A couple of days ago I was in Delhi on an invitation from Huawei, they had invited me to have a look at their new line of devices, or you can say for their second phase of Huawei device strategy in India.

Huawei has in the past year or so been trying hard to break away from the mould of being just an OEM making devices for consumption under others’ brand name and for people in and around China. And thus far they have made the right noises, with the introduction of some devices that are well placed and priced.

At Huawei’s office in Gurgaon, it was a familiar sight for me, meeting the important stakeholders within Huawei India, having met some of them the last time.

At the blogger meet, we were introduced to the Huawei Honor and the new Ideos X5 (U8800 Pro) along with two internet devices – the MiFi router E560 and the 3G dongle E303.

Let’s jump to the Honor first.

The Honor is Huawei’s attempt at getting mindshare and wallet share of consumer looking to buy smart phones with a budget of Rs.18-22k. Since there is a real dearth of quality phones at that price point, and hardly any competition there, it makes sense to have their product at that price point. But then this isn’t a ‘cheap’ phone. The Honor not only has great specs to boot but also is a well designed high quality device. So, no it’s not a ‘china’ phone, far from it.

The specs of the Honor are as follows -

• Android Gingerbread 2.3.5 OS
• 1900mAh battery
• 1.4 Ghz processor
• 4.0 inch 16M 16:9 true color FWVGA capacitive touch screen
• 8 megapixels auto focus camera supporting HDR, with VGA front-facing camera
• 2G Network (operating band) GSM 850/900/1800/1900 [Support Class 10 GPRS and EDGE]
• 3G Network (operating band) WCDMA/HSPA+ 900/AWS/2100 [ 3G HSPA+ DL 14.4 Mbps/UL 5.76 Mbps]
• Measures 10.9mm (0.43 inches) at its thinnest point and weighs around 140g (0.3 pounds)
• WiFi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth V2.1 with A2DP
• 512M RAM + 4G ROM(eMMC) memory with a memory card slot up to 32GB
• Micro USB 2.0 port
• Assisted GPS support
• FM radio
• Dual MIC, compass and gyroscope, G-sensor, proximity sensor and light sensor
• Exclusive Huawei user-interface with a dynamic weather widget
• 16GB free for life in India
• DLNA-certified enables sharing with other DLNA-certified devices

The Honor’s specs are pretty good for a phone that costs Rs.19990 in India. Sure the processor is a single core, but at those clock speeds, I doubt anyone will be able to tell the difference at all. The phone as you can see also comes with a mammoth 1900mAh battery (just a couple of hundreds less than S3) and with some patented Huawei battery management solution, the result, a discernable improvement in the various activity times of the phone. Huawei claims that the battery can power the device for up to 3 days (with light to moderate usage, data connectivity implied), while that does seem like a tall claim, we’ll reserve our comments until a thorough review of the phone.

My quick hands on with the device and it does seem like Huawei has made a good quality device. The phone displayed good construction quality and good quality plastic usage. There were no squeaks or quirks noticed. The touch screen is pretty smooth, not iPhone or Lumia smooth, but very much on par with what’s expected at the price. The UI was smooth and didn’t make the phone overburdened. The grooves at the back of the device provided a very good natural grip for the phone.

The 4″ LCD screen is pretty bright and has good reproduction of colours. What makes the offering even more tempting is the fact that Huawei is also providing its users with 16GB of cloud storage (Ala Dropbox and Drive) free for life. The 16GB space in the cloud isn’t just a dumb dump, rather you can program your phone to backup all the important things at predetermined points in time. There’s a lot more but I’ll prefer to delve in it at the time of review.

Overall the first impression left me feeling quite satisfied, If I’d spent 20k on a Huawei Honor, I’d not be cursing myself. Oh and it’s ICS (Android 4.0) ready!

Next up is the new Ideos X5.

The Ideos X5 (U8800 Pro) is an upgrade to the previous X5 that the company had. Like any upgrade this to benefits from additions. A bigger processor, more memory, etc. The new Ideos X5 is a pretty well priced and well equipped phone.

Here’s what’s keeping the new X5 running -

• Android Gingerbread 2.3 OS
• 1500mAh battery
• 1 Ghz processor
• 3.8″ inch TFT LCD capacitive touch screen (WVGA – 800*480)
• 5 megapixels auto focus camera with single LED flash
• 2G Network (operating band) GSM 850/900/1800/1900 [Support Class 10 GPRS and EDGE]
• 3G Network (operating band) WCDMA/HSPA+ 900/AWS/2100 [ 3G HSPA+ DL 14.4 Mbps/UL 5.76 Mbps]
• Measures 11.6mm thin and weighs around 130g
• WiFi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth V2.1 with A2DP
• 512M RAM + 4GB eMMC and memory card slot up to 32GB
• Micro USB 2.0 port
• Assisted GPS support
• FM radio
• 16GB network capacity Cloud Drive [160GB available internationally for a fee, 16GB free for life in India]
• Active noise cancellation through dedicated mic, accelerometer and proximity sensor

Now the X5 looks quite good for a phone. Rounded top and bottom profile along with a rubberized, almost skin like feel back cover makes the phone good to hold and comfortable to use. The phone displayed good quality build and the buttons (capacitive) were responsive and sufficiently lit. The speakers were quite loud, but we tested the quality only with the ringtones. The Huawei X5 is meant to tackle the market below the Honor. The SRS WOW HD sound effects capable phone will be tested soon enough. The Huawei X5 also comes with ‘Phone Finder’ to remotely locate phone. Lock, backup and delete support to prevent from unauthorized use is also available, thereby ensuring the safety of your data.

The phone for what it’s worth represents a balanced device that will get the work done for you.

The MiFi E560 was the next device we got to have a look at.

Now pocket MiFis are small, brimming with tech and not necessarily an exciting gadget. However, this one will probably be the first to challenge that notion. MiFi is the internet hub which allows you to connect upto five devices with one connection.. The MiFi comes with an OLED screen which will let you know all the stuff you need to know. The signal strength, The connection type (HSDPA, 3G, EDGE, etc), no. of devices connected, data consumed and some more.

The MiFi is expected to be in the range of Rs.4.5k (approx.), a worthy investment if you want to use the 3G across devices. Comes in lovely silver white. Oh and here’s the best thing, this MiFi has a whopping 1500mAh battery in it!

The E303 is your typical USB dongle but it’s meant for the 3G networks. the dongle and the MiFi are both open devices with APN settings of all Indian Operators, not locked to a particular provider. The E303 has a MicroSD card slot like any dongle. The dongle will allow you speeds of up to 7.2Mbps DL and 5.76Mbps UL and should serve you well for the times when you need the internet on your PC.

Huawei also told us that the dongles are also going to see some updating in terms of we view it and use it. From app stores, to messaging capabilities (via the internet connection), to lots more.

All in all Huawei is quite bullish about their plans here in India. It’ll be tough, and Huawei knows that, after all their sights are set on being one of the top 5 brands in the world. In India, I personally don’t think the China tag will be a real impediment to their success, although it is a perception that needs tackling; however it’s not where the real fight lies. Huawei needs to expand its presence in the minds of the consumer that will be challenge and where the fight lies. Not too much of an impossible task for someone that has a sizable presence in the dongles business in India and the world (70% market share globally and possibly more in India).

Huawei has the right kind of products to make an impact, all it needs is the marketing and communication muscle to plow through!

A picture gallery awaits of the devices we got to lay our hands on -