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Huawei just announced Huawei Watch, the company's first Android Wear smartwatch at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It has a 1.4-inch (400 x 400 pixels) circular AMOLED display with 10,000:1 high contrast ratio offering a fully circular 42mm diameter design, scratch-proof sapphire crystal lens and has cold-forged stainless steel frame. It has built-in heart rate monitor, 6-Axis motion sensors, heart rate monitor and has over 40 watch faces.
It is made of more than 130 components, has a crown, frame and hinge built from high-quality and scratch resistant cold-forged stainless steel making it 40 percent harder, says the company. It uses magnetic charging but no details about the battery capacity.
Huawei Watch specifications
1.4-inch (400 x 400) pixels AMOLED Display, scratch-proof sapphire crystal lens, 286 ppi
1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor
512MB RAM, 4GB eMMC
Android Wear OS (compatible with smartphones running Android 4.3 and above)
Sensors: 6-Axis motion sensor, Barometer, heart rate monitor
The Huawei Watch comes in gold, silver and black colors with stainless steel and leather band options. It will roll out in 20 countries including United States, United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Norway, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates. Currently no details about the pricing or availability.
Honor may be a young company but they're taking the market by storm by picking up where the Nexus range left off in offering flagship handsets at a very competitive price point. In its short existence, the company has managed to sell 30 million handsets with their current flagships - the Honor 6 and Honor 6 Plus - offering premium specs with an affordable price tag.
Yet to truly make a mark, you need a fan-base of ardent followers who are actively engaged with the brand and Honor is adopting this strategy in a bid to challenge the established brands. At last week's 100 Days of Honor event in London which saw the Honor Holly launched in Europe with a unique fan-first pricing structure, we spoke with Honor Vice President of Handsets, Lars Weisswange, for a few minutes about the brand, marketing strategy and the fan-first approach.
In the following, my questions are represented by NG and Lars' responses by LW. [Quotes in italic] describe his reactions to my questioning.
NG: How is Honor aiming to change the perception of the Huawei brand in Western Europe or is it being treated as a separate brand?
LW: From a [Go To Market] approach, it’s a separate brand. You ...
Huawei's Shanghai Campus
As part of our tour of Huawei's China facilities, we were given an exclusive look at the company's Research & Development labs to understand the different steps taken to ensure a handset is fit for consumer use. In the first of a two-part series, we take a look at the ways that Huawei tests the Antenna, Network and Radiation levels of its handsets.
Building a smartphone requires months of Research & Development not only into the handset's physical features but also to ensure it confirms with international standards regarding antenna performance and radiation emission. The former is a key part of the experience as without a strong antenna, the handset will cease to function for its primary function as a phone whilst excessive amounts of radiation can have a detrimental effect on a user's health.
With millions of handsets sold each year, Huawei has a responsibility to ensuring that its smartphones are both fit for purpose and do not pose a health risk to those who buy them. Huawei has several ways in which it tests the antenna and radiation levels of its smartphones - let's take a closer look at three of these:
10m semi-anechoic chamber
In layman's terms, an anechoic ...
Huawei has announced the appointment of Zhao Ming as the new head of Honor business. He will be replacing Jeff Liu who is the President of the Huawei Honor Brand, Huawei Consumer Business Group (BG).
Jeff Liu will be leaving the company within the first half of 2015. Before appointing as the new head of Honor biz, Zhao Ming was the Vice President of Huawei’s Western Europe Region. He joined Huawei in 1998 and has rich R&D, marketing, and international market experience. Ming has served in various leadership roles including as Head of the Wireless Product Management Department, Sales Director of Global Wireless Solutions, President of the Wireless CDMA & WiMAX Product Line, Representative of Huawei Device Italy, and most recently Vice President for the Western Europe region.
"During his 19 years with Huawei, Jeff has effectively served across multiple business units including as head of the Honor brand since 2013. We will remain forever indebted to Jeff for his work in growing the Honor brand which has been instrumental in the global success of our consumer business.
said Mr. Ken Hu, Deputy Chairman of the Board, Rotating CEO, Huawei.
