Huawei on Wednesday, released a teaser in China, promising the launch of an “amazing” device on the 10th of this month. Speculations within the tech-media in the country seem to indicate that the company will launch a new Honor model featuring a pop-up camera, which got revealed when it was listed on TENAA as part of the Chinese regulator’s certification procedure. The device carries the model number ATH-AL00 for the time being, but will, in all probability, get a more marketable name, come launch day.
While not many hardware specs of the said device is available with the media, according to the listing on TENAA, the device will feature dual SIM card slots. Coming to the USP of the ATH-AL00, the new camera design on the smartphone sees both the primary and secondary cameras attached to a little slider on the top of the phone, whereby, the user needs to slide up the rear camera in order for the front camera to be revealed. This new design has apparently allowed Huawei to reduce the size of the bezel on top of the phone, and include a stronger flash for better-lit selfies. The rear camera meanwhile seems to be accompanied by a dual flash. The device also seem to have a dedicated physical shutter button from the looks of things, as per the images posted on TENAA. Rumors have it that the button used to pop-up the camera will also come with an integrated fingerprint scanner, although the veracity of such claims cannot be established at this stage.
Huawei has been having an incredible year of late, which has seen the company sell almost 50 million smartphones in the first six months of this year alone, prompting industry watchers to predict the company will surpass the 100 million barrier by the end of the year. At the heart of the company’s success is its Honor sub-brand, which is said to have accounted for as many as 20 million smartphones all by itself. The company has also been able to increase its tablet shipments by 103 percent, thereby increasing its market share by 2 percent in the category, according to IDC’s recent findings, even as the worldwide tablet market itself has contracted by over 7 percent YoY in Q2, 2015.