The dual sim Mate S by Huawei cannot be said as a successor to the previously released Mate 7, as the Mate 8 is fully serving that purpose. Though it has the name of the Mate series, it's still somewhat of an oddball, which is not a bad thing actually since it feels like it's combined with all the nicer features and design elements from the rest of Huawei's smartphone lineup.

Talking about its design, Huawei has focused a lot on how the Mate S should look. It has an elegant metal unibody with a slight curve at the back, making the phone easier to hold. The front glass is slightly curved from the edges and gives the phone almost a bezel-less look. It's 7.2 mm at its thickest (which is actually pretty thin) and has a 5.5 inch Gorilla Glass 4 protected screen that packs a resolution of 1080 x 1920 full HD display at a pixel density of 401 ppi.

Performance wise, it comes with a HiSilicon Kirin 935 chipset and two Quad-core processors, working side by side at 2.2 and 1.5 GHz. It also has 3 gigabytes of RAM and comes in three different versions in terms of internal storage, 32, 64 and 128 GB. There is also a microSD card slot (uses SIM 2 slot) that supports up to 128 GB of external storage.

Looking at its camera, the 13 megapixel primary sensor found at the back of the phone does justice to its premium-device promise. It has an aperture of f/2.0 as well as optical image stabilization, dual LED flash and a focal length of 28mm. The front camera isn't behind in the race as well, with a sensor of 8 megapixels as well as an LED flash.

Battery wise, the phone packs 2700 mAh of juice to power the device for roughly a day's use. It is a little smaller, compared to the other high-end specifications of the device but is reasonable enough. All in all, the phone does shine with some high-end flagship features but cannot be said the best choice in this price range.