Live from the Engadget CES Stage: Huawei VP of External Affairs Bill Plummer
Chinese telecom company Huawei has been aggressively targeting the consumer space in recent years with Android-powered smartphones and tablets like its Ascend line. Does it have what it takes to become a big-league competitor alongside the likes of Samsung, LG and Apple? We’ll ask the company’s VP of External Affairs, Bill Plummer.
Follow all the latest CES 2014 news at our event hub, and check out our full stage schedule here.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Huawei Announces The Huawei Ascend Mate 2 [CES 2014]
Huawei announced at their CES 2014 press conference that the successor to its Ascend Mate phablet would be called the Huawei Ascend Mate 2 4G, which updates their flagship phablet offering to try and match the best on the market. The Mate 2 keeps the 6.1-inch form factor of its predecessor but adds a quad-core 1.6GHz processor, 4G LTE capability and a massive 4,050mAh battery. The Mate 2 also packs a 13-megapixel rear camera and a selfie-sufficient 5-megapixel front facing camera.
While the processing abilities of the Mate 2 look a little under-powered compared to its Snapdragon 800-toting phablet competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, the Mate 2 is aiming at a different marketing line, one which is focussed on promoting its incredible power-saving abilities. To name just a bit of what the Mate 2 is able to do, the updated 28-nanometer chip in the processor enables the Mate 2 to have the same power-saving as any of the new Snapdragon chips and Huawei boasts that its intimate and pioneering work on LTE networks has given them a unique technical advantage by allowing power-saving to occur when using LTE, by up to 30%, they say.
Huawei says that all this power trimming allows the Mate 2 to have a battery life of almost 2 days even with heavy use and LTE on and almost 3.5 days with minimal use. This is an impressive claim that we’d love to see validated. The highlight of the Mate 2′s announcement, for me, was the announced ability of reverse charging. This enables the Mate 2 to recharge another device simply by connecting the two devices, which is a really great idea considering the kind of battery reserves you’ll have with a 4,050mAh battery.
We did also get a brief hands on with the Mate 2 after the press conference, and despite a perceived lack of power due to its 1.6GHz processor, the Mate 2 appeared to zip along quite nicely; you can find photos from the press conference and our hands on below.
What do you think about the Huawei Ascend Mate 2? Let us know in the comments.
Gallery of Photos
Press Release
Experience the power of more with HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G
Huawei launches its new 6.1-inch smartphone at CES 2014
Las Vegas, U.S.A., January 6, 2013: Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today launched the HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The 4G LTE-enabled smartphone is Huawei’s new super performer that gives people around the world more power and a bigger screen to seize opportunities at every moment. With its 6.1-inch IPS screen, long-lasting 4050 mAh[1] battery, and 5-megapixel front-facing camera, HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G is perfect for enjoying more non-stop entertainment and has enough power to watch six downloaded movies or listen to up to 100 hours of music on a single charge.
“With HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G, we are bringing the benefits and convenience of superfast connectivity to people everywhere,” said Colin Giles, Executive Vice President, Huawei Consumer Business Group. “HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G is power-packed for the mobile generation who want non-stop entertainment on the go, such as the ability to snap and download photo albums in seconds or use their smartphone as their mobile office.”
HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G features a powerful quad-core 1.6 GHz processor and a long-lasting 4050 mAh battery to enjoy a half-day of web surfing on a single charge. The smartphone features unique power saving technology that improves performance by more than 30% compared to other smartphones in its class. HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G is 9.5mm slim and its stylish shape and ergonomic casing lets the phone fit comfortably in the palm of the hand.
HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G comes with Huawei’s proprietary Emotion UI 2.0.[2] The intuitive user interface features Huawei’s One-Hand UI to enable single-handed operation, made easier with HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G’s 79% screen-to-body ratio. Its Floating Window function gives multi-taskers access to notes, messages, calendar and calculator at any time, and Huawei’s Simple UI aids easy customization, perfect for those who like to keep their homescreen simple. Ensuring convenient use at all times, the smartphone’s Gloves Mode functionality supports use when wearing gloves and Driving Mode enables voice activation when on the road.
At 6.1-inches, HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G’s large screen is ideal for viewing documents, watching movies or browsing pictures. Spontaneously snap and view photos with HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G’s 13-megapixel BSI rear-facing camera featuring 2.0 aperture, enabling crystal clear and professional-quality photos, whatever the occasion. Turn the smartphone around and HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G’s 5-megapixel front-facing camera with vertical panorama and Auto Face Enhancement, broadens pictorial horizons to create a fun-filled ‘selfie’ experience.
