Gree Electric is a major home appliance maker and had even manufactured smartphones as well. However, the company is now discontinuing its handset operations following a decline in its smartphone sales.

Gree disbands its smartphone unit

For those unaware, the company is a known consumer electronic products maker and is known for its air conditioners. But the brand sought to diversify its product line and had even announced its entry into the smartphone market. Its first even handset model was announced back in 2015, however, with certain official claiming that the brand even had potential to easily surpass Xiaomi as well in the handset market.

But just a couple of years into this segment, the company has announced its exit from the market. Notably, this news also arrives as the smartphone shipments in the Chinese market fell by 11 percent in the first quarter of this year. This marks the lowest ever levels in a decade. Thus, Gree has disbanded the core team of its smartphone unit, as per a report from the Chinese media outlet Jiemian.

But unfortunately, the brand has yet to respond to any requests for a comment on this matter. Back in 2021, we had even covered the launched of the Gree TOSOT G7 model, which was a rebranded Meizu 18X. The company clearly didn’t catch up to or even outperform Xiaomi and it is likely planning on consolidating its efforts to its core operations. This is all the information we have at the moment, so stick around for more updates.

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According to a new report, Gree has officially patented a new design for a foldable smartphone. The patent was applied for earlier this year back in April and has finally been successfully granted.

Gree electronics is better widely known for its consumer grade electronics which includes home appliances like refrigerators, air conditioners and more. Alongside this, the company also provides services and equipment within the same field for commercial entities as well (the best example being the central air conditioning in commercial buildings).

Notably, the company has also had some experience with smartphones in the past, with its Gree smartphones series. However, the smartphones from the company were definitely not well received with a few critics the devices as a failure in entering the smartphone market. The company has since not released any device with the latest being Gree smartphone 2 seen back in 2017.

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Thus, it is interesting considering the company is willing to bounce back into the market especially with the foldable smartphone category; which is one of the latest and popular trends that many OEMs wish to capture, similar to Samsung and Huawei. Furthermore, Gree also applied patents for facial recognition and scanning methods alongside a new graphical user interface among other things.

So, it seems that the company is taking the launch of a foldable smartphone very seriously. Unfortunately, exact details and specifications regarding the upcoming smartphone with a bendable display are still unknown. We will have to wait for an official announcement which should arrive sometime in 2020, so stay tuned.

UP NEXT: Samsung to launch a clamshell foldable smartphone ahead of Galaxy S11 series

(Via)

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GREE is a famous consumer electronic manufacturer in China. The company entered the smartphone industry last year, like many other tech companies have done in recent times, however, the first generation smartphones didn’t get the attention the company would have expected. Now, GREE is back again, this time with a flagship with powerful hardware and good looks. While we would have expected the phone to be announced with much fan fare, the company decided to unveil it silently this year.

So, what does GREE 2 offer to the consumers? First of all, the phone will come with a metal unibody design. It is going to be large owing to the massive 6-inch display up front, and we can clearly see that it is not going to be an easy handset to operate with one hand. But for phablet lovers, the phone is going to be a treat, especially because it comes with a high-resolution 2K display.  Coming to the front, the bezels seem to be decently thin, and no thick ugly black borders on the sides. There is a physical home button up front, just below the display which supports fingerprint recognition.

Specs of the GREE 2 are really powerful, starting with the quad-core Snapdragon 820 chipset under the hood. There will be 4GB of RAM on board and 64GB of internal storage. Given the large 6-inch display with 2K resolution, the phone will come with a decently large non-removable battery as well, of 4000mAh capacity. At the back, the phone features a 16MP rear camera sensor while up front, you will get an 8MP shooter. As for the software, the phone runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow OS out of the box.

Finally, for the pricing, GREE 2 isn’t very cheap. The phone will go on sale early June for a price tag of 3300 Yuan which comes to $504. Despite its higher price tag as compared to rival such as LeEco Max 2 and ZUK Z2 Pro flagships, we will have to wait and see how this new smartphone from GREE sells in China.

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Dong Mingzhu, the Chairman of GREE Electric revealed earlier today that GREE will be starting the sale of its smartphones in the market pretty soon. However, the company is yet to announce the official price tag of the device.

GREE smartphone won’t just focus on taking calls but its aims to be much more than a phone. Mingzhu said that GREE smartphone can also act as an intelligent controller which that can monitor home security. It can also control air-conditioners and other appliances, which shouldn’t be a surprise since the company’s primary market is consumer appliances like these.

