Huawei GX8 Goes Live In The US

It's a busy and probably profitable week for Chinese OEM Huawei. Its Honor sub-brand launched the Honor 5x in the US, which was then also launched in the UK. It also teased the existence of the Honor 7 Premium for the UK as well. Now it is making real another CES 2016 promise, this time from its own stable of smartphones. The Huawei GX8 is a mid-range Android smartphone, basically a modified G8 designed for the US market. With its arrival, Huawei's early 2016 contenders for the US market have all arrived in full force.

When it comes to specs, it might be hard to distinguish the Huawei GX8 from the Honor 5x, both of which are marketed as mid-range smartphones. In fact, unless there was another error in the PR materials from Huawei, the GX8 is noted to use a Qualcomm Snapdragon 616, instead of the 617 found on the honor 5x. The two have almost identical specs, like the 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage, and 5.5-inch Full HD screen.

Fortunately, the two are also almost the same in terms of materials used, like a metallic body that gives it a more premium facade. Typical of Huawei, the rear-located fingerprint scanner functions both as security gateway and gesture control. When it comes to security, the smartphone will most likely be able to use that feature for Android Pay. The GX8 has a 13 megapixel rear camera, 5 megapixel front camera, and 3,100 mAh battery, again like the Honor 5x.

Given the similarities between the two smartphones, it might be a bit puzzling that Huawei's own contender might be at a disadvantage when it comes to price. Whereas the Honor 5x costs $200, Huawei is selling the GX8 in the US for $350. At the moment, the smartphone is already up on Amazon, although only 14 units are left in stock as of this writing. The Huawei GX8 will also be available on Huawei's online store, but it is still marked as "Coming Soon" there.