Huawei has been trying to break into the US market for years, but the current trend towards inexpensive, off-contract smartphones may be in their favor. That would explain why the company stated that it plans to bring the Ascend Mate II to American shores in its CES press conference. This big-screen, mid-range phone has a trick up its sleeve thanks to an oversized battery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bMka8MDwYs

Let's dive into the specs, shall we? The Ascend Mate II uses a 6.1-inch IPS LCD screen - not bad, especially for those who want a large display. Here's the kicker: it's 720p, considerably lower-resolution than devices like the Galaxy Note 3 or the HTC One Max, and more in line with the Galaxy Mega series. Combine that with the Snapdragon 400 (MSM8928) dual-core 1.6Ghz processor (a 1.6Ghz Huawei model will sub in for the Chinese market), and this seems like a mid-range phone for sure. On the other hand, it's got 2GB of RAM, a 13MP F/2.0 rear camera and a 5MP F/2.4 front-facing shooter, and a downright ginormous 4,050mAh battery. That says "premium."

And that battery isn't limited to powering the Ascend Mate II. The internal removable battery can actually be used to power other mobile devices. We'll have a hands-on later to test this out.

Other specifications include 16GB of storage with a MicroSD card slot, a 9.5mm body, LTE category 4, and Huawei's highly customized "Emotion" skin on top of Android 4.3. This software can react to some unique gestures, including squashing certain apps to one side or another with a tilt.

Huawei isn't saying when the Ascend Mate II will be available, or on which American carrier it intends to release the device... if indeed they intend to release it with a carrier partner at all. At the CES press conference AT&T was floated as a "compatible" carrier, so whatever happens, a GSM-LTE model is likely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GynVK699SQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYJTMpN0G_k