RaceTechChina

I found this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to be a disappointment as few new “consumer ready” products are announced, especially in the mobile devices space. The largest global brands prefer to organize their own big events around the year to launch their new flagship products. It offers them a much less crowded media space, and permits flexibility in product announcements. They can delay their own events, not CES. Companies such as Samsung, LG, RIM, Nokia and HTC use CES to demonstrate future technologies and proof of concepts, such as the curved screen Samsung phone.

Chinese companies are among the companies that continue leveraging the global attention of CES to make some noise outside their home market, and a couple stood out this week:

Huawei introduced a whole range of high end Android devices, most notably the enormous 6.1 inch Ascend Mate, possible one of the most talked about device at CES as it is in a category of its own, and should be available outside China. The Ascend D2 did not fail to impress as a direct competitor of Samsung, HTC and Sony’s high end smartphones, boasting specs in line with them. Check out this interview of Huawei’s Consumer CEO on The Verge for some insight on the company’s bold vision.

Lenovo also showcased its own high end large screen smartphone with the IdeaPhone K900, one of the first phones to sport Intel’s new 2GHz dual-core Atom processor, no indication yet on how it will perform on the power hungry devices vs the competition. In the tab/hybrid space, Lenovo introduced the ThinkPad Helix, a very interesting business ready Windows 8 tablet that turns into a laptop when plugged into a keyboard docking station.

ZTE, arguably one of the lesser known Chinese brands to venture outside the homeland border, introduced the 5 inch 1080p display Grand S, powered by a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4, one of the most powerful ARM based processors on the market currently. ZTE also announced it could be one of the first manufacturers to offer a device running the Mozilla OS, which could be ready before the end of the year. Surely that would help ZTE urn the spotlights on itself a little more.

It will take a while for these companies to be accepted outside China as premium smartphone brands, but their strong showing at CES proves they are giving themselves the tools to draw interest and attention. That usually leads to customers.

- Simon

Image Source: Huawei