Huawei reveals its P8 in London

Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, explains the features of new model P8 in London.[Photo by Wang Mingjie/China Daily]

Huawei Consumer Business Group unveiled the Huawei P8 smartphone on 15 April at the legendary Old Billingsgate, London's renowned arts and fashion venue, with a bold slogan of "Make It Possible".

The new model is a blend of technology, sleek styling, usability and low light camera features.

"The Huawei P8 is the culmination of the P series' rich heritage of style and functionality, and is once again redefining the smartphone market with easy-to-use features that amaze and inspire consumers," said Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group.

"With craftsmanship that pushes the bounds of possibility and new revolutionary light painting modes, the Huawei P8 provides consumers with an inspiration for creativity." Yu added.

Yu continued, the Huawei P series has redefined style since its introduction in 2012. The P1 marked the debut of Huawei's journey, taking the stage with a new ethos based on beauty. The P2 built on the momentum of the P1, breaking new boundaries of processing speed; the P6 brought out a new and elegant sleekness; and the ultimate craftsmanship of the P7 stunned the market.

Continuing the minimalist design of previous generations in the P series, the Huawei P8 embodies the ultimate in elegance, craftsmanship and durability, said Yu.

Yu explained the Huawei P8 has a touch screen experience that is innate to consumers.

Double-tapping a knuckle captures a full-length screen shot, while drawing a circle on the screen quickly captures content.

Additionally, the "search phone by voice" function allows users to call out to their misplaced smartphone, which will respond through its speaker to identify.

According to Yu, the Huawei P8 brings innovative and much-needed features to voice and sound.

With the new handset, users can increase volume up to 58 percent above normal level in loud environments. In a windy environment, the smartphone can eliminate 90 percent of the sound of wind when using a headset or earphones with a single microphone, said Yu.

"The goal of Huawei P8 is to become the most user-friendly smartphone for consumers globally" said Yu.

"Through in-depth market research, Huawei has addressed the most pressing pain points for premium smartphone users today. Building on the outstanding market performance of Huawei's P series, we fully believe the Huawei P8 will become one of the most popular smartphones of 2015."

The Huawei P8's Director mode is the industry's first professional-level video capture function on a smartphone.

It allows consumers to direct and control up to three other Android phones when shooting a video scene from four angles simultaneously, while also synchronize video clip editing.

The new handset also introduces a powerful new Selfie mode, which allows preset image enhancement settings to capture and customize everyone's unique beauty, enabling even more people to get in on the fun.

Based on researching and listening to the needs of elite smartphone users, Yu said Huawei has addressed emerging pain points around dropped calls and signal degradation in which the new model has re-defined the industry benchmark for seamless network connectivity.

According to Yu, Huawei's P series has achieved great success around the world. Global sales of the Huawei P6 have totaled 5 million units in 60 countries and the Huawei P7 surpassed 4 million sales across more than 100 countries in just six months.

Yu believes the success of the Huawei P6 and P7 indicates a strong potential demand for the Huawei P8.

There are two versions of the Huawei P8 -- the standard device for £359 (€499) and the premium version for £431(€599).

It will initially be available in more than 30 countries including China, Columbia, France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, South Africa, Turkey, UAE and the United Kingdom.