To keep up with today’s around-the-clock lifestyle, HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G offers ubiquitous connection. Whether at your desk, on the road, or at home, HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G’s lightning fast LTE Cat4 connectivity enables movie downloads in minutes or work file uploads in a flash, with speeds of up to 150 Mbps. Across its range of accompanying connectivity options including WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0, HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G offers all-round support.
To add more color and fun to HUAWEI Ascend Mate2 4G, additional accessories including a Bluetooth earphone, stylish flip cover and colorful external battery packs, are available for purchase.
Huawei dials up 6.1-inch Ascend Mate 2 4G
Huawei on Monday announced the Ascend Mate2 4G, a 6.1-inch Android smartphone capable of supporting AT&T and T-Mobile’s LTE networks. Powered by a 1.6GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor, the phone boasts a 13-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front-facing camera. Juiced by a 4050mAh battery, it’s so powerful that it can be used to charge other phones. Yes, the bar is now set at 4050mAh for Li-Polymer batteries.
Although its screen size might give reason to pause, the 79% screen-to-body ratio sees that it hardly wastes the space. In terms of software, the Ascend Mate 2 4G comes with a new flavor of Emotion UI which features a simplified design, new one-handed features, and better options for controlling apps, calls and social networking.
Pricing and availability were not made clear but we expect that to flow out in due time. For what it’s worth, Huawei is reported to have pulled out of the U.S. market amid concerns of spying. With that said, you should still be able to scoop one of these up in an unlocked capacity.
The post Huawei dials up 6.1-inch Ascend Mate 2 4G appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Huawei’s big Ascend Mate 2 4G can charge up your iPhone, coming to the US
Given the recent leak, Huawei’s announcement of the Ascend Mate 2 4G should be no surprise to anyone. The device is essentially an LTE Cat 4 (read: 150Mbps!) refresh of its predecessor, packing a similar 6.1-inch 720p IPS panel that seems to be of better display quality, and Gorilla Glass is here to stay. Of course, such screen resolution also means the fixed 4,050mAh battery should keep the Mate 2 going for a lot longer than its 1080p competitors. Furthermore, you can also use the Mate 2 to charge up other devices! Huawei’s rather confident of its own power-management technology, promising 60 hours of “normal use” and 12 hours of web surfing. At the launch event today, Huawei’s Richard Yu confirmed that the Mate 2 4G will have two options for its quad-core 1.6GHz SoC: one is Qualcomm’s MSM8928, and the other is Huawei’s own HiSilicon Cortex-A9 chip.
The Mate 2 also features 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, microSD expansion of up to 32GB, plus a pair of cameras — 5 megapixels f/2.4 on the front and 13 megapixels, f/2.0 on the back. This is all tucked inside a familiar 202g, 9.5mm-thick body, which feels rather nice given the solid frame and slightly slimmer screen bezel, though we’re not too fond of the glossiness on the white Mate 2′s removable back cover (for access to the SIM slot and microSD slot). On the software side, there’s Huawei’s Emotion UI 2.0 running on top of Android 4.3, so users will benefit from features optimized for single-hand usage — especially the telephone keypad that squashes itself to one side, depending on your tilt. You also get handy floating widgets like calculator, calendar, notes and messages to go on top of other apps.
Huawei has yet to provide details on pricing and availability, but you’ll hear from us as soon as we find out.
Update: Richard Yu also confirmed that the Mate 2 4G will be coming to the US, with AT&T name-dropped as a compatible carrier.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Huawei had a pretty good 2013, wants to ship 80 million smartphones this year
At Huawei’s CES press conference, executive VP Colin Giles reminisced on 2013, when the company truly embarked on moving from an ODM to a consumer-facing OEM. By the end of the year, 95% of all handsets left its factories with the Huawei branding attached, and in Q4 2013, smartphone shipments topped 17.5 million. In the previous quarter, the Chinese phone-crafter jumped into the top three manufacturers worldwide, according to various analysts. Despite all the company’s success and rapid growth, there’s no intention to slow down — Giles wrapped things up by setting Huawei’s sales targets for 2014, and no less than 80 million devices will do.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Huawei Ascend Mate 2 snapped with its predecessor, said to keep 720p panel
While there’s been no reason to doubt whispers of a follow-up to Huawei’s Ascend Mate, pictures of the super-sized device have so far been unflattering. Today, however, a Mate 2-toting source has sent some snaps to our friends at Engadget Chinese, including a few family photos with the original Mate. Barring a few aesthetic changes and a slightly thinner profile, the Mate 2 bears a similar square form factor to its older brother. Aside from learning of its 13-megapixel main camera, the source reiterates specs we’ve heard already: a 1.6GHz quad-core processor, 16GB of internal storage, 2 gigs of RAM and Android 4.2.2 with a coating of Emotion UI. It is claimed, however, that the next-gen Mate’s display has not been upgraded as previously thought, so we’re in for the same 6.1-inch 720p panel as before. That could make for an anticlimactic first impression, and if Huawei’s going to make its Mate family announcements a CES tradition, then disappointment is just around the corner.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: Engadget Chinese
NSA can reportedly bug computer equipment before it reaches buyers
Don’t think that the NSA always has to wait until people are using technology to start snooping on it. Spiegel has obtained documents which claim that the agency’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group can intercept computer equipment orders and install tracking hardware or software before the shipments even reach their buyers. The division can target a wide array of hardware, too. Another NSA section, ANT, reportedly has a catalog of tools that can install back doors in everything from Cisco and Huawei network systems through to hard drives from most major manufacturers, including Seagate and Western Digital. Some of these bugs can give the NSA “permanent” access, since they’re designed to persist if the owner wipes a device’s storage or upgrades its firmware.
