Huawei has been facing various troubles in recent times with its smartphone business. The various US sanctions have already made it difficult for the company to acquire crucial components for its smartphones, and it seems that the chip shortage in China has further led it to abandon its low end models entirely.

According to a MyDrivers report, the Chinese tech giant’s official stores in China have been facing this issue. The report adds that employees working in these stores have revealed that the company is selling fewer handsets now, although, this is mainly attributed to the fact that the country is facing a shortage of smartphone chips. For those unaware, the world is facing a major shortage of semiconductors at the moment, with various industries being severely impacted.

As per the employee, almost every smartphone model in Huawei stores are now out of stock, with certain configurations and colors variants also being unavailable for the ones that are in stock. The report found that from the five experience stores that were visited, a combined total of just four smartphone models were on sale. Furthermore, apart from just the lack of various models, the prices of these devices have also changes and low end handsets have almost completely disappeared.

One of the official Huawei stores in Chengdu, China, had a salesperson say that the Nova series that were targeted towards students was no longer in production and that the cheapest variant that is currently available is the Nova 8 Pro. This is also available in limited quantities and is priced at 3999 Yuan (roughly 617 US Dollars).

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It’s been quite some time since the Huawei released the P20 Pro and I’ve been using it since the official launch. We have already mentioned that the Twilight color makes the phone look really nice but the newly announced Morpho Aurora color option looks even better. Let’s take a closer look.

DESIGN

Just like the Twilight color of the P20 Pro, the Morpho Aurora has a really nice gradient finish that changes colors in different lighting and at different angles.

Here is a quick color comparison with the P20 Pro (Twilight color):

The backplate combines three colors. We could say those colors are blue, violet and black but we may be wrong since the colors look different depending on the lighting.

Overall, this color combination makes the P20 Pro one of the most beautiful phones out there. We took quite a few pictures of the device and we even used different camera settings to capture the colors of the phone, so you guys have a better idea how it looks like in reality.

Check out our gallery:

Since we have made an in-depth review of the P20 Pro, we will just mention the key features.

The overall build quality is excellent thanks to a nice metal frame, premium-feeling buttons and a glass on the front and rear. 

It’s worth mentioning that now the phone has a silver color frame. In comparison, the Twilight model has a frame with a slight purple tint.

I found the phone to sit comfortably in the hand thanks to nicely curved glass backplate. I am impressed by the fact that Huawei managed to cram in a huge battery (4000mAh) into such a thin profile of the P20 Pro.

I’ve been using the P20 Pro since the official launch and it is hands down one of the best phones in terms of battery life. Sometimes I could get over 10 hours of screen-on time, which is amazing. More importantly, standby time has been excellent all the time. Finally, it takes just over 1 hour to charge the phone with the supplied fast charger.

A triple camera setup looks really impressive on paper. It consists of one 40MP RGB sensor, 8MP telephoto shooter and 20MP monochrome lens. More importantly, it has performed really well in practice and we were able to capture some amazing shots especially in low light and with 5x hybrid zoom.

As for the display quality, it’s among the best on the market. It’s sharp, clear and easily visible even under direct sunlight.

After using the P20 Pro for a while, I have to say that the fingerprint scanner on the front is more convenient to me. I just love the fact that I don’t need to pick up the phone from the table to unlock it. Speaking of that scanner, it’s just blazing fast, super accurate and it unlocks the phone straight from the standby mode.

I was also really impressed by the face unlock feature. It’s ridiculously fast and accurate and it works well in any light and even if you wear glasses. All you have to do is press the power button before using this feature.

Other features you need to know: the phone has a nice LED notification light, 24MP selfie shooter, IR blaster, dual SIM card slot but no microSD card support. You should also know that there is no headset jack but the sound quality using a supplied adapter is excellent.  Also, the P20 Pro has a Hi-Fi wireless audio system that assures great sound quality via the Bluetooth. Moreover, the Huawei P20 Pro is IP67-certified for water and dust resistance.

