Huawei, the Chinese major been there since 2000 in the Indian telecom industry, Little known fact of Huawei is that almost 1/3rd of calls in the world are made via Huawei network setup. That kind of stuff speaks volumes about the company. It also has about 55% of the USB dongles market globally. In India it is at 70%. If you are reading this on the move through Reliance Netconnect or Tata DoCoMo Photon, chances are that you have a Huawei dongle!

Of late Huawei has been firming up plans globally of moving on from being just another telecom company provider that does OEM work. As a direct consequence, in India Huawei has launched phones in the Indian market under its own brand name.

We’ve all seen a whole lot of their products being sold under many brands, take a look at the Android phones from Idea and MTS, they are Huawei devices. Globally, Motorola has Triumph sold on Virgin Mobile, which is infact an OEM device from Huawei.

However the first Huawei branded phones in India are decidedly different from those offerings. Huawei in a bid to differentiate its product has packed in something extra for the consumer, something that I, at the onset, must say is quite a good add on.

In India Huawei is bringing many and a tablet. I was fortunate to get time on a few of them and have some photos as well as first impressions about the device as well.

Huawei Sonic

The Huawei Sonic is an entry level device from Huawei. The device has a few firsts to it, Huawei has been closely examining how to break into this market and this phone seems like a pretty good starting point.

The device is priced at Rs.9210 only in India.

The specs for it are as follow -

• 600 MHz Qualcomm S1 processor
• Android 2.3.5
• 1400mAh Li-Ion battery
• Rx Diversity for better reception
• 3.2MP camera
• 512MB RAM
• 7.2mbps HSDPA
• WiFi N with the ability to create WiFi hotspots
• Bluetooth
• Dual Mic for noise cancellation
• FM Radio and Live TV capability
• 256MB internal memory
• 4GB MicroSD card [MicroSD support of up to 32GB] *free*
• 16GB free (for life) cloud storage
• 3.5″ HVGA screen
• SNS stream – Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in one single stream
• Proximity, light and gravity sensors
• GPS

One good look at the specs and I must tell you that the phone is a quite a disruptive in the segment. On paper this clearly stands out as a superior product in the market today.

I had a little bit of time with the device and the 600MHz did not feel slow nor did the UI show lag. That’s the first great thing about the phone. The launcher employed by Huawei is pretty nifty too and has options for many transition effects and iconography. 3.2MP camera is decent at the price point. What I liked most about the phone is that for an entry level device the phone allows for a good 3G experience and also a similar experience on WiFi by supporting the current and fastest band – N.

The dual MIC setup was again quite an unexpected feature and a pleasant one at that. The speaker of the phone is pretty loud, suffice to say, that not many people can complain of missing a call because you couldn’t hear the ringing.

However the best feature of the phone lies in the ability to back up almost everything on your phone to the cloud. Yes you get 16GB of space online for free for life! You can even pay extra and expand that to 160GB! From your app data, photos, videos to SMS and phonebook, you can save it up on the cloud and access it from the internet through a username and password that only you know.

The phone felt pretty slim and no it doesn’t look like an ancient brick. At the price it is being sold at, this comes across as a value for money offering.

Huawei Ideos X3

The Huawei Ideos X3 is the more expensive, more compact offering from Huawei. Here’s probably the only aberration from Huawei, but this phone is equally enticing at the price point. The phone also have the 16GB cloud storage available.

The Huawei had broadly the same specs but not completely alike.

• 600 MHz Qualcomm S1 processor
• Android 2.3.5
• 1200mAh Li-Ion battery
• 3.2MP camera
• 256MB RAM
• 7.2mbps HSDPA
• WiFi N with the ability to create WiFi hotspots
• Bluetooth 2.1
• Curved glass at the sides
• FM Radio
• 512MB ROM
• 4GB MicroSD card [MicroSD support of up to 32GB] *free*
• 16GB free (for life) cloud storage
• 3.2″ HVGA screen
• SNS stream – Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in one single stream
• Proximity, light and accelerometer
• GPS with A-GPS support
• front VGA camera

The device is as you can see a smaller version of the Sonic, but is more feature rich than the Sonic.

