Huawei Mate 70 Air is a little thick for a thin phone

Huawei is the latest phone manufacturer to release a thin phone: the Mate 70 Air. That’s our third Air for the year — after the iPhone

and ZTE’s Nubia Air — to only two Edges, suggesting Apple’s influence still reigns supreme over Samsung’s.

At 6.6mm thick, the Mate 70 Air isn’t quite as slim as Apple or Samsung’s attempts at the formula, but it makes up for it with a positively huge 6,500mAh battery — even larger than the 4,800mAh capacity of the Motorola Edge 70 I reviewed this week. The pressure is only building for Apple and Samsung to deliver better battery life in their second generations.

The Mate 70 Air manages that big battery in part thanks to an unusually large 7-inch screen, so it’s still a big phone. It’s also odd in offering a choice of two processors: buyers happy with 12GB of RAM will get the Kirin 9020B chip, while upgrading to 16GB bumps you up to a Kirin 9020A — though both are simply downclocked versions of the regular Kirin 9020. A triple rear camera, including a 12-megapixel telephoto, is also a boon for a phone this thin.

It’s China-only, at least for now, and starts from ¥4,199 (around $590).