Over the past couple years, Huawei has been a bit lax when it comes to bringing their latest and greatest devices from the global announcement stage to our shores. That, however, has changed with the Mate 10 series, as the Chinese company held a launch event for their Huawei Mate 10 Pro and Porsche Design Huawei Mate 10 last night.

The devices make up two of the trio that Huawei unveiled in Munich last month, with both set to be available via local carriers on the 17th of this month. Along with detailing their release date, Huawei Mobile South Africa also confirmed their respective pricing.

The Huawei Mate 10 Pro will cost a recommended R17 999 or R699 p/m depending on the contract (MTN, Telkom, Vodacom, Cell C), with the Porsche Design model costing a far greater at R26 999 or R899 p/m (MTN and Telkom). As such, the latter is currently one of the most expensive devices in South Africa, so it should be interesting to see if the Apple iPhone X will be able to surpass that asking price.

Along with a vertical signature stripe on the rear, the Porsche Design version also has a custom UI and a bunch of similarly designed accessories to differentiate it from the Mate 10 Pro. Huawei Mobile South Africa has also said the devices will only be available in limited supply locally, with an estimated 1000 devices set to hit our shores.

Apart from commanding hefty price tags, both Huawei Mate 10 versions will be sporting a 6" (2160x1080) display up front with an 18:9 aspect ratio, as well as a dual lens Leica-certified camera setup on the rear.

The real talking point though is the octa-core Kirin 970 chipset found internally, which touts AI capabilities to help the devices get smarter over time, according to Huawei. As such, on-chip AI is said to improve the overall experience of the Mate 10 series compared to its predecessors, with photographic capabilities and language translation being two of the early features of note.