Huawei claimed that its Honor smartphone shipments accounted for 20 million units, recording sales revenue ...
The modern smartphone is trending toward 4K displays and curved screens and Huawei has ruled out the former but is considering using curved displays on future Huawei smartphones. In a special briefing, Huawei President of Handsets Kevin Ho, confirmed that 4K displays have a negative trade-off with battery life but the wraparound Edge Screen on the Galaxy Note Edge was a feature they're looking into.
As covered previously, Ho believes that 4K displays have a compromise between performance and power consumption and this trade-off will determine when Huawei gets into 4K devices:
We have to compromise; 4K on a huge screen is great but most smartphones are five-inch or six-inch at most and maybe our eyes cannot tell the difference between 4K, 2K and Full HD on a small screen of five or six inches.
[The problem with 4K] is the power consumption as a 4K device could last maybe only six hours but a 2K or Full HD device would last one day or more. We have to compromise as 4K has a lot more pixels than Full HD and in the future there is a possibility for 4K in smartphones but only when [our eye] can tell the difference.
[caption id="attachment_126477" align="alignnone" width="574"] ...
At the beginning of a crucial year for Huawei - as they face new challenges from Chinese rivals Xioami and Gionee - the company has outlined a vision for the future that includes innovative products, an array of wearables and a commitment to using the Android OS.
In a special briefing at Huawei's Shenzhen campus in China, Chief Marketing Officer at Huawei, Shao Yang, told us the company is looking to innovate to become noticed in the market, is committed to the Android OS and sees a lot of growth opportunities in the wearables market.
Discussing the future for Huawei devices, Shao Yang told us:
I think last year innovation was based on 4G LTE as last year was when 4G boomed in the market. For this year, I think we need to bring the whole experience for the consumer as Huawei is developing multiple areas of products such as smartphones, home broadband, wearables and PCs.
There are many way that consumers connect with Huawei experiences and we need to make this experience very different to offer synergies between multiple devices working together.
We still feel LTE that will still be an important experience for the consumer so we look at how to make LTE ...
4G networks are being widely deployed around the world and although the technology continues to evolve, the focus now switches to 5G - the fifth generation of mobile networks. Dubbed 5G, the next generation network may still be several years away from being deployed but is the buzzword in telecommunications at the moment.
As part of a special tour of Huawei's Chinese facilities, we learnt more about 5G and of Huawei's role of making 5G a reality.
What is 5G? How does it differ from 4G?
5G is the next major phase of mobile telecommunications and follows the global adoption of the 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) standard since 2012. A new telecommunications standard is introduced approximately every ten years - 2G was in introduced in 1991, 3G in 2001 and 4G in 2012 - and 5G is expected to be made available in 2020-2022.
The fifth generation of mobile technology does not have a defined universally agreed upon standard - although a few likely technologies are emerging - and whereas 4G connections offer average speeds of 25-40Mbps at home, 5G is likely to offer speeds in excess of 500Mbps. Many entities believe that 5G will be defined by its ability to offer 1Gbps ...
Huawei has introduced Nova, which is the world's first processor based on 16nmFinFET technology. It is networking processor, supports GSM/UMTS/LTE FDD/LTE TDD on a single chip. It is based on ARM64 architecture and the 16FinFET process. Huawei promises that it will be 67% more efficient than traditional processors offering enhanced performance and flexibility.
The high capacity board simplifies site configuration and reduces power consumption, says the company. Huawei also announced the world’s first L-band antenna supporting Ultra Wide Band (UWB) and multi band, which not only supports the major frequency bands at 700/800/900/1800/2100/2600MHz, but also enables deployment of the 1500MHz band
Commenting on the announcement, Wang Jun, President of the SingleRAN & FDD Product Line, Huawei Wireless Network Product Line said,
The launch of Nova is testament to Huawei’s continued leadership and innovation in the ICT industry. Along with enabling the most advanced mobile network, Nova will provide customers access to the very best mobile brandband experience.
The Huawei Nova networking processor will be showcased at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2015 in Barcelona next week.