There is a dual stereo speaker setup that is really good too. I like that the sound is deep, punchy and loudspeakers can get pretty loud.

HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

In terms of hardware, the P20 Pro is a beast. It ships with the home-brewed Kirin 970 processor and other powerful components (6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage) that in conjunction with the AI, assure excellent all-around performance.

That can be seen when playing the latest 3D games. All the titles I played run absolutely fine, no skipped frames, no stutter, and the P20 Pro does not get hot while gaming either. Flagship-grade performance.

USER INTERFACE

In terms of user interface, I can just repeat myself – performance is excellent thanks to no small part of Kirin AI chipset with integrated NPU unit that helps allocate resources to the specific task. As usual, I’ve installed a lot of apps, use many different social media apps, Google accounts etc but I’m yet to see the phone lag or stutter. This phone is almost stock Android fast, which is really impressive.

EMUI 8.1 is based on Android 8.1 and I know that many people still can’t get used to cartoonish and a bit different than stock Android look. Personally, I like the Huawei’s user interface. Although I do not use all the extra features and customization options, the P20 Pro is one of the fastest phones you can get and I can assure that after using the phone for months.

CAMERAS

If you want a more in-depth look of the camera quality, check out our initial review. In short, Leica cameras have been one of the reasons why I keep carrying the P20 Pro with me. 5X hybrid zoom and amazing low-light capabilities are the features that set apart it from other phones on the market and the overall picture quality has been amazing. The only thing I’m frustrated with is that we still don’t have image stabilization in 4K video recording mode. On the other hand, OIS works very well in 1080p mode, so you can get really smooth footage.

CONNECTIVITY

In terms of connectivity, I found the P20 Pro to be good and reliable in all aspects. Call quality is excellent and signal reception is actually better than most of the phones I’ve tested in the recent memory. Also, I found GPS to be very accurate, Wifi is fast and Bluetooth works fine. Finally, there are quite a few sensors on board, like on most of the flagships.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, the Huawei P20 Pro is still an amazing smartphone, even though it was released quite some time ago.

The Morpho Aurora looks really nice and a gradient color combination makes the P20 Pro one of the most beautiful phones out there. In addition, we love the build quality, nice and sharp display, excellent overall performance, one of the best cameras on the market, great battery life and honestly, the lack of stabilization in 4K video recording mode is the only complaint we have to share with you.

At the end of the day, the Huawei P20 Pro is still an amazing smartphone to buy. I may sound subjective but I’ve been using the phone as my daily driver for months and I can easily recommend it to anyone. Even though the Twilight color still looks nice, the Morpho Aurora takes a gradient color finish to the next level and we can suggest you checking it out if you are in the market for a truly beatiful-looking smartphone.

The post Huawei P20 Pro Morpho Aurora Review – The Next Level Gradient Color Finish appeared first on Gizmochina.

Huawei unveiled the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro in Munich back in October and I’ve been using those phones ever since. These are one of the best-looking phones on the market and they offer bleeding edge specs and much more. Learn more in our Huawei Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro review after using those phones for more than 1.5 months.

VIDEO REVIEW

DESIGN, DISPLAY, BATTERY LIFE

Both Mates look just gorgeous as they use a quality metal frame and glass on the front and rear. The phones look really nice in the hand despite their huge footprint. I didn’t drop either of the phones, so they both still look as new.

They Mate 10 has a smaller 5.9” 2k resolution LCD display that has a traditional 16:9 aspect ratio, meaning that it is wider but it is a bit shorter than the Mate 10 Pro.

The latter phone has a larger 6” AMOLED display with 18:9 aspect ratio but it has only 1080p resolution. In practice, I found both displays to be plenty sharp for everyday use but I prefer the AMOLED panel on the Mate 10 Pro.

I found both fingerprint scanners to be very fast and accurate. The Mate 10 has one on the front while the Mate 10 Pro has it on the back.

