News & Reviews:   Huawei Ascend Mate 7

When the first Huawei Mate 7 came to the market, the reaction was mixed – both admirers and naysayers had something to say about it. The Huawei Mate 8 meanwhile broke new ground as it continued the large form factor of the previous model, but combined with great build quality. Now the successor is on its way, and the Huawei Mate 9 looks to be shaping up quite nicely.

Huawei Consumer Business Group has reported a steady growth of 33% in smartphone shipments, up from 7% from the previous quarter for mid-to-high-end devices. In numbers, that's 27.4 million units for three months that ended on the end of September 2015 and representing a year-on-year increase of 63 percent. 

“This quarter’s results clearly showcase the continued success of our growth strategy. We are especially proud of the stellar growth we’ve seen outside of China and the increased demand for our mid-to-high end devices. At this rate, we are confident in our ability to reach our smartphone shipment target of 100 million units by year’s end.” Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer BG

Chinese brands like Xiaomi and Meizu have gained international recognition lately. While Samsung and Apple are the top two smartphone makers worldwide, the third position is currently being battled over by Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi, Huawei and Lenovo. Many consider them to be direct competitors in the industry. However, according to Huawei's Chief, Richard Yu, the company's real competitor is Samsung and not Xiaomi. According to him, the affordable smartphone maker Xiaomi has no chance against Huawei in the high-end segment. He claims that his company's flagship devices are much better than Xiaomi's offerings. This comment doesn't come as a surprise since he recently criticized both Xiaomi and Meizu for incorporating a Quad HD resolution display on their devices. Both the Xiaomi Mi Note Proand the Meizu MX4 feature quad HD ultra-high resolution displays. His recent comment indicates that Xiaomi's Mi Note flagship and Xiaomi Mi 4 doesn't offer the advantages of Huawei's devices like theHuawei Mate 7 and the Honor 6 Plus. The two Chinese companies are expected to unveil a number of devices later this year, including flagships like the Xiaomi Mi 5, Huawei P8 and even the next generation model of the popular Mate 7. So, it would be interesting to see which one actually comes out as the winner in 2015.

A few days back, Huawei announced that it would hold a press event on 1 March 2015, just a day before MWC 2015. The company didn't reveal any details of the possible launches that could be made at the event, but latest rumors indicate that Huawei may announce a compact version of its popular Huawei Ascend Mate 7 flagship. According to a Chinese blog, the new device, which could be called the Huawei Mate 7 Compact, will be a smaller version of the flagship smartphone. Moreover, the company may drop the Ascend name completely for its new launch. The Ascend Mate 7 is a large phone, thanks to its 6-inch display. On the other hand, the new Mate 7 Compact will reportedly feature a 5.5-inch display, which is quite the standard among flagship devices announced lately. The tech specs of the device have not been leaked yet, but rumors say that the phone will carry the full metal premium build found on the original Mate 7. A number of other handsets are also expected to be announced at the 1 March event, which may include the rumored Huawei P8 flagship. Expect more details in the coming few weeks.

Huawei Malaysia recently launched their 1st exclusive Customer Service Center here in Plaza Berjaya. Located on the first floor of Plaza Berjaya (right next to the monorail bridge), the new Service Center offers a comfortable waiting space complete with free charging station and HDTV. Huawei devices like the Huawei Ascend Mate 7, Ascend P7 and various Huawei accessories for sale are also on display. Regarding plans within Malaysia, Huawei said that they would be increasing the number of Authorized Collection Points from 17 to 100 by the end of the year. Here's what they had to say about it:

"Aftersales service is an integral part of our brand promise. We continuously seek to exceed customers' expectation in this aspect. Another aspect that contributes to customer satisfaction is convenience. With the objective of hassle-free ownership experience, we are aiming to implement door-to-door pick-up and delivery services before the end of the first quarter." Gary Xu, Country Director, Consumer Business Group, Huawei Technologies Malaysia

Huawei recently made several important announcements at CES 2015. One of them was their partnership with the Omlet open social platform, which will be featured on upcoming Huawei devices. Some of the key features coming from this collaboration includes Share-First wich will enable users to take a photo and share it without first unlocking their device. Another feature will be Theme Share, allowing Huawei device owners to share their current customizations with friends. While no exact Malaysia release dates were mentioned the Omlet open social platform should start appearing in Huawei devices later in 2015. 

During the CES 2015 event, Huawei also kicked off their Hilink era which is a strategy to offer fully integrated mobile Internet solutions globally. The solution basically caters to the Internet of Things which through Huawei devices like the Huawei MediaPad X1 and TalkBand B1 allow access to connected smart devices such as an electric fan, sockets, remote control lighting and more. While no major device announcements were made, Huawei showcased all of their recent smartphones and devices including the Huawei Ascend Mate 7, Huawei Honor 6, Huawei Honor 6 Plus, Huawei Ascend P7,Huawei Ascend G7 and more.

