While everyone's attention is on the Mate 9, Mate 9 Pro, and Mate 9 Porsche Design smartphones, Huawei secretly launched the fourth model of the series, the Mate 9 Lite. It is the pocket-friendly version of the flagship smartphone, with its smaller display screen.

The Huawei Mate 9 Lite looks similar to its other siblings, but it has a smaller form factor. It has the same 2.5D curved glass at the front, as well as the curved aluminum cover at the back, although it only comes with a 5.5-inch display with 1920x1080 pixel resolution LCD screen. It is not that small, considering that comes with a measurement of 150.9 x 76.2 x 8.2 mm and tips the scale at 162g.

The toned-down version is powered by an octa-core Kirin 655 processor 2.1GHz and 1.7GHz core speeds. The phone is available in two variants: a 3 GB RAM/32 GB ROM and 4 GB RAM/64 GB ROM. Unfortunately, it does not have an expansion slot, so everything important must fit in its internal storage.

The Huawei Mate 9 Lite lacks the Leica branding, but, it still sports a dual-rear camera system. It is 12 MP and 2 MP lenses, instead of the 20 MP and 12MP on the other models. The less powerful setup can still produce the "Bokeh" or blurred background effect that many professional photographers perform on their pictures. An ordinary image will become more artistic with such effect. An 8 MP camera at the front will take care of video calls and selfies shots.

The latest device also features a finger print scanner at the back, and it will be available in gold, gray, and silver. It also comes with a 3,340 mAh battery that should last a day under normal usage, and it runs on Android 7.0 Nougat topped with the EMEI 5.0 UI (user interface).s

Huawei has not revealed any information about its price nor its availability, but the Mate 9 Lite is expected to be significantly priced lower than the more powerful variants of the same series.