Huawei looks to buy NZ smartphone share with $399 big screen Android
Controversial Chinese company looks to move up the Android food chain with a handset that packs in a lot of high-end features for the price.
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So far in the NZ market, Huawei has been associated with low-cost smartphones - the kind of keenly priced handsets that are pushing Android well ahead of iPhone.
On October 25, the controversial Chinese company will make its bid to move up the food chain with the release of the $399 Huawei Ascend G600 - exclusive to Telecom in terms of phone company contacts, but also available through several retail chains.
For your money, you get a whole lot of smartphone - including a big 4.5-inch screen (the iPhone 5 is 4 inches, the Samsung Galaxy SIII 4.8), dual-core processor, Gorilla Glass, surround sound DTS audio, NFC, Android 4.0 and an 8 megapixel camera.
There are a couple of drawbacks, including modest onboard memory (4GB, expandable via SD) and a 0.3 megapixel front facing camera (much lower spec than the iPhone 5's high def front-facer - though it's all a bit moot given no one's about to do mobile-to-mobile full high def video conferencing in NZ).
At 145g, it's also a touch heavier than the Samsung Galaxy S III (the reigning king of the big screen Androids, which weighs in at 133g) or the 112g iPhone 5.
I've yet to sight the phone (a review unit should arrive at NBR Towers tomorrow), so I'm not sure how the 960 x 540 display will look (though it seems to stand up pretty well in this quick Engadget preview)
From the looks of things, Huawei is looking to buy share at the top end of the market. Other big screen Androids are typically twice the price.
So if you're in the Android camp, the G 600 could be worth checking out.
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Huawei looks to buy NZ smartphone share with $399 big screen Android
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