Huawei already confirmed that it will be introducing its first Android Wear smartwatch at the MWC this year. It has been teasing the smartwatch on its social channels, now the first images of the smartwatch have been spotted at the Barcelona Airport by TechHive and Android Central. It will be called Huawei Watch and looks exactly like an analog watch in its design.
It is seen in silver with matching metal strap, a gold with brown leather strap and a black with a black leather or silicone strap. It might come with a 22mm standard wide band so that you can replace it with any strap. You can also see narrow bezel, similar to the LG Watch Urbane. Complete specifications of the smartwatch are not available yet.
Huawei's MWC event is scheduled for 1st March 2015, Sunday, 13:30 CET (6:00PM IST). We will be there at the event to bring you more details and hands-on impressions of the smartwatch.
Huawei announced the Ascend G7 smartphone at the IFA last year. We brought you the hands-on impressions of the device from the event, here we have the unboxing. It's not available in India yet, and this is the UK unit, which costs about 149.99 GBP in the country.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zbsowW7Xzg
Box Contents
Huawei Ascend G7 in sliver color
Earphones with microphone
2-pin wall charger
micro USB cable
SIM ejector tool
Quick start guide
The Ascend G7 has a 5.5-inch HD screen, is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 410 SoC and runs on Android 4.4 KitKat with Huawei Emotion UI 3.0 on top. It has a 5-megapixel front-facing camera.
It has the SIM and memory card slots on the right. Even the power button and volume rockers are present on that side. It is just 7.6mm thick, but weighs 165 grams.
It has a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a unibody design. It has a 3000 mAh built-in battery and comes with 4G LTE Cat.4, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS support.
At Mobile World Congress 2015 today, Huawei have introduced the TalkBand B2, the successor to the Talkband B1 which debuted at last year's conference. The TalkBand 2 is the second generation of Huawei's fitness band / smartwatch line and introduces many welcome improvements over last years' model.
One of the key changes in the Talkband B2 is the dull-grey plastic strap from the Talkband B1, which has been switched out in favour of either a stylish leather or a more durable TPU watch strap dependant upon the model you choose. On the front is a 0.73 inch AMOLED display with touch support and like last years' model, the Talkband houses a fully-functional bluetooth headset which can be used to make voice calls.
Another improvement in the TalkBand B2 is the charging solution, with this year's model now sporting a microUSB port instead of a USB2 port on the Talkband B1. The Talkband B2 uses Bluetooth 4.1 to connect to either your iPhone (running iOS 7 or later) or Android smartphone (running Android 4 or later).
The Talkband B2 runs on Huawei's own proprietary OS and one of the interesting fitness functions is that the watch uses a 6-axis sensot to automatically detect your activity type - ...
Alongside the announcement of other wearable devices at MWC 2015 today, Huawei introduced their new TalkBand B2 fitness tracker and smartwatch product, which aims to improve on last year's TalkBand B1. The TalkBand B2 has a few key features and in an early briefing, we've managed to spend a few minutes with the new device to bring you our first hands on.
The TalkBand B2 features a 0.73 AMOLED display with touch support and uses a proprietary user interface to allow you to see your calories burned, distance travelled and also use it as a normal watch. The TalkBand B2 uses a six-axis sensor which allows it to automatically detect and measure your movements and the B2 can automatically determine whether you are walking, running or cycling without requiring you to enter a specific mode.
Like the TalkBand B1, the TalkBand B2 comes with a built-in bluetooth headset that can be used for voice calling and can be released by pressing both buttons next to the headset. When re-docking the headset into the wrist-strap, we found it to be a little fiddly but is easily connected. The TalkBand B2 is compatible with both iOS and Android with the former requiring iOS 7 or later and the latter ...
Huawei has launched the Talkband N1 wireless Bluetooth headset along with the Talkband B2. The TalkBand N1 is claimed to be the industry's first Hi-Fi stereo and Bluetooth headset with the ability to play music stored on it.
