Last summer, Huawei’s MediaPad was one of the first manufactures to ship a device pre-loaded with Android 3.2 Honeycomb. The Chinese company is now attempting a similar strategy with the release of Ice Cream Sandwich. Existing models of the MediaPad will receive an Android 4.0 update by the end of the first quarter, and new MediaPads will come pre-loaded with the software beginning some time the first quarter. Additionally, the tablet will be offered in the current color scheme, and will add sh...

Huawei unveiled the company’s latest Android-powered smartphone, the Ascend P1 S. The device features an incredibly slim design, measuring a mere 6.68mm — even slimmer than Motorola’s 7.1mm DROID RAZR. The device sports a 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display with a 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4460 dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM. On the backside, the Ascend has an 8-megapixel camera with a dual-LED flash and a 1.3-megapixel front facing camera. Huawei also announced the Ascend P1, which packs similar feat...

Handset makers in China have formed an alliance to prepare for possible patent battles with Apple, Microsoft and Nokia. Coolpad, Konka, TCL, ZTE and Lenovo were among the companies named in a report by DigiTimes on Friday. The number of lawsuits filed in China is expected to increase as Microsoft, Nokia and Apple try to increase market share there, the report says. Nokia has already filed patent infringement suits against several Chinese phone makers and Microsoft has gone after Huawei to try to secure a p...

Sprint quietly launched the Express on Friday, a new $20 Android smartphone manufactured by Huawei. The device runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and features a 2.6-inch display with a 320 x 240-pixel resolution, a full QWERTY keyboard, 512MB of RAM, a 1,600 mAh battery, a microSD slow for up to 32GB of storage, a 3.2-megapixel camera and the ability to share its 3G connection via a mobile hotspot feature. The Express is available now for $20 with a new two-year Sprint contract. (more…)

Huawei announced on Monday its intentions to purchase Symantec’s 49% stake in Huawei Symantec, a joint venture between the two companies that was originally formed in 2008, giving Huawei full control of the company. “The integration of Huawei Symantec’s innovative security and storage technology with Huawei’s enterprise products will reinforce Huawei’s leading position in cloud computing,” said Guo Ping, deputy chairman of Huawei.” The $530 million purchase is still pending regulato...

Microsoft is chasing down Huawei in search of a patent licensing agreement, The Guardian reported on Tuesday. “Yes, Microsoft has come to us,” Huawei Devices chief marketing officer Victor Xu told The Guardian. ”We always respect the intellectual property of companies. But we have 65,000 patents worldwide too. We have enough to protect our interests. We are a very important stakeholder in Android.” Xu also said that “negotiations are in progress” with Microsoft, which ta...

T-Mobile recently published product pages with launch dates for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the T-Mobile SpringBoard. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be available on November 2nd and the SpringBoard will be available on November 9th. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is equipped with a 10.1-inch display, Android Honeycomb, a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, a 3.2-megapixel camera and a secondary 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chats. For more information on the Galaxy Tab 10.1, be sure to check out our ...

We are on the CTIA Enterprise & Applications show floor in San Diego and just quickly swung by Huawei’s booth to check out one of T-Mobile’s latest tablets, the SpringBoard. This Huawei-built slate is definitely one of the best looking 7-inch tablets we’ve seen yet. The back and sides of the tablet feel like aluminum and, while it’s a bit heavy like the T-Mobile G-Slate, the SpringBoard’s thin form factor adds to its attractiveness. The tablet runs Android Honeycomb and is eq...

AT&T announced the Impulse 4G on Wednesday, an Android 2.2 (Froyo) smartphone that will be available beginning on September 18th for just $29.99 with a new two-year contract. Despite its budget-friendly price, the Impulse 4G offers solid specs. It is equipped with a 5-megapixel camera capable of recording 720p video, Wi-Fi, GPS and a 3.8-inch touchscreen with a WVGA resolution. The Impulse 4G is Huawei’s first smartphone for AT&T, and Huawei’s U.S. president of devices Cui Jiangao said the...

AT&T’s purported fall and winter roadmap was recently leaked by Pocketnow and there are a number of devices to get excited about. The Samsung Kupua and HTC Bunyip, two Windows Phone Mango devices, will make their debut during the fourth quarter and will each pack an 8-megapixel camera and an 800 x 480-pixel display. RIM’s full-touchscreen Torch 9860 is also due out during the fourth quarter. It offers an 800 x 480-pixel display, a 1.2GHz processor and a 5-megapixel camera. AT&T will launch...

Gartner on Thursday issued its global mobile phone sales data for the second quarter, which shows that the industry grew 16.5% from the same quarter last year, to 428.7 million units. Smartphone sales jumped 74% year-on-year, with 107.7 million smartphones having been sold to end users around the world. “Smartphone sales continued to rise at the expense of feature phones,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, in a statement. “Consumers in mature markets are choosing ent...

Last year, Huawei shipped 3.3 million smartphones, and this year the Shenzhen-based company has bigger goals in mind. On Wednesday the company lifted its yearly smartphone shipment projection to 20 million units according to Reuters — a jump from the 12-15 million smartphones the company said it hoped to ship this year back in April. “Our original target this year was at 12-15 million units globally,” Victor Xu, chief strategy and marketing officer of Huawei Device, said. “Currently, based...

Facing stiff competition from Samsung, LG, and Apple, Motorola Mobility has seen a slump in its share price and market share following a recent downgrade from analyst firm BMO. According to Dow Jones News Wires, Motorola Mobility’s share of the Android market took off like a rocket when it introduced the highly sought-after Motorola DROID on Verizon in 2009. However, its Android share fell from 33% last year to just 14% in the first quarter as other manufacturers began pumping out competing Android devi...

Cricket will start to test the first installment of its 4G LTE network in Tucson, Arizona, the carrier confirmed in a recent interview with PCMag. Cricket’s vice president of device development, Matt Stoiber, said testing will begin during the second half of this year and that it will use Huawei’s E397 dual-mode USB modem preliminarily. The company has inked a roaming deal with LightSquared and has set a March 2012 target date for the first commercial LTE products to become available for its custo...