The Huawei Ascend Mate stomps onto the mobile scene to really test our willingness to call a 6-inch device a smartphone, but that is indeed what it is.
Actually measuring 6.1-inches, the 1280x720p display on the Ascend Mate is the largest on any smartphone in world, making it the king of super-sized handsets – dwarfing the already ridiculously large Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and HTC Droid DNA/J Butterfly.
Due to arrive in China next month, the Ascend Mate will make it to other regions around the world from March, but Huawei is yet to announce the countries in line to be treated to the gigantic device.
The Huawei Ascend Mate price is currently unknown, but we'd expect it to be sporting a price tag which is comparable to other high-end devices on the market.
As you'd expect with such a big screen the Ascend Mate is big device, easily stretching our palm to its limit just to hold the beast.
Huawei is keen to point out that it's tired to keep the size down as much as possible, citing that the screen-to-bezel ratio on the front of the Ascend Mate is the best around, with 73% of the real estate belonging to that 6.1-inch HD LCD display.
We had a Galaxy Note 2 on hand to do a quick side by side comparison and while the Huawei Ascend Mate is naturally slightly bigger and slightly more tricky to grasp, weight wise there's not a lot between the handsets.
The glossy plastic back of the Ascend Mate is curved to help it fit in your hand, but without any form of grip and due to the sheer size of the thing we reckon this one is a dropper.
That said it does feel relatively well built, certainly when you compare it to the cheaper budget devices Huawei has churned out in the past, and we reckon the Ascend Mate is able to take a couple of knocks – don't go throwing it down the stairs though.
Packing in a punchy 1.4GHz (or 1.5GHz according to press materials) quad-core processor we expected the Ascend Mate to zip along, so we were surprised when we came to wake the screen – using the power/lock key on the right – that it took a couple of seconds to register our intent.
There is only 768MB of RAM inside the handset, which too is a little surprising as we were expecting at least 1GB, if not 2GB - but may explain the tardiness.
Just below the unlock key you'll find a volume rocker and both switches have been placed ideally for thumb bashing if you're holding the Mate in your right hand, while your left fingers will also be able to find them easily.
You can't take the back off the Ascend Mate, so there's no access to the monstrous 4,050mAh battery housed inside – the biggest in any smartphone – but it should keep you going all day.
Up top you get a 3.5mm headphone jack and a slot for a microSIM, and down the left there's a slot for a microSD card to supplement the poxy 8GB inside - what was Huawei thinking!?
Both slots are covered by plastic panels, which we found easy to remove and snap back into place.
The lock screen itself isn't the standard Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean affair, but the firm's own attempt as part of its Emotion UI (version 5.1 here) offering up a variety of intuitive quick launches as well as the normal unlock function.
Thankfully things perked up a bit once we got past the slow-to-appear lock screen, with the Ascend Mate allowing us to glide through the homescreens and app lists without issue – as you'd expect from a handset boasting so much power and the Project Butter smoothness of Jelly Bean.
A neat little feature is the ability to hide the on-screen Android navigation keys at the bottom of the display, allowing you to utilise the whole display. All you need to do is hit the small down arrow to the left of the icons and the bar will disappear.
It's easy to get it back too with a slide up from the bottom of the screen bringing the controls to the fore - and the screen automatically adjusts to ensure no content is hidden behind them.
Apps open quickly, but not in the lightening fast times we see on the Galaxy Note 2 or iPhone 5 with the camera taking around a second to get itself sorted.
Round the back there's an 8MP sensor complete with LED flash and modes such as panorama and HDR, although you'll need two hands at all times to balance the Ascend Mate while hitting the shutter key.
There's a few options in the camera app including camera effects and scene modes, but nothing out of the ordinary.
The application is easy to use and the big screen means reviewing your photos in an enjoyable experience.
Clearly that big, 16:9 aspect ratio screen also comes in handy if you fancy watching a movie and the Ascend Mate had pretty good viewing angles meaning you can have a couple of mates watching either side of you as well.
Huawei has stuck Dolby's surround sound technology into the Ascend Mate which boosts the volume of the internal speaker while reducing the level of distortion and it sounded pretty good, even in the crowded press room.
If that wasn't enough the Ascend Mate also comes with Hauwei's 'Magic Touch' technology allowing you to operator the phone when wearing gloves – perfect for winter strolls through the woods.
Obviously when it comes to typing on the Mate's display two hands are a must, but Huawei has implemented one handed keyboards for those of you who fancy a challenge.
Similar to the implementation on the Galaxy Note 2 this one-handed functionality sees the keyboard floated to either the right or left side of the display to allow you to thumb-out a missive.
The keyboard itself is pretty standard fair and fine for short messages, but we wouldn't recommend it if you want to type a lengthy email.
With the reduced size of the QWERTY keyboard it actually turns out to be pretty tricky to bash out a text one handed, as we managed to hit the wrong key on several occasions.
Another leaf taking from Samsung's (and Sony's tablets) book if the ability to have multiple apps on screen at once, with simple apps such as notes, messaging and calculator available to uses to pull up over the app they are currently viewing.
Early Verdict
The line between smartphone and tablet continues to blur and the Huawei Ascend Mate does nothing to help the situation.
Huawei wants you to ditch your tablet in favour of the Ascend Mate, which in its eyes can double as both a slate and a phone.
We're not completely sold on that philosophy and tend to sway towards the theory that a 6.1-inch phone is pretty mad – verging on unnecessary.
We expected a snappy experience from the Ascend Mate and it is by no means a slouch but it just didn't feel as slick as the offerings from HTC and Samsung.
We'll put this phablet properly through its paces in our in-depith Huawei Ascend Mate review in the coming months to see if it is a decent competitor to the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and co. – in the mean time we're off to stretch our hands in preparation.
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