Huawei claims that TalkBand N1 provides the finest sound quality with higher expressiveness with a 20-20KHz frequency range. Housing APTX Bluetooth transmission technology, users will enjoy CD quality sound through the Bluetooth headset. The device comes with 4GB of storage on board, which Huawei says will be enough for around 1000 music files and the TalkBand N1 will sync via an app or USB. The Talkband N1 will only track basic movement like counting steps, , distance walked and calories burned, when paired with a smartphone. However, the device will not be able to distinguish between sports and does not come equipped with a heart rate monitoring on board with this wearable either.
The N1 earbuds clip together using magnets and there is a 67mAh battery capacity for up to three days of regular use. The TalkBand N1 is IP54 rated and it has a function that broadcasts the names or phone numbers of incoming calls. It comes in Silver, Grey and Red colors. ...
Huawei just announced Huawei Watch, the company's first Android Wear smartwatch at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It has a 1.4-inch (400 x 400 pixels) circular AMOLED display with 10,000:1 high contrast ratio offering a fully circular 42mm diameter design, scratch-proof sapphire crystal lens and has cold-forged stainless steel frame. It has built-in heart rate monitor, 6-Axis motion sensors, heart rate monitor and has over 40 watch faces.
It is made of more than 130 components, has a crown, frame and hinge built from high-quality and scratch resistant cold-forged stainless steel making it 40 percent harder, says the company. It uses magnetic charging but no details about the battery capacity.
Huawei Watch specifications
1.4-inch (400 x 400) pixels AMOLED Display, scratch-proof sapphire crystal lens, 286 ppi
1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor
512MB RAM, 4GB eMMC
Android Wear OS (compatible with smartphones running Android 4.3 and above)
Sensors: 6-Axis motion sensor, Barometer, heart rate monitor
The Huawei Watch comes in gold, silver and black colors with stainless steel and leather band options. It will roll out in 20 countries including United States, United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Norway, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates. Currently no details about the pricing or availability.
Huawei just announced the MediaPad X2, the company’s latest phablet and the successor of last year's MediaPad X1 at the Mobile World Congress 2015. It has the same 7-inch (1920 x 1200 pixels) IPS display, but this is powered by a 2.0 GHz Kirin 930 64 bit octa-core processor and runs on Android 5.0 (Lollipop) with Huawei’s own Emotion UI 3.0 on top. It has category 6 LTE support that would offer speed up to 300 Mbps.
It has a 13-megapixel rear camera BSI sensor, LED flash and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, similar to its predecessor. It also has voice calling capabilities.
Huawei MediaPad X2 specifications
7-inch (1920 x 1200 pixels) IPS display
2.0 GHz Kirin 930 64 bit octa-core (4 x 2.0 GHz+4 x 1.5 GHz) processor, Mali-T628 GPU
2GB / 3GB RAM, 16 GB / 32GB Internal storage, microSD card slot
Android 5.0 (Lollipop) with Emotion UI 3.0
Dual SIM
13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, BSI sensor
5-megapixel front-facing camera
DTS Audio
7.28mm thick
4G LTE / 3G HSPA+, WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n Dual Band, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
5000 mAh battery
The Huawei MediaPad X2 comes in 2G RAM + 16GROM version in a moonlight silver color and 3G RAM with 32GB storage in an amber gold color. No word on pricing or availability yet.
Huawei took wraps of latest Android Wear smartwatch at its MWC 2015 press event in Barcelona. The wrist gear from Huawei is a direct competition to LG’s Urbane, but is more compact and has bigger, sharper screen. We had a chance to spend some time with the Huawei Watch and here’s our hands-on report.
Huawei is using cold-forged stainless steel to build its smartwatch. The device has a compact 42mm in diameter casing and is about 11.3mm thick. The wearable is quite light when compared to a regular watch. We are happy to report that there’s no gap between and wrist band and the body unlike the LG Watch Urbane. Huawei says that its watch can be worn on either hand.
The Huawei Watch sports a perfectly round 1.4-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 400 x 400 pixels. The sharpness of the panel is quite impressive and the screen is legible all the time. Furthermore, the good news is that the Huawei Watch has a scratch-resistant sapphire glass.
