Huawei Technologies unveiled its Mate 70 smartphone series on Tuesday, promoting the comeback of its premium smartphones while also showcasing its own operating system that looks markedly different from the American technology.

The Mate 70 is the successor to the Mate 60 series released in August last year, which is widely seen as Huawei’s return to high-end smartphones in competition with Apple, after its business was badly hit due to US export restrictions. After this a new tab opens.

It comes as the US is expected to announce new export controls as soon as this week that could add up to 200 Chinese chip companies to a trade blacklist, restricting their access to US suppliers, Reuters reported on Saturday. Gave.

The device is “the most powerful Mate phone ever,” Richard Yu, president of Huawei’s consumer business group, said at an event in the company’s hometown of Shenzhen, which was livestreamed online and at its stores.

Prices for the Mate 70 will start at 5,499 yuan ($758), Yu said. Apple’s base iPhone 16 model sells for 5,999 yuan in China. Yu also said that the Mate 70 is the first mainstream smartphone to include a satellite paging system, has an improved processor, and runs on Huawei’s own HarmonyOS Next operating system, which improves performance by up to 40% compared to previous models. Increases.

The Mate 70 series is the first major commercial rollout of HarmonyOS Next, an important step in Huawei’s push for software freedom since it cut off access to Google services following US sanctions in 2019.

HarmonyOS Next, the Android-free version of Huawei’s operating system that began testing this year, marks a complete departure, opens new tab, from the Android code as the company looks to eliminate its reliance on American technology .

Last week, Huawei said it had secured more than 15,000 apps for its HarmonyOS ecosystem, with plans to expand it to 100,000 apps in the coming months. Still, Huawei is keeping its options open, offering Android compatibility as a backup solution. The strategy suggests the company may need more time to prepare HarmonyOS Next for full public deployment while building its developer ecosystem.

Richard Yu said that the Mate 70 series will offer users the choice between HarmonyOS 4.3, which maintains Android compatibility, and the new HarmonyOS Next 5.0. All new Huawei phones and tablets launching next year will run on an Android-free version, Yu said.