While everyone is patiently waiting for the release of the Huawei Mate 9 as it earned nods from early reviewers, the Chinese tech company quietly announced another one of its variants in the Mate 9 Lite.

Publishing an in-depth rundown of specs for the Mate 9 Lite on their official website, the phone sounds decent on paper. It measures 150.9 x 76.2 x 8.2 mm with an aluminum frame that is curved at the edges and has a glass front. The device features a 5.5-inch full high-definition display with a 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution which is pretty good for a midrange offering.

Under the hood, the Mate 9 Lite is powered by Huawei's 2.1 GHz octa-core Kirin 655 processor with consumers having the ability to choose with between two random access memory (RAM) variants — 3 GB or 4 GB. The former comes paired with 32 GB or internal memory while the latter comes with 64 GB of native storage. Unfortunately, that is about it in terms of memory as the phone is not capable of expanded storage via a microSD card, unlike Huawei's other smartphones.

Battery-wise, a 3,340 mAh unit will be enough to keep the device going for quite some time regardless of the functions that it runs.

If the phone is decent enough with presumably a lower cost than the Mate 9, why would tech buffs opt for the pricier option when the Mate 9 Lite can do the job? Actually, the difference comes down to its software which is Huawei's EMUI 4.1 which is kind of parallel to Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The Mate 9 actually comes with the latest EMUI 5.0 which is tipped to be even better than the Android 7.0 Nougat.

Another downgrade is in terms of the cameras as the Lite's dual-camera setup at the rear has 12-megapixel and 2-megapixel lenses which are a step down compared to the 20-megapixel and 12-megapixel setup for the Mate 9.

Those who are interested in scoring the Huawei Mate 9 Lite will have to wait for a bit as no release date or pricing has been announced. However, potential buyers can already start contemplating on what color they want to get their hands on as it comes in gold, gray and silver casings.