Durban – Chinese tech multinational, Huawei, has just gone nuclear on its biggest rivals in the premier smartphone market.
It may seem odd to start a tech column with a Cold War analogy, but bear with me and the parallels will quickly become clear.
In the early 1960s there were two world superpowers, the US and Russia.
Then in 1964, China exploded its first nuclear bomb and the balance of power shifted forever. Suddenly, there were three superpowers.
On Wednesday, Huawei performed the smartphone industry equivalent of that portentous nuclear test with the launch in London of its new flagship P8, a device it says measures up to, and in several ways eclipses, Apple’s iPhone 6 and Samsung’s S6.
Significantly, it manages to achieve this feat with a price tag that’s several thousand rand lower than the competition.
Interestingly, Richard Yu, chief executive of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group, chose to kick off the launch with a heavy emphasis on the P8’s camera phone prowess, comparing it several times with the Apple and Samsung flagships which (until now) have been the benchmarks in this department.
According to Yu, the 13 megapixel camera with optical image stabilisation takes superior shots both in low light and in bright daylight. I hadn’t had a chance to fully test these claims by the time this column went to press, but if some of the pictures I took around Piccadilly Circus after dark are any indication, the P8 may indeed be a challenger for the title of best smartphone snapper.
Worryingly for its two main rivals, it has managed to get this right without needing to have the camera protrude from the rear of the phone as it does on the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S6.
Yu also showed off a slew of other camera tricks usually the preserve of DSLR-toting pros, including smokey water and headlight trails. I tried out the latter and it worked pretty well, although I’m sure even better results would have been achieved with a steadier hand or, even better, a tripod.
The front-facing camera is pretty impressive too, with the biggest drawcard for selfie fanatics being the ability to digitally airbrush your own face while leaving everyone else their haggard selves in group portraits – sorry, but I refuse to let the term “groufie” pass my lips.
The P8’s no slacker in the build-quality and eye-candy stakes either. Milled from a single slab of aluminium, the phone is thinner than its rivals, an astonishing 6.4mm thin to be precise.
At first glance it is quite starkly rectangular, but thanks to some subtle chamfering there are no sharp edges and it feels comfortable, solid and surprisingly light in the hand.
The P8 runs Google’s Android operating system and has a 5.2 inch touchscreen that’s a tad bigger than the S6 and iPhone 6, although at 1080p, it’s not as pixel dense nor quite as bright as the S6. On the plus side, this means it gobbles less battery power and costs less, a worthwhile compromise in my books.
Under the glass and metal exterior purrs a powerful eight-core 64-bit, 2GHz processor. There’s 3GB of RAM, and you can get it with 16GB or 32GB of internal storage. The Samsung and Apple offer models with more storage, but unlike either of them, the Huawei’s storage can be beefed up with an aftermarket microSD card of up to 128GB.
Cleverly, the SD card slot can also take a second SIM card, giving its owner the choice of switching between two cellular networks, depending on who offers the best data and voice rates, although that may be a bit of a Hobson’s choice now that MTN has also hiked its tariffs.
It will be available in South Africa around mid-June and although local prices haven’t been announced, I’ve been reliably informed that they will start at between R7 000 and R8 000. That is pretty far south of the R11 000 its top-end rivals start at.
Space limits me from detailing a host of other features trotted out at the launch. And that’s before I even get to the humungous 6.8 inch screen P8 Max also unveiled on Wednesday.
I’ll put the P8 properly through its paces over the next couple of weeks and report back.
But I can tell you now that if even half the claims made at its launch turn out to hold water, there will be some very worried people putting in overtime in the war rooms at Apple and Samsung as you read this.
For more images and specs visit my personal blog alanqcooper.tumblr.com or follow @alanqcooper on Twitter.
The Tribune