An unexpected arrival alongside the regular Huawei Mate 9, the curvy, ridiculously-specced Porsche Design Huawei Mate 9 is supposed to represent the peak of smartphone technology and design. With a curved screen, pitch-black anodized aluminum rear, a 4,000mAh battery, 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, this phone would turn heads even without a major luxury brand on the front. So it's a fitting inaugural phone for the Chinese manufacturer and its German design partner.

Huawei Mate 9

After all, the big phone market is in something of a spin: Samsung has crashed out with the Note 7, leaving Apple and Google to cruise along with the respective iPhone 7 Plus and Pixel XL phones. Both of which are just about as expensive as phones get, priced from £719 a piece.

As long-time Mate fans - we used the Huawei Mate 8 for months - we had waited with baited breath to see what the Mate 9's play would be. But unlike its predecessors, it's not gone in with a low-blow price point to send the competition scuppering. Instead this €699 handset has nipped and tucked the screen into a 5.9-inch form (but stuck with just a 1080p resolution), ramped up its interior specification, and comes with a dual camera arrangement too.

The Mate 9 also sees a price jump, which at €699 is now knocking on the door of its Apple and Google competitors. It undercuts them slightly, plus delivers headline features such as a decent dual camera. But with that price gap now closing, the Porsche Design model casting a shadow of sorts, and few points of distinction to really set the Mate 9 apart, Huawei is largely banking on Samsung's explosive exit from this market to succeed.