Image taken from www.huawei.com

After I read Jennifer (Baoyi) Chen’s blogpost on Huawei, I felt obliged to add my own two cents. As I write this post, my dad is sitting in another room browsing the Chinese Huawei website, contemplating whether he should ask a friend to bring him an Ascend Mate7 from China.

For the past few weeks, every dinner time is when my dad takes the opportunity to instill in us the virtues of the Android model Mate7. He tells me that the Mate7 has specifications that closely rival those of the iPhone 6 Plus and in some cases even surpass those of the latter. Indeed, the superior camera quality is very attractive to someone who likes to take photos of every cute thing (selfies included). The fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone can also act as a button to take photos. While this is a small detail that my dad and many others do not care much for, I think this is the perfect compromise between the obsolete physical buttons of a bygone era and the thumb-stretching touchscreen phones of today. The battery life for this model is much better than that of the iPhone 6 Plus, so while it cannot claim the qualities of old Nokia bricks, it would certainly reduce the anxiety of many who run around looking for outlets. And perhaps most importantly, the design is elegant and luxurious.

So why hasn’t my dad bought one, despite having sung it praises at every dinner? Well for starters, it is not available in Canada. If he decides to buy it, he would have to have a friend in China buy one and deliver it to him. As well, the after-sales services, such as the warranty and repairs, would be a terrible hassle because the product would have to be shipped back to China for any service. Perhaps these fears would be assuaged if my dad could physically touch and examine a sample phone, but that is currently impossible. All he is banking on are the raving reviews online and the Huawei website. As Jennifer said, Huawei is an excellent brand in China and its products are also extremely popular in Asian markets such as Singapore and India. Yet here in Canada, its brand is more closely associated with lower-end models that the Big Three do not offer. I have only heard about this model from my father, who in turn learnt about it through word of mouth and niche Chinese-Canadian websites. To really go global, Huawei has a lot of work to do in terms of overseas branding and distribution channels. Maybe then will it truly rival Apple and Samsung.