IFA 2016: Huawei’s new mobile picks

It’s IFA season again and one of the industry’s oldest tech events is playing host to a new crop of devices that will soon populate our stores. A lot of the top brands have started their presentations and for Huawei, the picks consist of a new tablet with familiar aesthetics, and a pair of smartphones that fall around the mid-range pricing segment.

Advertisement

MediaPad M3

Huawei is still engaging consumers via its tablet line with the MediaPad M3. It has an 8.4-inch screen, which is around the perfect size for portable-but-large-screen media consumption. The M3 also features two 1-watt speakers made in partnership with Harman/Kardon to handle the audio, while the graphics is carried on the ARM Mali-T880 GPU, the same chipset found in the Mate 8 and the P9.

At the core of the M3 is a Kirin 950 processor with 4GB RAM and either 32GB or 64GB of native storage, expandable up to 128GB. The tablet is powered by a large 5,100mAh battery that Huawei says can keep you going for up to two days. In the era of Pokémon GO, this claim might need to be revisited, though. Both the front and rear shooters of the M3 use an 8-megapixel camera, and the device runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Huawei’s EMUI 4.1 overlay.

The M3 comes in Wi-Fi and LTE variants for both the 32GB and 64GB versions, with prices starting at €349 (approx. P18,000), and will be available in the UK and EU regions by September 12. Expect the MediaPad M3 to land on our shores in time for Christmas or ready to greet the New Year.

Nova and Nova Plus

For their smartphone offerings, the Chinese manufacturer introduced a new line in the Nova and Nova Plus. The 5-inch Nova looks a lot like a smaller version of their Nexus 6P device, which launched earlier in the year, while the 5.5-inch Nova Plus took aesthetic cues from their Mate line of phones. That means a fingerprint sensor at the back with the Nova’s camera and flash mounted on the upper left side (like the Nexus 6P) while the Nova Plus has its shooter set-up right above the sensor.

Speaking of shooters, the Nova features a 12-megapixel camera with phase-detection and autofocus, while the Nova Plus weighs in at 16-megapixel with optical image stabilization. Both have an 8-megapixel front camera with Huawei’s proprietary beautification app pre-installed in the device.

For innards, both phones have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, a standard in mid-rangers nowadays, coupled with 3GB RAM and 32GB of non-expandable storage. The smaller Nova has a 3,020mAh battery, while the Nova Plus has 3,340mAh power cell. Both phones can last around one and a half days of normal use, or around five hours of non-stop Pokémon GO playing.

Surprisingly, Huawei decided to retain Type-C connectivity on their mid-range offerings, and the speaker grill can also be found at the bottom of the Nova and Nova Plus. This could be an enduring trend for phone releases throughout this year and next year, as the world starts to wean itself off of microUSB as a wired connectivity option.

As with their tablet offering, Huawei’s Nova and Nova Plus run on Android Marshmallow with their EMUI 4.1 overlay. Unique to these phones is Knuckle Sense, a feature that allows the user to use their knuckles as input points, allowing you to launch the camera app or take screenshots. The phones are able to detect the difference in electric conductivity between your fingertips and knuckles, allowing a new way of interaction without much demand from the user.

The Nova and Nova Plus smartphones are both LTE-ready, and will be available in Europe starting October, with other territories to follow. Both devices are at the upper end of the mid-tier pricing range, at €399 (approx. P20,000) for the Nova and €429 (approx. P22,000) for the Nova Plus in white, gold, and silver color variants.