We’re just two months away from Mobile World Congress, the undisputed mecca for everyone and everything that’s a part of the mobile industry. We’ll no doubt see manufacturers fighting over who has the thinnest device, the fastest device, and of course the sexiest, but this time there’s going to be another player joining the arena. Huawei has come a long way in terms of being a device manufacturer. It wasn’t that long ago that they were just another Chinese company that built devices for operators, and in the process avoided promoting their brand. Today with products like the Honor they’re shedding their reputation as a budget no frills handset maker and trying to build an image as a company that everyone should take seriously. They’ve just sent out press invites for MWC that say they’re going to be showcasing their “smartest, fastest and most high-performing smartphone yet”. What could that mean?
Breaking it down, there’s “smartest”, which we can assume is a pointer to them wanting to be one of the first to ship a smartphone that runs Ice Cream Sandwich. Huawei was, after all, the first company to demo ICS running on one of their existing devices and they even offered a ROM to the enthusiast community so they can check it our for themselves. Then there’s the “fastest and most high-performing”, both terms mean the same thing. This one’s easy: Huawei has yet to ship a dual core smartphone. They have experience with dual core processors thanks to their MediaPad Android tablets, but not with smartphones. It only makes sense for them to joining that bandwagon.
At the end of the day though we just hope that Huawei focuses on build quality and selecting premium materials. Those are often the two things that get sacrificed in order to lower cost. If they can nail those, then they could easily become the next HTC.