Huawei Unveils $100 Android 2.2 Smartphone

Huawei on Thursday launched what it called the first affordable Android smartphone, the Ideos U8150, a handset designed in partnership with Google and running Google’s Android 2.2.

The Chinese manufacturer said the U8150, launched at the Internationale Funkaustellung (IFA) trade show in Berlin, would sell to manufacturers for between $100 (£65) and $200, depending on the market.

Support for Android 2.2 means the Ideos can play Adobe Flash content, which isn’t supported by Apple’s devices.

The launch came on the same day as two other significant launches based on Android 2.2 – Toshiba’s Folio 100 tablet and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, both intended to rival Apple’s iPad.

‘Golden Age of mobile broadband’

Huawei’s handset offers WCDMA support with downlink speeds of more than 7.2 Mbps, supports Wi-Fi 802.11n and can act as a Wi-Fi router for up to eight devices at a time. GPS and Bluetooth are also supported.

It sports a 2.8-inch touch display, 528MHz Qualcomm processor, a 3.2-megapixel camera, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD slot, Huawei said.

Huawei chief executive Kevin Tao said the device was designed to widen the accessibility of smartphones, ushering in a “Golden Age of mobile broadband”.

Huawei said the device will launch in the Europe, Asia-Pacific, North America and Latin America regions, but didn’t set specific launch dates.

The company is planning to ship a more advanced Ideos device, the U880, in October. The U880, announced at Mobile World Congress in February, is also powered by Android 2.2 but supports faster downlink technology – HSDPA, with speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps.

Toshiba, Samsung tablets

Toshiba’s Folio 100, also introduced at IFA, costs €399 (£330) and has a 10.1-inch display, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and 16GB of storage. It will ship in the fourth quarter of this year, with a version supporting 3G to follow, Toshiba said.

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab builds on the success of its Galaxy smartphones, and features a TFT-LCD 7-inch screen and a Cortex A8 1GHz processor. The Galaxy Tab will launch in Europe sometime in mid-September, followed by a US rollout at an undefined point after that.