Plano, Texas — Huawei will bring a variation of the new flagship P8 smartphone to the U.S. market but hasn’t disclosed details of its plans.
The 5.1-inch P8, and a 6.8-inch P8max phablet version, are the company’s first metal unibody phones. They were unveiled this week in London.
The LTE-equipped Android 5.0 Lollipop P8 features a Huawei-made 64-bit octacore chipset running at 4×2.0GHz plus 4×1.5GHz. The phone also has 3GB RAM, a 5.2-inch 1080p screen with 424 PPI, and a slimmer profile and greater screen-to-body ratio than the iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S6, Huawei said. The P8’s depth is 6.4mm compared with 6.9mm and 6.8mm, respectively, for the rival phones, and the P8’s screen-to-body ratio is 78.3 percent compared with 66.8 percent and 70.8 percent, respectively. The front is described as “virtually fameless.”
With the shift to a metal unibody design, Huawei also introduced a dual-antenna system with seamless switching to improve network connectivity and deliver 50 percent fewer dropped calls, the company said.
The 16GB version with gray or champagne color about $538, and the 64GB model in black or gold costs about $646.
The P8 is shipping in 30 countries, and the Max is due in more than 30 countries in about a month.
With the P8 launch, the Huawei unveiled such camera features as a director mode, which enables the P8 to control the cameras of three other Android devices to capture videos with multiple camera angles. The P8 switches to a preferred angle in real time to create a movie.
Other camera features include time-lapse photography, main-camera dual-color-temperature LED that emits white and warm light to mimic natural illumination, real-time previews to choose the right exposure, and four low-light shooting modes.
The 13-megapixel main camera has optical-image stabilization, DSLR-level image signal processor, 1080p video recording and F2.0 aperture. The front camera is 8 megapixels.
The world’s first four-color RGBW sensor is said to enhance brightness by 32 percent in high-contrast lighting situations and reduce it by 78 percent in low-light situations.
The 5.1-inch display uses IPS-NEO technology to deliver higher brightness, a 1,500:1 contrast ratio and 15 percent lower power consumption.
Other key features include a 2,680 mAh battery, Wi-Fi 2.4GHz b/g/n with Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.1+LE and high-speed MicroUSB.
