It's hard to keep things under wraps these days. Case in point, the latest phablet to join Huawei's Mate series - the Mate 8. Leaked images of this 6" device surfaced online yesterday. As a result, the Chinese manufacturer has had to detail the device in full a bit earlier than it may have wanted. Nevertheless, the debut of this device clearly shows that there is a hankering for large phablets. At 6", the Mate 8's display infringes on small tablet territory, which could be a contributing reason the tablet's sales declining in recent months.

The Mate 8 is the natural successor to the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 (review), a phablet that won big on the screen and design sides, but ultimately felt a bit too big. Perhaps then that is why Engadget is reporting that the device will have an initial launch in China, before it makes its way further afield. The pricing and release date for the Mate 8 is still unconfirmed, but Huawei has divulged information on some of its specs.

The aforementioned 6" screen serves up a 1440x2560 resolution, delivering a 490 ppi pixel density. As such, the display on the Mate 8 should be as good as that found on the Mate 7. Powering the device is an octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 950 chipset, which is split between a quad-core 2.0 GHz (Cortex-A57) and quad-core 2.5 GHz (Cortex-A72) processors. Added to this is a substantial 4 GB of RAM when opting for the 64 GB onboard storage option, which should place the Mate 8 close to the Galaxy Note 5 in the processing power stakes. As such, comparing benchmark tests will be very interesting indeed.    

The Mate 8 also touts a few other noteworthy elements, with a 20.7 MP camera, fingerprint sensor and dual SIM (depending on region) added to the mix. While Huawei has not dated a local arrival, it's clear that phablets will still be a mobile fixture in 2016.