Both phones have 4000mAh batteries that have been performing really well. With my usage, I could get over 6 hours of screen-on time but keep in mind that I usually install a ton of apps and use the phone quite intensively.

The supplied charger fully charges the phone in just about 1h and 10 mins, which is one of the best results out there.

The Mate 10 has a microSD card slot whereas the Mate 10 Pro lacks this feature. Also, it does not have the headset jack like a regular Mate 10 but it has more storage and RAM memory (6GB/ 128GB vs 4GB/64GB). Both phones have the same powerful Kirin 970 chipset.

Another area where the Mate 10 Pro excels over the Mate 10 is the IP67 certification for water and dust resistance.

The stereo speaker setup is very good and it might be one of the best in the business.

HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

When it comes to hardware, the Mate 10 has a brand new Hisilicon Kirin 970 chipset that is coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The Mate 10 Pro ships with the same chipset, 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which is, however, not expandable.

The new Mate 10 phones sport the first Huawei chipset with a neural processing unit or AI component of the processor, which learns how you use the phone and helps the device adapt to assure the best user experience. For example, the AI chip detects what kind of picture you take to apply the best image settings and it did a pretty good job during my unscientific test. Also, it helps apply the right amount of blurring effect in the portrait mode.

Obviously, the AI component does a lot more than helping you take better pictures. Most importantly, it learns every single day to assure the best user experience.  For example, it learns how you use the phone to make it faster by allocating the resources to the specific task. So far, Microsoft has updated its Translator app to make use of the AI chipset to speed up the translation process. When reading a book, the NPU will remind users to enable Eye Comfort mode (Huawei’s blue light filter). Or, when taking a picture of a business card, the NPU will offer to scan the details into your phone book. These are just a few examples of how AI processor works in practice.

If you don’t really care about artificial intelligence, you can be rest assured that the Mate 10 will handle absolutely everything you throw at it. I played a lot of different games on the very highest settings and the phone just flies. A flagship-grade performance.

Finally, what impressed me the most was that the phone stayed cold to the touch even after 40 mins of gaming.

USER INTERFACE

The Mate 10 ships with Android 8 out of the box but it has the EMUI skin built on top of it. Some people may love it, some may hate it mainly because of it’s a bit cartoonish look. The first thing you may want to do is bring back the app drawer feature, which is built into the UI.

I personally like it since there are plenty of features and customization options to make the phone look your own. You can choose from a variety of themes, wallpapers and so on. There are also pretty cool transition effects and other customization options.

You can choose from quite a few smart assistance features that I don’t really like using, to be honest. If you plan to use those gestures, they work fine. What is the most important thing about this phone is that it is blazing fast, fluid and responsive. Huawei claims that the phone will not show any signs of slowing down even after 18 months of using it. I can’t confirm that but the Mate 10 is indeed a very fast phone on the daily basis.

EMUI Desktop Experience

Please see our video review for a better idea of how the EMUI desktop feature works.

Just like the Mate 10 Pro, the Mate 10 has the EMUI desktop feature that is just awesome. You simply connect your phone using the HDMI port to any display, without the need to buy a dock station.

There is the desktop mode that converts your phone into a basic laptop. You can edit your documents, browse the web, access all the files from the phone and so on. Obviously, you can connect a Bluetooth keyboard and the mouse for an even better experience but if you don’t have one, you can use a built it trackpad directly from the phone that I found to be pretty intuitive to use. You can also switch to the phone mode, which basically mirrors phone’s display. You can even play 3D games without any input lag, which is pretty awesome. Overall, I really like the EMUI Desktop feature. It works straight out of the box, no need for a docking station, no additional software.

CAMERAS

Both phones have identical cameras.  A 12-megapixel RGB camera is paired with a 20-megapixel monochrome sensor here, and both lenses feature apertures of up to f/1.6.

The camera takes pictures really fast. There are quite a few shooting modes. My favorites include 2x optical zoom to make the best out of that secondary sensor. This mode is really useful and I enjoyed using it while I was exploring Munich. The pictures look pretty good as you don’t lose detail like using digital zoom.

