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Cape Town - Huawei on Wednesday launched its latest smartphone range, the P8, at an event in London.
The electronics giant launched the P8 smartphone and P8max phablet with a decidedly more elegant look and feel than the company's traditional products.
The P8 features an eight core processor running at 2GHz with 3GB of RAM, putting the Huawei device in the same performance league as the premium products from Samsung.
The Chinese company has also spent more effort on the camera which is a 13 megapixel main unit featuring dual flash to "bring out true colour in night photos".
On the front is an 8 megapixel selfie camera - clearly a challenge to the competition.
Big phone
As demonstrated by the Huawei Mate 7, the P8 is also a large device with a 13.2cm (5.2 inch) display but Huawei insisted that the large display is matched by a 2 680mAh battery that should be able to cope with high drain tasks such as gaming or video.
On the larger P8max (it has a mammoth 17.2cm display, making a near tablet), and despite the aluminium wrapping, it weighs in at a hefty 228g.
The P8max is a near tablet-sized smartphone. (Huawei)
The P8max also has a bigger battery at 4 360mAh, which the company says will last the whole day, even with watching constant video.
The secondary camera on the P8max is rated lower than the P8 at 5 megapixel, but Huawei has included an image sensor similar to those found in DSLR cameras as the company eyes the imaging credentials of Lumia devices.
The P8max is also thinner than the P8 - 6.4mm versus 6.8mm, but thin usually comes with a risk of fragility.
Apple's iPhone 6 Plus and Samsung's Galaxy S6 Edge have both been accused of being fragile to the point where they would bend in tight pockets.
Also, the new Huawei devices do not have a fingerprint reader like the Mate 7.
South African pricing and availability is unclear at the moment, but the devices should make it south before June.
Watch this online video from the launch:
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