Huawei Tips Impressive Trio of Android Devices, Activity Tracker

BARCELONA—Chinese phone manufacturer Huawei kicked off this year's Mobile World Congress by inviting press to the Fira Montjuic to unveil its newest mobile devices.

Hot on the heels of its CES reveal, which introduced us to the Ascend Mate2, Huawei had three new Android devices on tap for release later this year: the Ascend G6, MediaPad M1, and MediaPad X1 (pictured). Also on display was Huawei's latest 4G LTE Wi-Fi hotspot and a combination activity tracker and headset. We had a brief hands-on opportunity after the presentation.

The Ascend G6 is an Android-powered smartphone targeted at the coveted 18- to 30-year-old demographic, combining style and substance for an affordable price. The G6 draws from the design language of the company's Ascend P6, with a curved bottom edge and slim profile-the G6 measures just 0.31 inches thick. The G6 will feature an 8-megapixel BSI rear-facing camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for better selfies. Huawei introduced the 'selfie preview' feature at CES and that feature carries over to the G6, complemented by the 22mm wide-angle lens on the front-facing camera for even better selfies.

On the tablet side, Huawei had two new MediaPads: the M1 and X1. The M1 is the more modestly equipped device, with a 1,280-by-800-pixel display, stereo speakers, LTE radios, and a 0.31-inch thick aluminum body.

But the X1 was the star of the show, with its incredibly thin and narrow profile and sharp 7-inch full HD display. With just a 0.12-inch bezel, the X1 touts an 80 percent screen-to-body ratio. It's 30 percent lighter than the iPad mini at 8.43 ounces, but still manages to pack a 5000mAh battery for up to five days of normal use between charges, according to Huawei. Inside the X1 is a quad-core 1.6GHz Hisilicon Kirin920 SoC with 2GB RAM and a Mali450 GPU. The X1 will support 16 mobile data bands, including FDD-LTE and TD-LTE, while a built-in earpiece and mic will enable voice calls.

Huawei also had a new 4G LTE hotspot, called the E5786, which utilizes CAT 6 LTE for speeds of up to 300Mbps. Rounding out the mobile devices is the TalkBand B1, a wrist-worn activity tracker and Bluetooth headset in one. The TalkBand looks and feels a lot like the FitBit Force , but has a few tricks up its sleeve. Aside from activity and sleep tracking, you'll be able to answer phone calls using TalkBand, while the curved OLED display will show all your latest stats. The TalkBand is IP57 rated for water and dust resistance, and Huawei claims up to seven hours of continuous talk time.

The Ascend G6, MediaPad M1, and MediaPad X1 will retail for €249, €299, and €399 with availability sometime later this year. The TalkBand B1 will go for €99, but will only work with Huawei devices to start, with wider Android and iOS compatibility expected later down the line.