First impression for this device, well it seemed smoother than the Sonic for some reason. But then again this might be a one of notion. The addition of the FFC was a good move and Huawei confirmed that video chats via GTalk is possible. This makes the phone a handy device to have when you want to have that conversation on video. the 3.2″ seems a tad small, but the good part is that the keypad for typing is pretty good for an Android phone and I didn’t have to squint or pull my hair in frustration at constantly getting the wrong spellings.

The phone is priced at Rs.10,229 in India.

Both devices have OTA, which means Huawei will push the updates over the air, no need to connect it to a PC to upgrade your phone. The other unique offering from Huawei is Message+ which is akin to the many P2P messaging services available in the market, however there is a catch to it, it’s exclusively for Huawei phones. It works in a similar manner as BBM and has all the features advanced users will demand from day one.

In addition to that Huawei is also providing the owners the ability to find their device, should they lose it or misplace it, remote wipe it and also take a back up of the data to the cloud drive.

The good part about the cloud storage is that users can create folders, sort and organize stuff as they see fit. Photos can also be accessible via a ‘gallery’ feature so you can show off your special moments. This ‘gallery’ is also accessible through the native gallery in Android.

In terms of looks, the phone was pretty good looking and the materials used did not feel ‘cheap’ or tacky, an important thing most of the buyers consider when buying a phone. Also since it was quite slim, it should be easy to slip in and out of the pockets without much effort.

 

Here’s a few pics of the Huawei launcher on the Ideos X3 -

The other device we got to lay our hands on was the MediaPad.

The MediaPad from Huawei is an interesting tablet. at 390gms, the tablet is quite light and looks quite stunning. Personally I wasn’t expecting such a good looking tablet from Huawei. The MediaPad is definitely classy in its looks.

Specs -

• 1.2 GHz dual core processor with Adreno 220 GPU
• 7″ IPS screen with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels, that’s a ppi of 217 (capacitive and multi-touch enabled)
• HSPA+ capable (14.4mbps)
• WiFi (b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.1
• GPS with A-GPS support
• Android 3.2
• 1GB RAM
• 8GB EMMC (5GB available to user)
• Micro SD support of up to 32GB
• MicroUSB slot
• Stereo speakers
• HDMI type-D out and 3.5mm audio jack
• USIM slot for SIM cards (for data)
• 4100mAh Li-Ion battery
• 5MP auto focus camera, with 1.3MP ffc

In terms of looks, the aluminum unibody is quite well finished and of very high quality. The device is capable of full HD (1080p) playback and I did not have problems in the playback of a sample video on the MediaPad.

At just 10.5mm, the MediaPad was quite slim and it felt quite lightweight also. THE SRS settings ensured good quality audio and the MediaPad is quite loud for a tablet, a good thing too, since as Indians, we like it if the devices are louder.

The MediaPad has the usual plethora of sensors so don’t worry if you don’t see it in the specs. Also the 16GB of clud storage is available for it as well along with the entire suite of Huawei applications that the Sonic and X3 come with.

Since OTA updates are in order, expect the device to get updates quickly and in a painless fashion. The good thing and this one I especially liked was the inclusion of a SIM card slot. With tablets offering a this as an option, I’m mighty glad this one comes with it out of the box. The product manager at Huawei did slip in a bit of juicy info to us, that the tablet will be able to make calls in the future, if that’s true then for the price (Rs.28,359) this seems like a great buy!

The screen on the MediaPad is quite a revelation too. Huawei has has done some good research and hasn’t cut corners. It offers a crisp and vivid display on the MediaPad, things looks quite crisp and this makes it a treat to view videos, browse the web, play HD games and do more.

Since it is a 7″ tablet, it makes a lot of sense in carrying it around and using it. The overall dimensions make this an acceptable device to have in the bag or that purse. Certainly better than a huge 10″ tablet this one is.

If you are interested in any of the devices, don’t worry, World of Phones will be reviewing these devices soon.