Thanks to the TENAA listing, we know the specs of the device. The GREE smartphone will be an entry level device with a 5-inch 720p display powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core Chipset. There will be 1GB of RAM along with 8GB of internal storage which can be further expanded up to 32GB. AS for the camera, there will be an 8MP shooter at the back along with a modest 2MP front facing shooter. Finally, the phone will run on Android 4.4.4 KitKat OS.

Of course, with such modest specs, don’t expect the price tag to be higher than 599 Yuan. We have seen the leaked images of the device earlier and they look quite good for an entry level smartphone.

Anyways, we will update with more information about the pricing and full feature list in the coming days. So, stay tuned!

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We already know China’s Gree Electric is interested in making smartphones. In fact, we have seen two images of the said Gree smartphone sporting a metal body. Now, it looks like we have some more news about the upcoming Gree smartphone as the device just hit TENAA.

A device named Gree G0111 was recently spotted on TENAA featuring similar looks as the ones that we saw a few days back. The phone has a very unique design as the top edges are sharp, however the bottom ones are round. The back is white in color while the front is completely black. Interestingly, we see a plastic body instead of the metal one that was leaked back.

As for the tech specs, the Gree smartphone features a Snapdragon 410 processor with 1GB RAM and 8GB of expandable internal storage. The phone measures just 8.8mm in thickness and will weigh about 118 grams. There will be a 5-inch display with HD 720p resolution. At the back, there will be a 5MP rear camera while up front, you will find a 2MP shooter.

For connectivity, the phone will support 4G, 3G and GSM networks. The full list of supported frequencies are given below:

Other features include Android 4.4 KitKat, Infrared sensor, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi etc.

Judging from the specs, it looks like the phone will be targeted at the entry level 4G enabled market. So, it should retail around the same price as Xiaomi’s Redmi 2 and Meizu M1.

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Just a day back we reported that Gree Electric, the famous appliance manufacturer from China was keen to enter the smartphone industry. We had also got a set of pictures which revealed the handset in full glory.

Today, less than 24 hours the first ever leak, we have some news about the pricing of the handset. The Gree smartphone is said to be priced at 1000 Yuan ($161). This is actually a pretty sweet spot given that the phone will directly compete with Xiaomi’s affordable phablet, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G. There’s a bunch of other smartphones in this price segment like the recently announced Meizu M1 Note phablet which comes with amazing hardware for its price. And Meizu being an established manufacturer in the domestic market, it will be interesting how Gree plans to compete with both the companies in this crowded smartphone industry.

The best way to compete with these devices will be with great hardware. Meizu M1 Note by itself proved that an octa-core processor with 2GB RAM could be incorporated in a phone in this price range and we can expect such specs in the new device. As of now, there’s no information about the exact tech specs of the device but we can expect them soon.

Gree Electric’s CEO Dong Mingzhu is known for her aggressive business strategies and it is said that the company aims to sell over 100 million smartphones in 2015 alone. This is a pretty ambitious goal, especially when this particular device is the first smartphone from the company. Also, we have to take into consideration the existing market leaders such as Xiaomi which lead the smartphone sales in the domestic market.

The leaked pictures reveal a traditional design, but with a premium metal finish. Also, the phone looks huge, especially with the large borders besides the display. From the images, it looks like the screen is about 5.5-inches, which is exactly the same size as the Meizu M1 Note and Xiaomi Redmi Note.

From all the information we have received till now, the Gree smartphone does look promising. However, lets wait and watch what exactly the new entrant in the industry has in store for us.

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Gree Electric is a well known appliance manufacturer in China. The company specializes in the manufacturing of Air Conditioners and is currently the world’s largest residential Air Conditioner manufacturer.

A few months back, Dong Mingzhu, the president of Gree electric had said that the company may release a smartphone in the market. And today, we have a glimpse of what could be the first Gree smartphone.

While the leak says nothing about the technical specs running on the new Gree smartphone, it does reveal the overall design of the phone. First of all, we can see that the phone is built from metal, most probably aluminum.

The back features a smooth metal finish with the camera sensor and LED flash on top and the GREE logo engraved near the bottom. The overall size of the phone hints that the display could be more than 5.5-inches diagonally. Up front, the bezels look big and there’s lot of space, both on top as well as the bottom of the display. Finally, on the right, you can see the round power button and the volume up and down keys.

To be honest, this design not even near to the refined flagship phones that we have seen recently like the Mate 7 or even the ZTE Nubia Z9 Max. Still, it could just be a prototype and the company may change a lot of things before finally launching it in the market.

This particular leak further confirms one more electronic company’s entry into the smartphone race. Clearly, they feel that there’s still room for new players in this already crowded Chinese smartphone market.

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