Huawei P10: UK release date, price, specs and features to expect

The Huawei P9 flagship was one of the best phones of 2016, and with MWC 2017 fast approaching it's not too long before its successor, the Huawei P10, breaks cover. The elusive handset is set to be revealed to crowds during Huawei's MWC 2017 press conference in Barcelona on 26 February.

Given what we saw with its previous flagship, which brought dual-lens camera tech to the table alongside classy design and top-drawer performance, our hopes for the P10 are high.

While hard facts remain thin on the ground, there's enough watercooler chat for us to start compiling a picture of what the Huawei P10 might look like. Here's what we've heard so far.

Huawei P10: Release date and price

The Huawei P9 and larger P9 Plus missed MWC last year and were instead announced during a standalone event on 6 April. The phones went on sale just 10 days later, costing £449 and £549 ($560 and $690) respectively.

This year, Hauwei has moved the reveal of its flagship phone forward to join the crowds in Barcelona. The company has sent out invites for its press conference in Barcelona on 26 February, the day before the Mobile World Congress officially kicks off, for what the company has earmarked as a "global unveiling of a new flagship device".

A teaser trailer for the company confirms that this will indeed be the Huawei P10. It's a well-timed move for Huawei as it will allow the manufacturer to roll out its latest flagship ahead of the Samsung Galaxy S8, which has been pushed back until the end of March if rumours are to be believed.

In terms of a price, reports suggest that the Huawei P10 will cost from £450-£600, depending on model.

Huawei P10: Design

A handful of alleged Huawei P10 images that surfaced on Chinese social media site Weibo show a smartphone sporting a design language that echoes recent handsets from the company, all the way down to the rose gold finish found on certain P9 models.

The rear-facing top panel on the device also houses a similar dual-camera, flash and laser-autofocus sensor arrangement to the Huawei P9, although the Leica logo is replaced with the word 'Hanzo'. We expect this to be placeholder text for the prototype, if the photos are in fact the real deal.

At the same time, the spot traditionally reserved for Huawei's logo is occupied by a picture of an ape and the word 'Dreams', which could be the phone's internal codename. Also notable is the lack of a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor and the inclusion of a physical home button on the front of the device, suggesting the two functions have been rolled into one.

Huawei P10: Display

The Huawei P9's 5.2in screen was sufficiently large in our opinion, but with the trend for larger smartphones showing no sign of slowing, we expect the P10 to arrive sporting a panel somewhere in the region of 5.5in. This would put it up there with the Google Pixel XL, iPhone 7 Plus and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.

A recently-spotted smartphone benchmark result on GFXBench appears to support this rumour. It points to a Huawei device with the codename LON-29, which is telling given that the Huawei P9's model number is LON-19. The readout suggests the Huawei P10 will sport a 2560 x 1440 display with "at least five-finger gesture support".

A recent report from Phone Arena suggests that unlike the Huawei P9 and P9 Plus, which measured 5.2in and 5.5in respectively, both the P10 and P10 Plus will arrive with the same 5.5in display; rather than differentiating on size, the P10 Plus might instead sport a curved-edge screen similar to Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.

Huawei P10: Hardware specs

Phone Arena reports that the Huawei P10 will be available in three variants: a 32GB and 64GB model, both of which will come with 4GB RAM, and a 128GB model packing 6GB RAM, which likely refers to the P10 Plus.

According to rumours, this will be powered by Huawei's proprietary Kirin 965 chipset, the successor to the Kirin 960 found in 2016's Huawei Mate 9. This aligns somewhat with earlier benchmark readouts, although GFXBench refers to an octa-core 2.3GHz HiSilicon Hi3660 system-on-chip, which is based on Huawei's Kirin 960 CPU.

A Mali-G71 GPU will allegedly power the Huawei P10's graphical capabilities.

Huawei P10: Dual camera

The Huawei P10 will once again go big on camera tech, with a teaser for the handset bearing the slogan "change the way the world sees you". The tagline for 2016's Huawei P9 unveiling was "change the way you see the world"; with the emphasis on last year's phone being the dual-lens camera, it sounds like Huawei has something special in store for the P10's front-facing lens this time around.

The images of eyes in the teaser may allude to a dual-lens front-facing camera, or even the presence of iris-scanning technology akin to the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.

Reports mostly agree that the Huawei P10 will sport a 12MP primary camera and an 8MP lens for selfies. German camera manufacturer Leica is expected to lend its optics tech to the Huawei P10 much as it did for last year's flagship.

We'll be updating this article as more news on the Huawei P10 surfaces, so stay tuned to IBTimes UK Tech for all the latest news, rumours and water cooler chat on Huawei's upcoming Samsung killer.