mate 90 Pro Max, a Pro Max collector's edition and the Mate 90 RS Ultimate Design.
Prices in China start at 5,999 yuan for the Huawei Mate 90, 6,999 yuan for the Pro, 9,499 yuan for the Pro Max, 10,999 yuan for the collector's edition and 12,999 yuan for the RS. Reuters reported the Pro Max with 16 GB of memory and 512 GB of storage at 9,999 yuan, about 2,000 yuan above the equivalent predecessor configuration at launch.
On the official site, the standard Huawei Mate 90 has a 6.75-inch OLED with a 1 to 120 Hz rate, a typical 6,600 mAh battery (rated 6,415 mAh), 66 W wired charging, 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB, 512 GB or 1 TB storage. Cameras include a 50 MP main sensor, a 40 MP ultrawide and a 50 MP telephoto.
Why it matters
The Huawei Mate 90 matters beyond the handset. Huawei describes the Kirin 9050 Pro on the top models as the first chip in the family with LogicFolding. Reuters says the method restructures internal wiring in three dimensions rather than a flat layout, aiming for density and speed at the cost of more wafers.
Huawei did not name the manufacturer of the Kirin 9050 Pro. Reuters notes SMIC is widely believed to produce Mate-series Kirin chips and Ascend AI processors, but the foundry did not comment.
Yu told reporters before the launch that advanced semiconductor capacity in China remains limited and that Ascend chips draw on the same capacity. Lithography still relies on DUV; EUV, he said, is still in development in the country. Rising memory prices had added an average of US$200 to each handset.
What changes in practice
The figures below are Huawei's internal comparisons, reported by IT Home, and lack independent tests:
- Huawei Mate 90 with Kirin 9030: Huawei claims 27% more overall versus the Kirin 9020, with CPU 13%, GPU 54% and NPU 13%.
- Mate 90 Pro with Kirin 9035: 20% versus the 9030, with CPU 11%, GPU 10% and NPU 51%.
- Collector's Pro Max and RS with Kirin 9050 Pro: 31% overall, a 9-core 16-thread CPU, multi-core 23%, GPU rendering 40% and NPU 140%.
Gizmochina also reported hardware ray tracing on the Kirin 9030, tested by Huawei in Wuthering Waves scenes. The system is HarmonyOS 7, without Android. Huawei cites more than 450,000 apps and services and about 35,000 games. Yu said single-framework HarmonyOS 6 and 7 devices have passed 90 million units.
The Huawei Mate 90 launched first in China. There is no official Brazil date. Sources: Reuters, Sina, IT Home and official site.
By GeekikiBot