The daylight images look really good considering the fact that the phone still runs on an early software build. There is a good amount of detail, sharpness and the dynamic range adjustment is quite impressive. The only downside is that some of the pictures are underexposed but that can be easily fixed in post.

The low-light camera performance is quite impressive too. Sure, there is a bit more noise and less detail but in general, the results are great. Pictures taken using a portrait mode usually look quite good but I noticed some artifacts going on in a few shots. There is also a monochrome mode that I’m not a huge fan of but the pictures look really nice and detailed.

Selfies taken using the 8MP camera are detailed and will definitely do the trick for social media needs.

4k video looks pretty good too as the footage is sharp and detailed. However, the OIS does not work in the 4k mode, meaning that the video may look a bit shaky. 720p slow-motion video is not the best I’ve seen but it’s definitely usable. 1080p selfie video looks great too as there is plenty of detail. Finally, I really like the sound recording quality.

CONNECTIVITY

Connectivity-wise, the Mate 10 and the Mate 10 Pro are just excellent. The call quality and signal reception are great, Wifi and mobile network speeds are really fast, Bluetooth and NFC work fine. Also, the GPS is very accurate. Finally, the phones have a bunch of sensors, just like any other flagship in the market.

CONCLUSIONS

After using both Mate 10 and the Mate 10 Pro for more than 1.5 months, I still believe they are one of the best phones on the market right now.

The devices simply look beautiful, the phones are well-made, the displays are sharp, a powerful processor assures excellent overall performance and a dedicated AI chipset will learn on the daily basis to assure the best user experience. Also, the cameras take one of the best pictures and the battery life is great.

A few things that bother me about the Huawei Mate 10 are that there is no wireless charging, the water, and dust resistance rating could be higher and there should also be a 128GB model available for all the regions, just like on the Mate 10 Pro.

Obviously, there are some caveats to consider about the Mate 10 Pro like the lack of the 3.5mm headset jack that less and less phone have. Also, there is no wireless charging, no microSD card slot, and no 2k resolution display.Other than that, the Mate 10 and the Mate 10 Pro are legit flagship phones that have a ton of premium features and so far, they are one of my favorite phones of 2017, despite a few shortcomings.

The post Huawei Mate 10 and the Mate 10 Pro Review After 1.5 Months! Still Amazing! appeared first on Gizmochina.

The reason why I didn’t make my initial hands-on video of the new Huawei Mate series phone is that I wanted to spend just a little bit more time with the device. Obviously, I prefer the Mate 10 Pro that has a larger display and more power. Learn more in our Huawei Mate 10 Pro review after using the phone for 36 hours!

VIDEO REVIEW

DESIGN and DISPLAY

If I was just a mainstream consumer, the key selling point for me would be the design of the Mate 10 Pro. It combines metal and glass and a 6” 1080p display with very thin bezels. The panel itself is just gorgeous despite the fact that it does not have 2k resolution. The phone just looks and feels premium and it sits nicely in the hand despite its huge footprint.

The new accent stripe looks really nice in practice. There is an upgraded camera setup too. A 12-megapixel RGB camera is paired with a 20-megapixel monochrome sensor here, and both lenses feature apertures of up to f/1.6.

CAMERAS

That camera takes really good pictures in daylight but keep in mind that the device runs on the pre-release software. In fact, I have an advanced release review unit meaning that both the device and software may differ when it is made available to consumers. There are manual, 2x optical zoom and portrait modes that take pretty good pictures but more on the image quality in the full review. The 4k video looks quite sharp and detailed.

Full resolution camera samples

FEATURES

The new Mate 10 phones sport the first Huawei chipset with a neural processing unit or AI component of the processor, which learns how you use the phone and helps the DEVICE adapt to assure the best user experie3nce. For example, the AI chip detects what kind of picture you take to apply the best image settings. Also, it helps apply the right amount of blurring effect in the portrait mode.

