Huawei is one of 1,600 Chinese companies exhibiting at CES this year, and is no doubt one of the biggest attending. The company announced a raft of new smartphones, tablets and wearables this week, so let’s take a look.
See More: ‘Shop our phones, gadgets and accessories – as seen at CES 2016‘
Honor 5X budget smartphone
The Honor 5X was launched back in November in China, but is making the headlines at CES thanks to its forthcoming release in the United States. The smartphone will debut at $200, which is a great price given its design, specs and features. The 5X has a metal frame and a fingerprint reader, a 5.5-inch 1080p screen, a Snapdragon 615 processor and 2GB of RAM. The rear camera has a 13MP sensor, and there’s a 3000mAh battery inside to keep it ticking. All of that’s pretty insane for a phone going for a couple hundred dollars SIM-free, even if its EMUI Android skin is pretty awful.
Mate 8 phablet
Huawei made the Nexus 6P for Google, and it looks like a lot of that phone’s DNA appeared in their next model: the Mate 8. Like the 6P, this is a 6-inch 1440p smartphone with Android 6.0 Marshmallow and a fingerprint sensor. The metal frame is quite beautiful, and inside it lurks a Kirin 950 processor, 3 or 4GB of RAM and a capacious 4,000mAh battery. Once again though, the EMUI version of Android adds a few debateable features and apes iOS 9 too much for its own good. Still, at a sufficiently attractive price point, it could be a winner outside of its native China, where it’s already sold 1 million units. It’s coming to Europe later this year, and is already available via gray-market importers.
MediaPad M2 tablet
The MediaPad M2 is Huawei’s brand new Android tablet. The 10-inch 1200p model has a design that reminds me of Samsung’s latest tablets, complete with lozenge-shaped lock button with fingerprint reader. The tablet comes with a pressure-sensitive stylus, four Harmon-Kardon speakers, a 13-megapixel rear camera and a Kirin 930 quad-core processor. It’ll cost $349 in the US, where it goes on sale later this year.
Elegant & Jewel Android Wear smartwatches
Probably the most exciting announcement was two new Android Wear smartwatches, named Elegant and Jewel. As you might guess from the names, these glamorous smartwatches are jewel-encrusted creations, sporting Swarovski crystals and gold cases. The watches go on sale in early 2016, with US prices set at $499 and $599 for the Elegant and Jewel, respectively.
GX8 mid-range smartphone
The GX8 is Huawei’s US-specific version of the G8, a mid-range smartphone with a metal unibody design. The GX8 will come with a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a Snapdragon 615 CPU, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of expandable storage and a 3000mAh battery — not bad for a mid-range phone, eh? The GX8 will sell for $350 sim-free, and debuts in the US sometime this spring.
Conclusion
That’s all for now! Thanks for checking out our continuing CES coverage and have a great weekend. We’ll be back next week with more CES news, as we continue to work through the hundreds of products announced and detailed at this year’s show.