Chinese handset vendor Huawei is trying to make a name for themselves in today’s hypercompetitive smartphone market. Similar to how HTC started out by making devices for operators who would then slap their logo on the front of HTC’s hardware, Huawei is trying to become more than just another handset ODM. They want to do what HTC did, which is to make their brand internationally known. One thing Huawei needs to rectify immediately in order to do that though is to shake their reputation of being a budget handset maker. Last month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas we saw them announce the Huawei Ascend P1 S, an absolutely gorgeous device, but anyone who knows anything about mobile could easily tell that it was nothing more than a Samsung Galaxy S II clone. Doesn’t mean it was any less interesting, it’s just that we were expecting more. Now thanks to the Japanese website Blog of Mobile, we have an idea of just what Huawei has up their sleeves for Mobile World Congress later this month.
Several weeks ago a rumor surfaced that Huawei would launch a “Diamond Series” smartphone portfolio aimed at the high end market. We joked that Huawei might put an NVIDIA Tegra 3 in there flagship device and announce a quad core smartphone. Apparently that just might be the case. Huawei Chairman Yu Chengdong revealed the Ascend D1 Q on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter. The folks at Unwired View took a stab at breaking down the model name. The “D” in “D1” could stand for Diamond, that’s a given, but what about that “Q”? Could it stand for quad, as in quad core?
We’ll find out soon enough. We’re just excited that Huawei is hungry and is willing to do anything it takes to become one of the big boys. We’re frankly bored of HTC, tired of Samsung’s dominance, and are unimpressed with what LG and Motorola are bringing to the table.