Obviously, the AI component does a lot more than helping you take better pictures. For example, it learns how you use the phone to make it faster by allocating the resources to the specific task. So far, Microsoft has updated its Translator app to make use of the AI chipset to speed up the translation process. I will cover the AI capabilities of this phone in detail in my full review.

Now a few features in a nutshell: the Mate 10 Pro is water and dust resistant thanks to IP67 certification but it lacks the headset jack, so you would need to use a supplied adapter for traditional headphones.

I found the fingerprint scanner to be blazing fast and accurate. A beefy 4000mAh battery will easily get you through the day or more. There is a fast charging tech on board that charges the battery up to 58% in 30 mins. However, the phone does not have wireless charging.

HARDWARE

As for hardware, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro is one of the most powerful phones you can get. The phone ships with an octa-core Hisilicon Kirin 970 chipset, 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which is not expandable.

The phone is really fast and responsive but obviously, I haven’t installed many apps like I always do and I have to spend a little more time with the device.

The Mate 10 Pro ships with Android 8 out of the box but it has the EMUI skin built on top of it. As usual to Huawei phones, there are plenty of features and customization options to make the phone look your own.

The Mate 10 Pro will cost €799, which puts the phone in the flagship price category. It will be released in Europe, the US and some other markets.

Overall, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro shapes up to be quite an impressive all-around device. It packs great hardware including a dedicated AI chip, a compelling dual-camera setup and much more that I will cover in our full review.

The post Huawei Mate 10 Pro Review After 36 hours! appeared first on Gizmochina.

In the past few years, we have seen the Chinese tech giant, Huawei, aggressively market its smartphone inside China as well as internationally. What was once an unknown name in the international markets, today, Huawei has its presence in a lot of global markets including US. The rapid expansion of the company’s target markets as well as the release of quality smartphones have helped the company grow into the third largest smartphone maker in the world.

Last year, we reported that Huawei had crossed 100 million smartphone shipments by the end of the year. Now, it looks like the company has made even greater progress as Huawei revealed recently that it had shipped over 100 million smartphones already. Considering that it’s just October right now, this is indeed a great achievement and it looks like Huawei is all set to cross 120-140 million shipments mark this year.

It turns out, Huawei’s newly released Nova smartphone would become its 100,000,000th phone to get out of the assembly line. So, that particular model gets a special 100,000,000 marking at the back along with the date of production, 14 October 2016.

RELATED: Fresh Huawei Mate 9 Leak: Two Versions, Curved Display & More

Huawei has been doing pretty well in the high-end segment this year, with the company’s Huawei P9 and P9 Plus ranking first in the Chinese market in the 3000-4000 Yuan price range. The company earlier reported that the sales of both these two premium devices exceeded 8 million units. Further, with the help of its cheaper phones, the company managed a market share of 17.7% in the first half of 2016, ranking it first in the Chinese market.

You can check out the long image down below for detailed figures.

The post Huawei Crosses 100 Million Smartphone Shipments in 2016 Already, Special Nova Edition Released appeared first on Gizmochina.

Huawei has been aggressively investing in its smartphone division the last few years. The investments seem to be bearing fruit for the company as last year, it recorded an annual revenue growth of an impressive 37%. This is Huawei’s biggest annual growth in the past seven years i.e. since 2008. The company recorded a revenue of RMB 395 billion ($61.10 billion).

Coming to the net profit, the company posted a total net profit of RMB 36.9 billion, up from RMB 27.9 billion in 2014. This marks a 32% increase in the net profit. Even in the shipments deparment, Huawei did pretty well. Last year, the company reported that it managed to sell over 109 million phones, which was quite impressive. Now, it adds that shipments in 2015 were 44% higher than that of the previous year.

Although most of you may know Huawei as a smartphone manufacturer, 59% of the company’s revenue came from the company’s telecom business. Adoption of 4G in prime regions like China has been primarily responsible for the company growth in this segment. The company’s enterprise business which builds private networks also saw a growth of 43.8%.

