Huawei and ZTE scrap for mid-range UK market share
Chinese Ice Cream fight
Chinese mobile manufacturers Huawei and ZTE each announced the UK rollout of their respective mid-range handsets last week, the Ascend P1 and the Grand X.
Huawei's Ascend P1 packs a 4.3in touchscreen display with a resolution of 960 x 540. It comes running into the market with a 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4460 dual-core processor powering Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. There's also an 8Mp rear-facing camera, a 1.3Mp front-facer and 4GB of built-in memory with 1GB of Ram.
The handset will be free on monthly contracts at Vodafone from £26 this August. PAYG prices have yet to be set, however when the Ascend P1 was launched in China earlier this year, it clocked in around £300.
Neighbouring rival ZTE, revealed its flagship powerhouse the Grand X this week, which rolls with Virgin Media here in the UK.
As with Huawei's handset, the Grand X packs a 4.3in display with an identical resolution. It also runs Android 4.0 ICS and features 4GB of built-in memory. That's where the similarities end, though.
The dual-core processor here is a 1GHz Tegra 2 one, the camera is a standard 5Mp and Ram is a mere 512MB. It will however cost a couple of quid less on monthly contracts than Huawei's entry, when it also launches in the early August timeframe. The Grand X will also be available on pre-pay for £190.
Either way, it seems we'll all have access to to some pretty snazzy specs in the mid-range Android market this summer. ®
COMMENTS
Plenty of happy ZTE Blade owners out there, and quite a few will start looking for a new phone in the next year or so. No need for them to look for Samsung or HTC or whoever if they want to upgrade - ZTE is already a proven brand for them.
Re: Stepping on the toes of the bigger brands
I'd imagine the PAYG price of these phones will be closer to £200 than £300.
Re: Stepping on the toes of the bigger brands
What about last years SII and HTC whatever?
The SII is available on vodafone for £26/month, has pretty similar specs and software - but is a well proven phone.
It's nice to see new phones from other manufacturers introduced into the mid-range, but it seems to be more 'me too' rather than something new and interesting.
Stepping on the toes of the bigger brands
At £26/Month you can get an S3/One X/ [Insert other top end model].
Ok you can't get an S3/One X for £300.
But at that price point you're dangerously close to the bigger brands, which are typically running more advanced tech and implemented better, they'd need to be much cheaper to truely compete.
At the risk of sounding like a Huawei PR spokesman.
I wish I could buy stock in Huawei, the improvements in their phones in the last few years have been enormous and they seem to have gotten the price/performance balance about spot on for targeting the midrange lately. i.e. big screen and good enough to run ICS and almost all apps fine, but still cutting enough corners to sell it for dirt cheap.
