Huawei Mate 10 Lite rumors: Specs and design leaked; October release expected?

Huawei unveils the newest smartphone series, including the upcoming Huawei Mate 10 and Huawei Mate 10 Pro.Twitter/HuaweiMobileAU

Huawei enters the smartphone fray and looks to compete against Google and Apple, as its new Huawei Mate 10 Lite design and specifications get leaked online.

Evan Blass, famous tech tipster, has claimed that Huawei may release one more variant of its Mate 10 series, supposedly called the Mate 10 Lite. While the Mate 10 and the Mate 10 Pro have "Marcel" and "Blanc" as their respective codenames, the Mate 10 Lite will, apparently, have "Alps" as a codename.

Like the Mate 10 Pro, it is expected to feature the newly introduced AI-featured HiSilicon Kirin 970 system-on-a-chip (SoC) coupled with 6 gigabytes (GB) of random access memory (RAM). The rumored variant is also assumed to have an Android Oreo out-of-the-box.

The Huawei Mate 10 Lite, however, despite being slotted into flagship phone territory, is not as robust as the Mate 10 Pro. The screen resolution of Mate 10 Lite will be 2,560 x 1,440 fitted into a 5.88-inch In-plane switching, liquid crystal display (IPS LCD) with a 16:9 aspect ratio, making it more of a "Lite" variant of the Mate 10 instead of the Mate 10 Pro.

The aforementioned central processing unit (CPU) of the Mate 10 Lite will be the same as the Mate 10 Pro, which is an eight-core 2.5 gigahertz (GHz) Kirin 970, with an identical battery size and imaging setup. The tradeoff for the Lite version is that it has 4 GB of RAM instead of six, no 128 GB storage expansion option, a slower LTE category 12, and a slightly thicker frame.

An alleged CAD render of the Mate 10 Lite has been leaked, showing off the front-facade of the supposed Mate 10 Lite variant. Some images of the Leica dual camera setup have also been revealed, although the images are CAD renders of the Mate 10 and the Mate 10 Pro, not the Lite variant, which is not yet confirmed to have the same camera model or number as its bigger brothers.

The Huawei Mate 10 "Alps" is rumored to be unveiled on Oct. 16 and is expected to also ship later in the same month.