Two days passed in a blink, and the third-generation Harmony X was still riding high on momentum. The heat only started to cool once Huawei rolled out its own premium flagship, the Huawei Mate 8.
This time, Huawei deliberately moved its launch event up to October 16, trying to cut into the Harmony X spotlight.
Huawei's product strength has always been solid. Its P series and Mate series typically sat in the ¥3,000 to ¥4,000 range (≈ $429 to $571). With Samsung leaving a visible gap at the top end, Huawei pushed the Mate 8 higher, pricing it above ¥4,000 (≈ $571). If Huawei wanted buyers to accept that number, it had to deliver, because the premium market only rewards you when the product feels premium.
In recent years, Heifeng Lu had paid the closest attention to two competitors: Huawei and Xiaomi. In China's phone market, those two were still the most direct threats. They were the ones Huaxing could not afford to ignore.
Heifeng did not particularly enjoy watching Huawei's launch events. Huawei's presentations could feel like pure product briefings, not the kind of showmanship other brands used when they turned launches into concerts or comedy routines. Still, whether he liked the format or not, Heifeng took every serious opponent seriously.
The Huawei Mate 8 came with a 6.0-inch display, but Huawei did not use an OLED panel this time, and it did not chase the "full-screen display with a notch" trend either. Instead, it kept a design with physical buttons and paired it with a strong FHD display.
On materials, Huawei went with a metal back and a distinctive diamond-cut finish that made the phone feel more integrated, like the front and back were designed as a single object instead of two parts bolted together. The result was a device that looked composed and substantial, with a mature, business-first vibe.
Heifeng did not see a problem with that direction. The Mate line was positioned as a business flagship, so it did not need to compete with everyone else on flash. It needed to look expensive, feel reliable, and signal "serious."
If the aesthetic did not need to be aggressive, the hardware still could not be weak.
Huawei equipped the Mate 8 with a Kirin 920 built on a 10 nm process. In raw performance, it was not as strong as Qualcomm's Snapdragon 900, but Huawei made a point of emphasizing strengths beyond peak speed. The chip's overall capability was presented as a significant step forward, with performance up roughly 80% over the previous generation and an AnTuTu score exceeding 240,000.
Cameras were also pushed hard. The Mate8 used a 24 MP front camera and a 40 MP rear primary camera supporting 3x optical zoom and 10x digital zoom, plus a 5 MP wide-angle lens. It also used OIS for stabilization. The lenses were described as Leica-certified, and when paired with Huawei's Kirin image processing algorithms, the Mate 8's imaging and video performance was positioned as a significant advantage.
In fact, the presentation framed the Mate 8's camera capabilities as already surpassing both the recently released Xiaomi MIX and Samsung's Galaxy Note 5.
Battery and charging were treated as another business-class strength. The Mate8 used a dual-cell setup, essentially two 2,000 mAh batteries working together, which Huawei claimed supported strong endurance and charging performance. For "flagship extras," Huawei included Hi-Fi audio, NFC, and a linear motor for better haptics. The only notable omission was an IR blaster.
Heifeng found the hardware acceptable. The event had run for less than half an hour, and he was already waiting for what came next.
Because the configuration had reached the baseline for a premium flagship, but the baseline was not enough to truly hold ground at the top. Samsung had a world-class display and a deep software ecosystem. Xiaomi had wireless charging and a customized Snapdragon variant. Right now, the Mate8's most obvious component-level highlights were its camera system and its chipset, while the display choice left it vulnerable to criticism.
When hardware hits a plateau, software and experience decide the winner. At the flagship level, the top devices often look similar on a spec sheet. What buyers actually pay for is the overall "high-end experience," and that usually means the operating system, the features that matter day to day, and the things a company does better than anyone else.
Sure enough, once the main presenter, Chengdong Yu, finished the configuration rundown, he pivoted into Huawei's real advantage.
For Huawei, the trump card was communications.
Huawei positioned the Mate 8 as carrying its latest communications technology, claiming network stability improvements of roughly 80%. Beyond data performance, Huawei emphasized call quality and privacy. During calls, the microphone could reduce ambient noise for more straightforward voice pickup. On the receiving side, Huawei described an effect that made it harder for people nearby to intentionally or accidentally overhear a conversation, a privacy-oriented feature aimed directly at business users.
Huawei leaned fully into the "business flagship" identity: a refined, elegant exterior, solid flagship hardware, and communications features tailored to professionals. The positioning was precise and internally consistent.
While other Chinese brands were still fighting headline specs, Huawei was playing to its strengths and building a flagship experience around them. That strategic discipline put it a step ahead in terms of narrative, even before sales numbers came in.
Heifeng could not help acknowledging the foresight behind it. He also understood what would follow.
If Huawei were using the Mate 8 to push deeper into the premium segment, it would not be cheap.
As expected, Huawei announced pricing that covered roughly ¥4,000 to ¥6,000 (≈ $571 to $857), split across four storage options:
• 3 GB + 64 GB: ¥4,299 (≈ $614)
• 3 GB + 128 GB: ¥4,899 (≈ $700)
• 4 GB + 128 GB: ¥5,499 (≈ $786)
• 4 GB + 256 GB: price not fully shown in the provided source text
Even with the incomplete final line, the intent was obvious. This was Huawei's highest pricing in years, and it reflected how urgently Huawei wanted a stronger foothold at the high end.
The launch event wrapped up in under an hour, but it was clearly rehearsed and purposeful. Huawei had moved earlier to take market attention ahead of the Harmony X reveal, and in doing so, it was also declaring its willingness to fight Huaxing head-on.
Heifeng felt no real pressure from challengers like this. He smiled at Jianyu Liu beside him.
"So," he said, "feeling the pressure?"
"A little," Jianyu admitted.