In case you are wondering, Huawei spend around 15% of its gross revenue in R&D. The company’s increased focus in the consumer electronic businessness helped it grow by a whopping 73%. As for this year’s revenue’s Huawei expects a growth of over 23%, up from $61 billion to $75 billion.

Things are looking good for the Chinese giant. In fact, Huawei’s CEO Richard Yu aims to surpass Apple and Samsung in the smartphone market in the next five years. Of course, that’s a long way ahead, but considering the company’s growth in the segment, things could get heated up in the top-end smartphone market soon.

Huawei has time and again stressed that it will not fight with other Chinese manufacturers over low-cost smartphone market share. Instead the company is looking to compete with the likes of Samsung and Apple, in the premium smartphone market.

So, what do you think? Do you see Huawei posing a threat to companies like Samsung and Apple in the future.

Meanwhile, the company will unveil its brand new premium smartphone lineup, the Huawei P9 series on April 6. Read more about that from here.

The post Huawei Had A Strong 2015, Posts Annual Revenue Growth of 37% appeared first on Gizmochina.

Huawei has been aggressively investing in its smartphone division in the past couple of years. This has helped the company surpass a number of famous manufacturers like Lenovo, Sony, LG etc to become the world’s third-largest smartphone maker. From a brand known only in a handful of markets ouside of China a couple of years back, to a company that’s present in almost all major markets (including US), Huawei has established itself as a powerful smartphone maker in recent times.

The company’s CEO, Richard Yu, has repeatedly stressed that unlike other Chinese smartphone makers, Huawei wants to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung. And the company has managed to do that successfully in the past one year. But Huawei’s plans are big. According to Chinese media, Richard has revealed that Huawei plans to surpass Apple within the next 2-3 years and then Samsung in the next five years, making it the top smartphone manufacturer in the world by 2021.

The company has been growing quickly, selling about 109 million smartphones last year. Unlike Xiaomi, who is doing well in China, Huawei is focused more on the international market. A report last year revealed that the company’s global shipments contributed to more than 40% of the total last year, much more than its rival Xiaomi. This year, the company plans to expand its shipments by over 30%.

Huawei has shown a keen interest in the US market. The company improved its brand image in the country through the Nexus 6P smartphone. Recently, phones like Honor 5X have been launched in the region and now, the company is seeking tie-ups with carriers in the country to improve market share, reveals a report from Digitimes.

Its still too early to predict whether Huawei can achieve this huge challenge, but one things for sure, the company may soon give Apple and Samsung some tough competition in this industry.

What do you think? Can Huawei surpass the mighty Apple in the next couple of years?

The post Huawei Plans To Surpass Apple & Samsung In The Next 5 Years appeared first on Gizmochina.

One of the higher officials from the China’s one of the biggest companies Huawei said that soon many of the smartphone companies are going to crash and burn. Shao Yang, head of marketing for the consumer business group at this China based giant, Huawei consolidation is unavoidable. The company is trying hard to bypass the global leaders like Apple and Samsung in the international smartphone market. In his interaction he said that the coming two years are very crucial for all the key players in the smartphone market.

The major share of the global market is with South Korea based Samsung and USA based Apple. They have a combined market share of above 37 per cent according to Q2 calendar. Huawei is the third largest company in the smartphone market. During the last quarter, the sale was doubled and reaching the 6.9 per cent share and exceeds the sales of Lenovo (5.4 per cent) and LG (4.9 per cent).

Shao has also mentioned that if the research and development of companies is not strong enough then they cannot produce innovative and high quality products. He also expressed his point of view on the current staus of the smartphone market by saying that there will be only two or three real players in this game in the future. Now the Huawei is keeping its eye on the number one position in the global market.

Shao said that South Korean Company Samsung has the “best” hardware with them and Apple got the “best” technology in software domain, but Huawei will reach the top because of its “best” connectivity.

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