Huawei Vision unveiled: stylish 3.7" Gingerbread smartphone in unibody frame
The Huawei Vision might not have the guts to compete with dual-core equipped powerhouses ruling the market, but with a 3.7” and 1GHz chip powering Gingerbread it definitely has what it takes to sell 1 million. And that's the exact sales target of the Shenzhen network equipment and phone maker Huawei.
The Vision is among the company's first attempts to go head-to-head with the big names in the industry, but it also kickstarts a series of smartphones for the company that are expected to be better linked to the cloud. Huawei's upcoming Cloud+ platform is expected to come with functionality similar to what services like iCloud aim to offer: remote access to media and applications. That certainly makes sense given the company's networking background, but Huawei was mum when it comes to particular details about the cloud features.
The Huawei Vision comes in an aluminum unibody frame with a variety of color options including gold, silver and charcoal, and you can notice how much thought went into the stylish design right away. It's pretty slim at 9.9mm and not too heavy either tipping the scales at 121g. The handset also features a curved 3.7-inch display (a la Nexus S).
When it comes to the pure hardware muscle, the 1GHz chip is of the Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM 8255 variety, supported by 512MB of RAM. On the back, there's a 5-megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash and capable of capturing 720p HD videos. Connectivity is well covered with Wi-FI b/g/n, Bluetooth, microUSB and a microSD card slot recognizing cards of up to 32GB.
On the software side, Gingerbread is skinned with Huawei's own 3D carousel interface allowing you to quickly access your home panes with a quick swipe. The phone will also ship with the smash hit Angry Birds pre-installed.
The phone is coming to select markets including the UK (no word on the US) this September, and we can only keep our fingers crossed that Huawei can get the pricing right to make Android space even more competitive. So far, the company has only clarified that it expects the phone to sell for no less than some $305 (2,000 yuan) off contract.
FCC OKs Cingular\'s purchase of AT&T Wireless
Things that are NOT allowed: