The cold, grey finish on our Huawei Mate 9 gives us chills as we start the teardown.

On the backside, we spy (or get spied by) the second-generation Leica Dual Camera. Huawei says that it "renders images in unprecedented detail." At the moment it's beating us in this little staring contest, but we'll have the last laugh when we dig it out for inspection.

The fingerprint sensor lives on the rear of the phablet, right below the camera. Huawei's lab tests say it's 20% faster when compared to the sensor on the Mate 8.

Before we commence with disassembly, we line up the Mate 9 next to its closest sibling, the Huawei 9 Plus—which is only slightly smaller, with 0.4 fewer inches on the display diagonal. We tend to prefer the more contoured (and modern looking?) back of the Mate 9.