It was just last September when Huawei unveiled the Y5II, one of 3 smartphones in its low-cost Y series targeted at the “youth” in Kenya. Over half a year later, it looks like Huawei is ready to replace the Y5II with yet another member of the Y series, the Huawei Y5 2017.
A new listing on Huawei’s product site reveals the existence of the Huawei Y5 2017, a previously unreleased device. The listing and apparent lack of mention by the company is not really surprising. This has been the norm for most of the company’s entry-level and lower mid-range smartphones. Even the reveal of the Y5II and its siblings the Y6II and Y3II last year went largely unnoticed since a formal announcement was never made by the company. The device simply started popping up in markets like Pakistan, Kenya and others.
At just 8.45mm thick, the Huawei Y5 2017 features a 5-inch HD (720p) display, an 8-megapixel camera at the back with dual flash and a 5-megapixel camera on the front with a wide-angle lens, a quad-core MediaTek MT6737T processor clocked at 1.4GHz backed by a Mali-T720 MP2 GPU, 16GB onboard storage (expandable up to 128GB via microSD), 2GB RAM, Android 6.0 Marshmallow with EMUI 4.1 layered on top and a removable 3,000mAh battery that reportedly lasts for up to a day and a half on a single charge with optimum usage.
With its budget smartphone feature set, the Huawei Y5 2017 is definitely a smartphone we can look forward to seeing in the Kenyan market some time this year in its Pink, Gold, Blue, White and Gray color options even though we don’t know, yet, how much it will cost. If it indeed does make it to the Kenyan market, then it will be joining the Huawei GR5 2017 launched in February in appealing to the budget segment of the market.