Huawei has included a heart rate monitor in its smartwatch and it works flawlessly with the custom application from the company. You can track your health and fitness using the built-in function. The Watch ...
Huawei has announced a 4G LTE wireless service that turns your car into a WiFi hotspot. Dubbed as CarFi, it is similar to cellular hotspot devices, but it plugs directly into the DC port found in most cars.
Huawei claims that CarFi delivers a download speed of up to 150 Mbps and connectivity for up to 10 devices. It can be easily transferred from one vehicle to another. Huawei CarFi requires a SIM card that is placed inside to connect to a 4G LTE network. The device even allows users to charge their smartphone via USB port. The CarFi can also be controlled remotely by Android and iOS smartphones using the ‘Huawei Hilink’ application available to download on respective app stores.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX0MLWfKTpY
Huawei CarFi will automatically turn off when no WiFi-compatible device is identified, and can still. The device comes in three color variations, fashion elite black and warm family wood, and dynamic speed red. It be used to charge other electronic devices even when turned off as long as car is in use. Huawei has not yet announced a price tag and availablity for CarFi.
Huawei announced the LTE Cat4 enabled CarFi wireless service yesterday at MWC 2015. We went hands on with the device at the event and here is a look at the hardware.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nddEFSjqrJI
The CarFi turns your car into a WiFi hotspot and plugs directly into DC port of the cars. It has a micro USB port at the back that can be used to charge your smartphone.
Inside the CarFi you have a SIM card slot and connect to a 4G LTE network. Also present inside is a reset button.
Pressing the power button on top with the Huawei branding will start the device and create a WiFi Zone. The CarFi delivers a download speed of up to 150 Mbps and connectivity for up to 10 devices.
The CarFi comes in three color variations, fashion elite black and warm family wood, and dynamic speed red.
Images by Sandeep
Huawei launched the MediaPad X2 phablet earlier this week at MWC 2015. It is the successor to last year's MediaPad X1. We went hands on with the phablet and here is walkthtough at the specs and hardware.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nXVRBLnWo0
The Huawei MediaPad sports a 7-inch (1920 x 1200 pixels) IPS display and is powered by a 2.0 GHz Kirin 930 64 bit octa-core processor. Running Android 5.0 (Lollipop) with Huawei’s own Emotion UI 3.0 on top, it comes with 2GB / 3GB RAM, 16 GB / 32GB Internal storage, microSD card slot.
It has a 5MP front facing camera with earpiece.
There are three on screen touch buttons.
On the right side the phablet has micro SIM card slot, power button, volume rockers and microSD card slot.
At the bottom it has a micro USB port along with the microphone while at the top it has a 3.5mm audio jack. It is 7.28mm thick.
The plastic cover has a Honor branding at the center.
The 13MP rear camera comes with LED flash.
The loudspeaker grill is present on the right side. It has a 5,000 mAh battery.
The Huawei MediaPad X2 supports connectivity options like 4G LTE / 3G HSPA+, WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n Dual Band, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS.
Images by Sandeep
Sneha Bokil-Paranjape contributed ...
Huawei announced the Talkband N1 wireless Bluetooth headset at MWC 2015. It is claimed to be the industry’s first Hi-Fi stereo and Bluetooth headset with the ability to play music stored on it. We went hands on with them at the event so lets take a closer look.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_55g7B44cE
The TalkBand N1 is a Bluetooth stereo and also works as a fitness tracker. It can play music as well as keep a track of your burnt calories. Similar to any earphones, the earbuds are connected to a cable that goes around your neck. The earbuds have built in magnets so they stick to each other.
They are thicker than the original headphones. There is a USB port that lets you store upto 4GB of music or upto 1000 music files. Huawei TalkBand N1 has equipped the gadget with high-grade speakers and AptX codec support.
It comes with a controller that can be used to access music and take calls.
The Talkband N1 will only track basic movement like counting steps, distance walked and calories burned, when paired with a smartphone. However, the device will not be able to distinguish between sports and does not come equipped with a heart rate monitoring on board with this wearable either.
The ...
