Huawei unleashes X3 and S7 Slim Android goodies
The Chinese manufacturer dips its toes into tablet waters and squares up to the Android 2.3 crowd
We’d already heard news of Huawei’s plans to tackle the Android smartphone market at MWC this year; what we didn’t know was the Chinese mobile giant was going to take a stab at the tablet market as well.
You’re no one if you don’t haven’t launched your own tablet – well, that appears to be the message of 2011 – so Huawei has wasted no time pulling together a rival device. Well, perhaps rival is perhaps too strong a word. The clue is in the name as the S7 Slim is a 7-incher, but sports an 800×480 pixel screen res that’s more akin to a smartphone than tablet.
It’s loaded with Android 2.2 Froyo – which is nothing to get excited about in this new age of Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets – runs on a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, has a capacitive touchscreen, measures 12.5mm thick and will come in 3G and Wi-Fi flavours, launching globally in April.
The company seems more excited about its Android 2.3 X3 handset, though. Specs-wise, it carries all the goodness of Gingerbread, sports a 3.2-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen, while photo and video capabilities are taken care of with a 3.2MP front-facing snapper and 720p HD recording. A front-facing cam means video calling is on the cards, too.
Huawei has also been quick to point out it’s the thinnest phone in the 3.2-inch realm, at 11.2mm – but it’s not quite the thinnest ever, that title currently sits with the newly announced Samsung’s Galaxy S II. It’ll be available towards the middle of the year and with pricing coming in at just under $200 USD, it looks like an affordable way to hop on the Android 2.3 bandwagon – even if you’ve never heard of it.
Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
