The battle of the entry-level smartphones is heating up as Chinese OEMs compete with each other to offer under $125 Android-powered handsets that are feature rich.
Meizu unveiled its $106 m3s smartphone on Monday, June 13, and giving it stiff competition will be the Honor 5A from Huawei, which debuted on Sunday, June 12, and has the same pricing.
Huawei took the wraps off its Honor 5A smartphone at a press event in Beijing, with the company's CEO Ren Zhengfei asserting that the affordable handset was targeted at luring younger consumers because of its attractive pricing.
The smartphone will go on sale from June 17 and set consumers back by CNY 699 ($106) and CNY 799 ($124) for the standard and carrier variants, respectively.
The price point of the Honor 5A may lead one to assume that the device may sport basic specs. Think again.
The Honor 5A sports a 5.5-inch 720p display, and the contrast ratio reached 1000:1 according to the company. The device also uses aluminum silicon tempered glass on the screen, and the display is able to adjust pixel levels under harsh light.
The smartphone will come in multiple variants. The carrier variants would use the octa-core Kirin 620 SoC, which clocks at 1.2GHz.
Some variants of the smartphone will pack in the octa-core Snapdragon 617 processor, which clocks in at 1.5GHz. This chipset is the one deployed by several midrange handsets such as the Moto G4 Plus. The handset also boasts 2 GB of RAM and will be available in 16 GB storage option. It will offer microSD card support to expand the memory.
The Honor 5A will also house an 8-megapixel selfie camera with a 4P lens and f/2.0 aperture. The blue glass filter will reduce the flares. The primary camera is 13 megapixels with a 5P lens, 7cm macro and 28mm wide angle shooting support.
The Honor 5A is not that light and weighs 168 grams. The smartphone houses a 3,100 mAh battery, which contributes to its weight. The device's body is made of plastic, and the frame is metal. Power saving 3.0 functionality on the Honor 5A could be a hit with consumers, as it will offer battery charge for an entire day's usage.
A notable feature of the Huawei handset is that it imbibes hardware security features that safeguard the Honor 5A against theft, illegal access and mistrustful URLs. The smartphone will come with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box.
The Honor 5A is slated to retail in six colors — gold, pink, yellow, white, black and blue. It is listed for preorders at Chinese retailer vMall for CNY 699 or $106.
