Can the Huawei Mate 60 Pro connect to a 5G network?

Foreign online media (mainly Chinese) are reporting that the new Huawei Mate 60 Pro smartphone (retail price $960) includes a 5G chip, but we have not received official confirmation from Huawei at this time.

Huawei released the Mate 60 Pro with remarkably little fanfare, which is surprising for such a flagship phone. They also haven't released all the details, including the chip/processor which is usually at the top of the specs. Any mention of the chip is noticeably absent from the phone's official website, but there is mention of a "better communication experience" and a "more stable network connection", although this isn't exactly a good indication that it's really 5G connectivity.

This information appeared in these "unboxing" videos of the phone and reviews posted online. They were also reported by tech media outlet Gizmochina, which says the device includes the Kirin 9000 for 5G support as well as satellite calling. This is said to be the latest version of the Kirin chipset, which was last seen in the Mate 40 series of devices in 2020. However, Gizmochina cautions that "there is very little information that can be confirmed" about whether the company has truly gone self-sufficient with new processors.

If the Huawei Mate 60 Pro included its own 5G chip, it would mark a huge milestone for the Chinese giant. In 2019, the US government banned US companies from selling software and equipment to Huawei due to national security concerns. Things got worse for Huawei when the US made it harder for foreign chipmakers that own US technology to do business with the company.

After Huawei began to run out of stock of existing chips, rumors surfaced that the company was focusing all its efforts on the development of 5G chips using Chinese technology and the help of SMIC.

SMIC is said to use 7-nanometer technology to manufacture the chips. This is still not as efficient as the 4-nanometer and 3-nanometer processes used by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). It makes chips for Apple, NVIDIA and Google. Still, there are concerns that all the blockades to date have pushed China into self-sufficiency, contrary to the plans the US government had in mind, which hoped to cripple Chinese manufacturing and technology development with the measures.

We asked the Slovenian representative office of Huawei for a comment, but we have not yet received a reply.

What will potential 5G connectivity mean for Slovenian customers? Incompatibility with Google programs will still be a major obstacle for users. Of course, there are solutions/applications that, with the help of virtual environments, allow almost flawless use of popular Google programs, but for many people this is not a sensible solution.

If you don't depend on Google or only use one or two apps (for example Gmail and Drive) and the 5G network also doesn't mean much to you, Huawei's hardware is still fantastic phones, which we also highlighted in our P60 Pro, Mate 50 phone tests Pro, Mate X3…

Huawei has focused a lot of energy on the development of smart watches, where they can boast of quite a few excellent examples (Huawei Watch 4, Huawei Ultimate...), which we also tested in the editorial office. Counterpoint's latest research revealed that the global smartwatch market recovered slightly in the second quarter of 2023 (11 % growth) after two down quarters. At the same time, Huawei increased its domestic market share to 39 % and rose to second place globally. In the same period, Apple recorded a 10 % drop, while Samsung saw a drop of 19 %.