Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Design has race car looks, a QHD AMOLED screen

Perhaps picking Germany to unveil the new Huawei flagships was not random - the company caught everyone by surprise with the limited edition Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Design. The fashion-focused subsidiary of the legendary car maker is not new to phones, but this is its first partnership with Huawei.

A bit of history first - Porsche Design was founded by Ferdinand Porsche’s grandson, who also happened to design the Porsche 911 way back in 1963. Then there’s Leica, another legendary German brand, this one focused on photography. This phone is loaded to the brim with famous brands.

Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Design limited edition

The Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Design is smaller than its mass-market sibling - it has a curved 5.5” display. It is sharper (QHD resolution, 534ppi vs. 1080p, 373ppi) and it is an AMOLED to boot. It’s thinner and lighter too - 7.5mm, 169g, but keeps the 4,000mAh battery of the burlier Mate 9.

The phone borrows the Kirin 960 chipset, but ups the memory to 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage (up from 4GB/64GB). You lose the microSD slot, not that you'd notice. This is a premium offering in electronics terms, not just design.

The much talked-about camera adorns the back - Leica-branded with a 12MP color sensor and a 20MP black & white sensor. This is the second generation of the camera found on the P9 (which was 12MP + 12MP instead). The latest Kirin chipset is capable of 4K 2160p video capture, so that’s another leg up on the P9.

The combined cameras do Hybrid Zoom - a 2x digital zoom that combines information from both sensors (which the rumor mill confused for optical zoom).

We mentioned the big battery (4,000mAh), but how it’s charged is even more impressive - Huawei SuperCharge technology pushes a whopping 5A over the USB Type-C cable (for a total of 25W). In 20 minutes, you can charge the Mate 9 enough for a full day’s use. If you only have 10 minutes, then you can still charge enough for two full movies.

Now, you better sit down. This premium handset will be available in the European Porsche Design Stores starting in late December. But you better have been really, really good this year - as the Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Design will set you back €1,395. The phone will be available in Porsche Design Stores worldwide (aside from the US) and select Huawei stores in Asia, the Middle East and Europe, but that will be in January next year.

You can check out our hands-on with the Mate 9 Porsche Design over here. We've got plenty of live photos and first hand impressions for you.