Huawei hasn't exactly faced an easy road bringing its latest flagship smartphone, the Mate 10 Pro, to the US.
But despite the drama, those in the US who are interested in the Mate 10 Pro can now pre order the unlocked version via Amazon, Best Buy, Microsoft, Newegg, and B&H for the full price of $799.99. The 6-inch smartphone comes in Midnight Blue and Titanium Gray color options (with a Mocha Brown version coming soon) and is slated to begin shipping by Sunday, Feb. 18.
As an added incentive, those who pre-order the Mate 10 Pro now through Feb. 17 will receive a $150 gift card from the retailer from which it was purchased, Huawei announced.
In terms of specs, the Mate 10 Pro runs Android 8.0 Oreo with Huawei's EMUI 8.0 software on top and offers 6GB RAM, 128GB of storage, and a large 4,000mAh battery. As we wrote in our Mate 10 Pro preview, it's the first phone with a dedicated Neural Processing Unit, letting it run artificial intelligence computations with greater efficiency than a CPU or GPU.
The launch of this unlocked version comes after US carriers like AT&T and Verizon decided not to sell the Mate 10 Pro, reportedly due to pressure from the US government. The Chinese smartphone maker came under scrutiny from Congress in 2012 about potentially spying for the Chinese government, which it denies vehemently. Since then, Huawei has faced trouble finding a foothold for its phones at carriers, which control the vast majority of US phone sales.
"I think it's quite a big loss for us and also for the carriers, but it's more of a big loss for consumers," Richard Yu, chief of Huawei's consumer business group, said during a CES keynote last month.
Meanwhile, for those with expensive taste and deep pickets, Huawei is also launching a $1,225 "Porsche Design" version via the same electronics retailers selling the regular Mate 10 Pro. That version features a "race track inspired design in a Diamond Black body," 6GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a customized user interface.