Barcelona: China’s Huawei has unveiled two new smartwatches and two new smartphones — P10 and P10 Plus — with better cameras, better display, new colours and longer battery life.
Both the devices, launched on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, are taking aim at the premium segment of the market, which is dominated by Apple and Samsung.
With Samsung decision to not showcase its Galaxy S8 at the event, the Chinese manufacturer has taken the opportunity to grab the spotlight at the show.
According to research firm Gartner, Huawei increased its market share to 8.9 per cent in 2016 to 139 million units compared to 7.3 per cent a year earlier.
At the same time, Samsung saw its market share shrink over the same period by two full percentage points to 20.5 per cent and Apple decreased to 14.4 per cent from 15.9 per cent in 2015. The Chinese company aims to increase its shipments by 25 per cent in 2017.
The 5.1-inch P10 is powered by 2.4GHz home-grown processor with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage capacity. The hybrid dual-SIM device can also support up to 256GB microSD card. It houses Leica 20MP and 12MP monochrome cameras at the rear and 8MP camera in the front. It sports 3,200mAh battery. It is priced at €649 (Dh2,516).
The 5.5-inch P10 Plus is powered by 2.4GHz home-grown processor with 4GB or 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of storage capacity. The P10 Plus offers same camera specifications as P10 did but both the front and back are Leica cameras.
Huawei P10 has a support of 600mbps LTE antennas for 4.5G. P10 Plus has a 3750mAh battery. The 4GB/64GB is priced at €699 while €799 will be the price tag of the 6GB/128GB edition of the model.
Both the models will be available in March with eight colours like dazzling gold, mystic silver, rose gold, prestige gold, ceramic white, graphite black, green and blue.
Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, said that P10 and the P10 Plus will make every shot a ‘cover shot’.
“We always want to push the boundaries of what is possible to achieve through engineering and technology. We are delighted to celebrate and explore the intersection of technology and culture, with Saatchi Gallery and Leica and to share interpretations of contemporary portrait photography through the lens of the Huawei P10,” he said.
Much of the focus of the press conference on Sunday was on the photographic capabilities and comparing P10 devices with iPhone and Samsung S7.
“With Huawei P10 and P10 Plus, we have created a smartphone that revolutionises and redefines portrait photography,” Yu said.
He said at the recent Las Vegas consumer electronics show that Huawei is aiming to be the world’s biggest spender in research and development in the next couple of years as Huawei is pouring resources into its own chips, machine learning and artificial intelligence, to conserve power and keep the Android platform from slowing down over time.
He said that the company hopes to go from its current number three position to number two smartphone manufacturers within a year or two.
“P10 Plus have four antennas compared to the usual two found in other smartphones to offer better connectivity, both indoors and outdoors,” he said.
The Chinese company also launched a light and sporty Huawei Watch 2 and a Watch 2 Classic, which comes with the Snapdragon Wear 2100 chip and includes a real-time heart-rate sensor, 4G LTE connectivity, NFC, WiFi, 4G ROM, mobile payment and GPS.
The sporty Watch 2 will be available from next month for €329 for Bluetooth model and €379 for 4G LTE version, including the UAE. The Classic is priced at €399.