Huawei is working on a low-end Android 8.1 Oreo device with a MediaTek MT6739 SoC

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Huawei is the world’s third largest smartphone manufacturer. The company has a broad lineup of phones, ranging from the mid-range Mate 10 Lite to flagships such as the Mate 10 and the Mate 10 Pro. Honor, a subsidiary of Huawei, also sells smartphones ranging from the Honor 7X and the Honor 9 Lite to affordable flagships such as the Honor View 10.

However, Huawei currently doesn’t have any presence in the low-end price segment of the smartphone market. Recently, we exclusively reported that the Huawei Y5 Lite will be the company’s first Android Go phone. It will have low-end specifications, including the MediaTek MT6737m system-on-chip, a WVGA (854×480) display, and run Android 8.1 Oreo (Go edition). Now, we have information on a new low-end Huawei device, which looks to have slightly higher-end specifications than the upcoming Huawei Y5 Lite.

The following information is based on firmware files obtained by @FunkyHuawei, the man behind the FunkyHuawei.club service, which allows users to update, unbrick, or rebrand Huawei and Honor phones for a fee. He has provided access to these firmware files exclusively to XDA-Developers.

The upcoming Huawei budget phone will have 2GB of RAM. It is code-named DRA-L22, and it will have an HD+ (1440×720) display with an 18:9 aspect ratio.

It will be powered by the MediaTek MT6739 system-on-chip, which is the successor to the MT6737m. The chip won’t compete with higher-end chips such as the Snapdragon 450, or even the Snapdragon 430/435. That’s because it still has only a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cluster which is clocked at up to 1.5GHz. The SoC has Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR GE8100 clocked at up to 570MHz. It supports 18:9 displays with a maximum resolution of HD+ (1440×720), and it has an LTE Cat 4 modem. The maximum RAM supported is 3GB LPDDR3 RAM. The SoC supports a maximum camera resolution of 13MP, and it can record video up to 1080p resolution at 30 FPS. Finally, it supports eMMC 5.1 and Bluetooth 4.2.

Finally, the upcoming budget phone will be powered by Android 8.1 Oreo. That’s good news as it means it’s required to have Project Treble support. The specifications of the device aren’t exciting, but if it launches at a low enough price, it could make sense for emerging markets or for use as a secondary backup device.