While the attention is all on the Huawei Mate 8, Huawei also debuted the GX8, a mid-tier premium smartphone featuring the same beautiful construction as all other devices. The GX8 is a 5.5-inch Android smartphone constructed from aluminum and glass and it has a full HD IPS panel on the front, a large 3000mAh battery inside and a Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor. While the specs do sound mid-range, the feel on the hand is absolutely topnotch. It is a fair bit chunkier in the hands than the Huawei Mate 8 or their other flagship, the Google Nexus 6P though it feels no less special or premium as those more expensive devices. However, the major faults of the GX8 lie on the software and ultimately the price tag.
Unlike the Mate 8, the GX8 is running an older version of Android 5.1 and an older version of EMUI 3.1 instead of 4. As you may recall from our Mate 8 video, that phone runs Android Marshmallow 6.0 and EMUI 4.0. But if you're like me, you're going to run a launcher like Nova from the start anyway because I can't really deal with this custom UI.
The phone also has a 13MP camera on the back, a 5MP camera on the front and has the ability to expand its 16GB built-in storage via a microSD card. Regardless, we definitely have to spend more time with the GX8 to give you a definitive yes or no if you really want to buy one of these but our review should be coming very soon.
The GX8 is hitting US shores in Quarter One for a price tag of $399. If you ask me, that's a bit steep in my book but we'll definitely see how it does in the market.