The newly announced ASUS ZenFone 2 and ZenFone Zoom smartphones are making waves around the world as ASUS have opted to make one really good ZenFone instead of a new version for each of the three previous original ZenFone smartphones. Due to the 5.5-inch display (which hits a very nice sweet spot in our opinion) the closest original ZenFone in terms of size would be the ZenFone 6, so we've used our tech comparison tool to compare all three smartphones. Key features that the new ZenFone 2 and ZenFone Zoom bring to the table are 64-bit Intel Processors, 5MP selfie-ready front cameras, 4G LTE cat 4 connectivity, dual tone LED flash and for the ZenFone 2, rear volume controls. While there are no Malaysia release dates yet, we expect the ZenFone 2 and ZenFone Zoom to reach us in the next few months or so as the original ASUS ZenFone smartphone range was launched regionally in April 2014.

Local Malaysia price details for the ASUS ZenFone 2 or ZenFone Zoom are also unknown still but based on the current US price of $199 (RM707) we expect the 2GB RAM ZenFone 2 to be priced around RM699. This would result in a drop in price for the existing ZenFone 6 and other previous ZenFone smartphones. Rumours indicate that AnTuTu benchmarks for the new ZenFone 2 could be around 39000 to 41000, which is a huge jump over the previous ZenFone 6 which scored 19661 on AnTuTu. Feel free to compare the ASUS ZenFone 2 or ZenFone Zoom with other smartphones using our tech spec comparison tool or check out the links below:

• ASUS ZenFone 2 vs ASUS ZenFone 5 vs ASUS ZenFone 6
• ASUS ZenFone 2 vs Samsung Galaxy Note 4 vs Huawei Ascend Mate 7
• ASUS ZenFone 2 vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G vs Samsung Galaxy Grand 2

Pictures and a release date for the Huawei Ascend P8 smartphone have reportedly appeared. The pictures show the metal frame of the Ascend P8 and from a comparison with the Ascend P7, the P8 looks to be slightly thinner. Considering that the Ascend P7 was already quite thin at 6.5mm we're guessing that the Ascend P8 will probably shave it down to 6.3 or 6.1mm thin. While there are no details on actual tech specs, we expect it to use the latest HiSilicon Kirin processor from Huawei, perhaps the 925 or better and it would be great if they could manage to fit a one-touch fingerprint scanner like on the Huawei Ascend Mate 7. There are still no details on Malaysia release dates but the Ascend P8 is expected to get announced in March 2015 with a probable Malaysia release date happening sometime in June 2015 (about the same time as the Ascend P7).

After making an appearance at Tenaa just yesterday, Huawei has announced the Huawei Ascend GX1 officially at just CNY 1590 (RM893). Bearing a design very similar to the Huawei Ascend Mate 7, the thin bezel GX1 features a large 6-inch IPS display with 720p pixel resolution. Other tech specs include a 64-bit 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor, 1GB RAM 8GB storage and 3500 mAh battery with support for 4G LTE, NFC, dual SIM and an 8MP rear camera with a 2MP front camera. The Ascend GX1 measures in at 161 x 84.5 x 9.2mm and 173g which could mean it is the lower-end version of the Ascend Mate 7. No Malaysia release dates or pricing yet, but we expect this to come to Malaysia in early 2015 as it is already selling in the China VMALL site.

Alleged photos and specifications of a new Huawei device, dubbed the Huawei Ascend GX1 emerged this weekend. A few hours after the live images were leaked; the device hit TENAA, the Chinese certification agency which further confirmed the existence of such a Huawei smartphone. The GX1 will be a part of the Ascend family which is currently headed by the Huawei Ascend Mate 7. The tech specs as seen on TENAA indicate that the phone is a mid-range phablet. Inside, there is a 1.4GHz quad-core CPU with 1GB RAM onboard and 8GB internal memory which can be further expanded via MicroSD. Like the Mate 7, the Ascend GX1 features a 6-inch display but it comes with just 720p HD resolution. Measuring 161 × 84.5 × 9.55mm the device is also larger than the Ascend Mate 7. There is an 8MP camera at the back and a 2MP shooter up front. As for connectivity, the GX1 supports GSM, CDMA 1X, CDMA2000, LTE FDD, and TD-LTE. It comes with Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box along with a 3500 mAh capacity battery.  No Malaysia release dates or pricing details are available so far, but check out the images below where the leaked Ascend GX1 is compared with the existing Ascend Mate 7.