Just over a week ago, Vodafone confirmed that it would be the only U.K. network to carry Huawei’s 6.1-inch phablet, the Ascend Mate, but gave no indication of its release date. As of yesterday, residents in the United Kingdom are now able to pick up the Mate on Vodafone for free on a £29 per month contract, or for a one time payment of £300 on PAYG.

Huawei’s flagship phablet packs a 6.1-inch IPS+ LCD display, a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 4050 mAh battery. The device will ship running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and will be upgradable to Android 4.2.

The full press release can be read below:

The new Huawei Ascend Mate combines all the benefits of an almost tablet sized screen with the convenience of a slim and compact handset, designed to fit easily into your pocket or handbag.

Available exclusively at launch from Vodafone UK, the Huawei Ascend Mate is free for £29 per month (including 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data) for pay monthly customers and £300 for pay as you go customers. As well as the super-sized 6.1 inch HD display it packs a powerful 1.5GHz quad core processor and runs on Android Jellybean 4.1 for both speed and seamless browsing.

With Huawei’s Emotion UI, you can customise your new device as you wish, and what’s more you can use it anywhere and at any time. Its highly-sensitive IPS touchscreen is not only designed to cope with almost all light conditions, the unique Magic Touch technology means you can even use it with your gloves on.

Designed for both work and play, you can move the Huawei Ascend Mate’s keyboard to the side of the screen for one handed typing – whether you’re writing emails or updating Facebook – and the 8MP camera with Full HD recording and playback is great for capturing and re-living all those memorable moments.

There’s also loads of memory and a durable battery so you can store and enjoy films, games and entertainment when you’re on the go.

Specifications:

• Dimensions (mm): 163.5 x 85.7 x 9.9
• TouchScreen: 1280 x 720 LCD, HD, IPS+ 1
• Processor: 1.5 GHz quad-core Hi-Silicon K3V2 CPU
• Screensize (inches): 6.1
• RAM & Internal memory: 8GB & up to 32 GB (Micro SD)
• Camera: 8MP (1MP front camera)
• Battery: 4050 mAh battery
• Operating system: Android Jellybean

• SourceVodafone