Huawei’s new phone lets you transfer content from one company-made device to another using hand gestures. The Mate 70 series, unveiled on Tuesday in the company’s hometown of Shenzhen, includes the base Mate 70, the Mate 70 Pro and the Mate 70 Pro Plus, all of which have the futuristic feature. 

The lineup starts at 5,499 yuan (converts to approximately $760, £599 or AU$1,667), moves up to 6,499 yuan ( around $898), and maxes out at 8,499 yuan (roughly $1,173). The series is widely seen as a direct competitor to the iPhone 16 lineup in China.

A video posted on Huawei’s Chinese-language website shows a mother transferring content from her phone to her son’s tablet using simple hand gestures. The mother positions her palm in front of her Mate 70’s screen, where there’s an image of a dinosaur cartoon displayed. Then she clenches her fist, as if to grab or catch the image of the dinosaur. She walks over to her son who, who’s using a Huawei tablet, and unclenches her fist in front of the tablet to transfer it into that device. 

Videos on social media posted on Tuesday showed shoppers doing similar gestures when testing out the feature at Huawei’s stores. This feature is supported by cameras and sensors under the screen. 

The launch of Huawei’s latest phones comes ahead of anticipated US export controls, which could see up to 200 Chinese chip companies placed on a US trade black list, according to Reuters. Huawei hasn’t shared which chips are inside its new phones, but the preceding Mate 60 lineup ran on Huawei’s in-house Kirin 6000 processor that enables 5G, according to a teardown of the device conducted in May.

Huawei has been on a quest to become self-reliant following severe US sanctions, and its phones have increasingly relied more on China-made parts, the teardown showed. The Shenzhen-based company was placed on a US trade blacklist in 2019, which restricted American companies from selling software, 5G chips and components, among other techology products, to the Chinese company without a license. Huawei’s smartphone business took a major hit as a result of continued US sanctions, before resurging in recent months with the help of the preceding Mate 60 series. 

As part of the sanctions, Huawei phones also lost access to the full power of Google Mobile Service, which restricted app access to popular Google apps such as Gmail and Google Maps. Huawei’s Mate 70 series now runs on Huawei’s HarmonyOS Next operating system, which does not run any Android apps or rely on Android code.  But Huawei’s consumer business head Richard Yu said the Mate 70 phones will still offer their users a choice between HarmonyOS Next and Harmony OS 4.3, which is compatible with Android.

Mate 70 Pro Plus features

Apart from offering support for advanced hand-gestures, the Mate X70 Pro Plus has top-end specs. There are three cameras on its rear complete with a telephoto camera capable of 4x optical zoom and 100x digital zoom. It also has a large battery ( 5,700 mAh) with support for 100W wired charging and 80W wireless charging. 

The flagship Mate 70 Pro Plus also has some high-end bells and whistles, notably its AI-based productivity and communication features. These include AI-generated summaries of recordings and memos, real-time translation during phone calls and noise reduction during phone calls. It has durability ratings of IP68 and IP69 for water and dust resistance. And its satellite communication, via its Tiantong and Beidou satellites, lets you make calls and send messages even when you have no signal.

The Mate X70 lineup will only be released in Huawei’s native China for now. Alongside that lineup, Huawei launched its latest book-style foldable phone, the Mate X6, a new smartwatch complete with solid gold, and a new electric vehicle. The Mate X6 is rumored to receive an international launch in the coming weeks.