It is no secret that Huawei wants a bigger piece of the North American smartphone business. With the US so cautious towards the huge Chinese company, what better way to find themselves a route into North America than by way of Canada? Getting the deal from Google to produce the Nexus 6P is a big boost for their image and if the device does well, who knows where that could lead. Late last year, Canada Premier Kathleen Wynne went to China with the sole purpose of encouraging companies to invest in Canada and she came away with a $210 million promise over the next five years to create 325 new jobs in Ontario. Huawei Canadian President Sean Yang said back then that Ontario had been their home since 2010 and went on to say, “The success of this facility has reinforced to Huawei the value of Ontario’s talented workforce, and network of universities in Ontario and across Canada, that can support innovative research. We didn’t think we could build the leadership of 5G in Canada, but it happened. We have a perfect team. The ecosystem is very important.”
Rogers is doing their part by jumping on the Huawei ‘band wagon.’ They are already taking reservations for the new Huawei Nexus 6P and at the other end of the spectrum they will be carrying Huawei’s entry-level Y6 in a few days. Our friends at MobileSyrup got their hands on a document that the Huawei Y6 “is targeting price-conscious young adults who are looking for an affordable smartphone with low-end specs.” The device will be available in Black or White and will be offered as free on a two-year contract or $149.99 as an outright purchase on both Rogers and Fido.
The Huawei measures 143.5 x 72.1 x 8.5 mm and weighs in at 125 grams. It sports a 5.0-inch IPS LCD HD display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. It uses a Qualcomm MSM8909 quad core processor clocked at 1.2 GHz and packs 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. It has an 8MP main camera with an aperture of f/2.0 and a 2MP front-facing camera (FFC) for selfies and video chats. It features the ‘BOX’ integrated sound chamber and two-built-in speakers on the bottom of the device for great sounding music or video. Power is provided by a 2200 mAh battery and it is running Android 5.1 Lollipop with Huawei EMUI 3.1 on top.