We’ve seen signs of it happening already over the past six months or so. For those keeping track of the Chinese smartphone market, they will know that this year alone marked the launch of plenty of impressively-specced smartphones from companies such as Huawei, ZTE, Xiaomi as well as Oppo – all at impressively low prices due to the amount of competition in the country’s industry. However, one major source of frustration for those not living in the land of the dragon is that most of these monster smartphones are only sold in China, despite the international interest.
That may be changing soon, as these manufacturers look to be finally opening its doors to the world.
Let’s start with the most obvious – and most recent – one. Oppo, makers of the world’s slimmest smartphone, has just got their English-language website online. At the moment it’s pretty bare, with only the Oppo Finder on its list of products, but that hasn’t stopped the company from establishing a forum in place, as well as official pages in Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and also an official YouTube channel. You can find some interesting facts on the Finder, and soon its flagship Find 5 as well as the female-friendly Ulike 2, on the official website here.
In addition, the company has also announced ahead of its official launch event this week that the Find 5 will make its way to US shores as well, a company first. The best part? Oppo has confirmed that it will be available for an unbelievable price of $499 (roughly RM1500). Just to recap, the Find 5 sports a five-inch Full HD screen protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 2, 2GB RAM, and powered by the latest Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
Huawei, on the other hand, has gone one step further. The company’s senior vice president, Yu Chengdong, has gone on record to tell the world to wait for Huawei’s answer to the popular Galaxy Note II. Rumours have it that the Ascend Mate (or whatever it will be officially called) will push the boundaries of the definition of a “phablet” by sporting a gigantic 6.1-inch Full HD screen. Stretching the imagination further is the possible 1.8GHz quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM. Chengdong went on singing its company’s phablet further by saying it will be slimmer, cooler, and generally better than the Note II in every way. The Ascend Mate is expected to be revealed in next month’s CES, so it won’t be long before the world welcomes yet another phablet.
Finally, ZTE have pulled the curtains off its flagship phablet. Specs wise, it has the same Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor as the Oppo Find 5, a five inch Full HD screen similar to the Oppo Find 5, has 2GB of RAM just like the Oppo Find 5…but trumps the seemingly exact same device with a larger 13MP camera, a slimmer 7.6mm frame as well as two rear speakers. The flagship ZTE will be announced sometime this week as the Nubia Z5, which might just attract some interesting comments.
(Source: GSMarena (1), (2), (3))
