Video shot/edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

Huawei’s smartphones only started arriving in the United States recently, but that’s no reason to discount them. While the company still won’t give us a price or a solid release date, its new Mate 9 will be a contender for any Android fan who wants a big smartphone as soon as it gets here. Huawei built upon the features of the P9 and the Honor 8 to make the Mate 9 slightly better in every way, including design, power, and efficiency.

While it hasn’t been out long enough for us to truly test the long-term usefulness and intelligence of Huawei’s Emotion UI and machine learning algorithms, we can assess how the €699 (~$740) Mate 9 performs straight out of the box. At this price tag, the conclusions are mixed: everything you can’t see in the smartphone is impressive, but the things you do see and interact with regularly could be improved.