Huawei’s first Windows Phone 8 smartphone—the Huawei W1—is expected to go on sale at Walmart later this month, the company announced today. So keep an eye out. It will be sold in Walmart’s online and retail stores. (See what other Windows Phone is headed to Walmart.)
Already a popular choice among price-savvy smartphone buyers overseas—where it’s known as the Ascend W1—it’s the first time the phone has been offered in the U.S. While Huawei didn’t disclose pricing info today, the phone—which comes in black—will use a no-contract prepaid plan and be priced “competitively,” Huawei’s Michael Chuang said in a statement. “The Huawei W1 brings consumers a truly compelling alternative to what’s currently in the marketplace,” he added.
We blogged about this phone when it was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. It sports a 4-inch 480×800 LCD display with Gorilla Glass, a speedy dual-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor, a 5MP rear-facing camera that captures 720p video, and 1.7 GB of user-available internal storage (expandable to 32GB via microSD card)—all squeezed into a 0.4 inch-thin case.
But its secret weapon is its battery life. According to Huawei, the W1 delivers up to 320 hours of standby time (that’s a tad under two straight weeks, folks) thanks to its built-in power-saving technology. After putting the phone through its paces earlier this year, my colleague Ben Rudolph concluded: “If you’re looking to get your first smartphone (or upgrading to Windows Phone from an old iPhone or Android device), the Ascend W1 is going to give you a lot of value for your dollar.”
Watch Huawei’s website for more details about the phone and its U.S. rollout.