IFA 2012: Haier announces Android-powered smartphone, tablets

Ask anyone about Haier and you’ll probably get an answer about the Chinese company’s popular household appliances, not its smartphones. Well, that’s all going to change now, with Haier unveiling two Android tablets and a Galaxy Note-sized smartphone at the ongoing IFA 2012 conference.

As per a report by AFP, the two tablets - the Mini Pad711 and the Maxi Pad1012 - both run Android v4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), and will be powered by ARM Cortex A8 processors. The Maxi Pad1012 sports a 9.7-inch screen with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels, Wi-Fi b/g/n, 8 GB of on-board storage, a microSD card slot and HDMI. The Mini Pad711 has a screen with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels and measures seven inches, has 8GB of internal memory, a microSD card slot and Wi-Fi b/g/n. No details about the camera, CPU, RAM or battery are known as of yet.

The Haier Maxi Pad1012

The smartphone is called the Haier Phone Pad 5511 and has a 5.43-inch display with a resolution of 940 x 450 pixels. It has 4GB of storage, an 8 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, built-in GPS, and will run on Android. We currently do not know the version of Android the smartphone will run, but we hope Haier decides to ship it with Jelly Bean.

We have no information about the pricing and launch dates of the three new gadgets on the block. The AFP report states that “these specifications put the Haier smartphone very much in the mid-range, mid-performance bracket”.

The Haier Phone Pad5511

The IFA conference is one of Europe’s largest technology conferences and exhibitions. This edition of IFA saw a lot of products unveiled with the highlights including a load of announcements by Samsung. The major products announced included the Korean company’s Jelly Bean-powered Galaxy camera, which has a 21x zoom lens and a bright 16M BSI CMOS sensor with Wi-Fi and 3G/4G connectivity options for quick and effortless sharing of photos; and the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 with Air View, which features a 5.5-inch screen, Jelly Bean out of the box, an 8 megapixel autofocus camera, and an impressive 2GB RAM.

Samsung also unveiled two of the first Windows 8-powered devices - the ATIV S smartphone and the ATIV Tab. The smartphone features a 4.8-inch display with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels, an 8 megapixel rear camera and a 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera, 1.5GHz dual-core dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus Krait chipset, 1GB RAM and a large 2300mAh battery. The ATIV Tab weighs 570gm, has a 10.1-inch display, an 8,200mAh battery and is 8.9mm thick. Samsung also announced that the Samsung Galaxy S III and Note 10.2 would receive Jelly Bean very soon.

Sony also came out with a few products including its flagship smartphone Xperia T, which has a 4.6-inch HD display, a 1.5GHz dual-core CPU, a 13 megapixel camera, 16GB of internal memory, 1GB RAM, and will run Android v4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Sony also announced the Xperia Tablet S, which boasts of a 9.4-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 800, and is powered by a 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor. It will feature an 8 megapixel rear camera as well as a 1 megapixel front-facing camera. Sony also announced two more devices the Xperia V and Xperia J.

Other major announcements included HTC unveiling the Desire X, ZTE announcing the first Intel-based smartphone, and Epic Games demonstrating the Unreal Engine 3 running on Windows 8.