CheetahPhone
It's not every day that a phone maker
partners with a company known for creating mobile apps in order to design a new
handset, but that's exactly what's going on with Cubot and Cheetah Mobile.
They're both Chinese companies, but that hasn't stopped them from jointly
unveiling the CheetahPhone at MWC in Barcelona today. You may know Cheetah
Mobile already as it is the maker of many Android apps such as CM Security and
Clean Master, both of which have been downloaded more than 100 million times.
Unlike many other Chinese devices, this
one is officially on its way to Europe, where you'll be able to pre-order it
from Amazon for € 199 sans contract. Pre-orders will start on March 20, and the
phone will start shipping at some point in April. After that, it will also be
launched in Africa.
The CheetahPhone packs a 5.5-inch 1080p touchscreen, a 13 MP
Samsung-made rear camera with LED flash, and an 8 MP selfie snapper. It's
powered by the MediaTek MT6753 chipset, which comes with a 1.5 GHz octa-core
Cortex-A53 CPU and the Mali-T720 GPU. Built-in storage is 32 GB, which is
complemented by 10 GB of cloud storage and a microSD card slot. 3 GB of RAM will
ensure the apps running in the background never have to close because of low
memory. A fingerprint scanner is on the back.
The CheetahPhone runs Android 6.0
Marshmallow, on top of which there's the Cubot launcher which has been
optimized by Cheetah Mobile. All of the Cheetah Mobile apps come preinstalled,
and they are deeply integrated into the UI. Its makers boast that the
CheetahPhone is exactly as long and as wide as the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge,
though not as slim. The battery capacity is still a mystery unfortunately.
