Back in October, reports of a new phablet in development at Chinese manufacturer Huawei made the internet rounds.
The phone/tablet was rumored to be Huawei's Ascend Mate, a 6.1-inch phablet with a full 1080p HD screen, 1.8GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM.
On Wednesday, those reports gained a bit more credibility when Huawei's Senior Vice President Yu Chengdong revealed the company's plans to release a large-scale phablet next year.
Bigger, better, thinner
Chengdong announced the news on Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter), where he described the in-development device as more powerful and thinner than its closest competitor, the Galaxy Note II.
Though Chengdong doesn't officially call the device the Ascend Mate, there are enough similarities between the device he describes and the one revealed in those October reports to make the connection.
Ironically, Chengdong's Weibo account revealed he was sent the news blast from a Galaxy Note II, which he claimed to be using as research to make Huawei's phablet even better.
Though there's still not a firm release date or price lined up for the Huawei Asend Mate, Chengdong did relate the phablet would be cheaper than the Galaxy Note II when it does arrive.
There's a decent chance Huawei will make a stand with the Ascend Mate - plus the Ascend W1 and W3 handsets - at CES 2013 in January.
TechRadar asked Huawei for more info and will update this story when and if the company responds.
