Huawei is no stranger to metal smartphones as we have already seen the beautiful Huawei Ascend P7 as well as the large screen phablet, Huawei Ascend Mate 7.
However, both of them are flagship devices and not many want or are willing spend more than $400 on a smartphone. So, last year we saw Huawei announce a device called as the Huawei C199 metal smartphone aimed at the Chinese market. While the name isn’t pretty, the device boasted of a metal back as well as decent specifications for around $320.
Now, the company has announced the upgraded version of this smartphone in China, called as the Huawei C199S. The device retains the metal back design from its predecessor but upgrades on some of the features to make it a slightly more attractive offering.
Huawei C199S comes with the same 7.6mm thin profile with a metal back along with a 5.5-inch 720p display. However, the differentiating feature of this device is the new color option. We have seen that gold is often preferred by customers these days and seeing this demand, Huawei C199S comes in a gold color option as well.
The tech specs are more or less the same, except for the processor which got a much needed upgrade. The previous C199 model came with a Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz, however this new model features a more powerful 1.5Ghz 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 615 (MSM8928) SoC. This should definitely improve the overall performance of the device.
Like mentioned above the others specs remain the same. So, you get a 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM onboard, along with a 3000 mAh capacity battery. There is a 13MP camera at the back while a 5MP shooter lies on the front. The device runs on Android 4.4 KitKat OS along with the company’s own Emotion EMUI 3.0 skin on top. As for connectivity, the phone supports 4G/ 3G / 2G networks along with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
Unfortunately, with the slight increase in the specs, the company has also increased the price tag of the device. The earlier model, i.e. the Huawei C1999 was available for $325 in the market, however the new model’s price will go as much as 2299 yuan which comes to around $367 in USD.
At this price, you have some Chinese flagship options which offer much better specs, so it would be interesting to see how this phone performs in the domestic market.
You can check out the phone on Vmall.