The leak suggests that the targeted manufacturers aren’t aware of what’s happening; Cisco and other firms tell Spiegel they don’t coordinate with the NSA. These hardware interceptions are also limited in scope next to remote surveillance programs. The agency isn’t confirming any specifics, but it maintains that TAO is focused on exploiting foreign networks. Whether or not that’s true, the discoveries show that the NSA’s surveillance can reach the deepest levels of many networks.
Filed under: Networking, Internet, Dell
Via: Gizmodo
Source: Spiegel (1), (2)
Huawei’s Honor brand challenges Xiaomi with 3X and 3C low-cost phones
Huawei’s known for its Ascend smartphones around the world, but back in late 2011, the company also started toying with a small Honor series for select budget markets. Fast forward to today, the latter sub-brand has become Huawei’s platform to compete with the sudden surge of affordable online brands in China — most notably Xiaomi, the pioneer of that industry. With a little help from MediaTek (and ironically not Huawei’s own HiSilicon), the phone maker is upping its firepower over this territory with two new dual-SIM devices: Honor 3X and Honor 3C.
The Honor 3X joins the first wave of octa-core 1.7GHz MT6592-powered devices, and it boasts 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel f/2.2 main camera, a 5-megapixel 1.4-micron front imager plus a generous 3,000mAh battery. The 720p resolution on the glove-friendly, 5.5-inch IPS touchscreen may seem like a let-down, but in this case, Huawei reasoned that going 1080p would push power consumption up by as much as 20 percent, plus many folks may not notice the visual difference — a point that Huawei Device Chairman Richard Yu has often echoed publicly.
On a brighter note, the 3X is the first phone to feature dual-3G SIM slots — one Mini SIM and one Micro SIM — for WCDMA (China Unicom and most carriers around the world) and TD-SCDMA (China Mobile). Better yet, both slots will recognize either type of 3G radio, as opposed to having designated slots for each. There’s also a dual-mic system for in-call noise cancellation, as well as DTS audio support. The price? From just CN¥1,698 or about $280 off-contract, making it a tad more affordable than the Xiaomi MI3. Alas, there’s no launch date just yet.
The “C” in Honor 3C probably stands for “cheaper,” as evidenced by its specs. It features a quad-core 1.3GHz MT6582 SoC with 2GB of RAM, along with a 5-inch 720p LTPS panel, a 2,300mAh battery, a Sony 8-megapixel f/2.0 main camera, the same 5-megapixel front imager as the 3X’s, dual-SIM slots (WCDMA + GSM or TD-SCDMA + GSM) and microSD expansion. Like the 3X, this model also comes with dual-mic noise cancellation. The damage is only CN¥798 (about $130) for the 1GB model, or CN¥998 ($160) for the 2GB flavor, and China-based folks can pre-order from online retailer JD.com or Huawei’s own Vmall.com as early as tomorrow.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: Vmall (Chinese)
Huawei may debut Honor 4 as first octa-core smartphone on December 16
Chinese phone maker Huawei recently sent out invitations to a December 16 event for what will most likely be the unveiling of its newest octa-core phone, the Honor 4. Also known in some markets as the Huawei Glory 4, the device is said to be the first “true” eight-core SoC since…
Huawei files trademark for PhoPad, but shouldn’t be worried about anyone taking the name
Huawei filed a trademark for a “PhoPad” with the USPTO this week. There’s no guarantee that the manufacturer will come out with such a device — which, given the name, we’d expect to be similar in concept to the ASUS PadFone or FonePad — but who …
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