Rocky roll-out for smartphone

Huawei's new flagship smartphone, the Ascend Mate7.

Huawei's new flagship smartphone, the Ascend Mate7.

Published Nov 27, 2014

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Durban - “Sleeping giant” is an overused term, but in the case of tech and telecoms multinational Huawei it has been apt… until now. That’s because the titan has awoken and is slugging it out with established market leaders like Samsung and Apple in its huge, burgeoning home market of China with its own line of aggressively priced, premium smartphones.

It has landed a few telling blows too. Samsung blamed competition from the likes of Huawei for its recent profit slump in Asian markets. In a year’s time the South Korea-headquartered heavyweight could be telling a similar tale of woe about the South African market if upstart Huawei’s plans for Mzansi pan out.

But it won’t be easy. Say Huawei (pronounced “wah-way”) to most South Africans and they’ll either look at you blankly or say: “Huawei who?”

The more tech aware will recognise it as the maker of almost every 3G wireless router you see plugged into laptops in coffee shops these days.

But in recent weeks, the company has clearly signalled its intention to break out of its low-key telecommunications backbone mould and into the SA smartphone mainstream, first announcing its sponsorship of the Ajax Cape Town soccer team, then launching two new flagship handsets.

The 6-inch Ascend Mate7 and the 5.5-inch Ascend G7are poised to land in South Africa early next year and are real beauties.

I’m particularly taken by the bigger Ascend Mate7. Despite the enormous screen – bigger even than that on the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 – it’s slim (7.9mm) and light (185g). And the ergonomically curved design made of an aluminium alloy gives it an undeniably premium feel.

There are two variants. The standard Ascend Mate7 is a single SIM model with 2GB RAM and 16GB of on-board memory and is available in moonlight silver or obsidian black. The premium – the one I hanker after – has 3GB RAM, 32GB of on-board memory and, the clincher, two SIM card slots. It comes in just one colour, amber gold.

One of the phone’s stand-out features is its new “single-touch fingerprint technology” that promises to be able to read a fingerprint from whichever direction it’s placed on the pad. As befits a premium device, it’s capable of the fastest LTE connectivity local networks can provide.

On its arrival in local stores early next year, the standard version is expected to sell at a recommended price of R7 000 to R9 000 on prepaid, with contract details still being ironed out.

There’s still no pricing for the top-of-the-range Dual SIM model and I suspect that might be because the cellular operators are being difficult – more on this in a moment.

First let me quickly mention the other phone Huawei launched. The Ascend G7 LTE is the latest addition to Huawei’s Ascend G series. This single-SIM handset will also be available early next year at a recommended retail price of between R4 000 and R5 000. Again, contract details are pending.

“These devices symbolise our continuous commitment to providing customers with access to premium-quality products that won’t break the bank,” said Yudi Rambaran, the company’s director: product marketing for the consumer business unit. “We anticipate successful uptake from our channel partners.”

I’m not sure I agree with his last point. While the networks will happily stock Huawei’s single-SIM devices, I predict they’ll draw the line at the dual-SIM Ascend Mate7 3GB which will enable their customers to switch between their own data and voice offerings and those of a cheaper rival.

It would be a pity if anti-competitive, bully-boy behaviour from the likes of Vodacom and MTN were to prevent this superb device from being made widely available, but I fear that’s exactly what will happen.

l Got any questions or comments? E-mail [email protected] or follow @alanqcooper on Twitter.

Sunday Tribune

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