Aug 18, 2016 07:27 AM EDT By Vinay Patel, UniversityHerald Reporter

Although Huawei is not quite popular in the United States, but the Chinese smartphone manufacturer is the third most popular smartphone OEM worldwide after South-Korea's Samsung and Cupertino-based tech giant, Apple. Huawei's sub-brand, "Honor," hit the store shelves in the U.S. earlier this year and now, the company has debuted its second US-bound phone dubbed, the Honor 8. The device is said to be an economical version of the Huawei P9.

Huawei's Honor 8 is currently up for grabs in China (with prices starting under $300) and pre-order for consumers in the U.S. started Wednesday, August 17, GSM Arena reported.

The Huawei Honor 8 can be pre-ordered via third-party retailers such as Newegg, B&H Photo Video, Best Buy, Amazon and HiHonor.com/us/. The pre-order period closes September 3. Consumers will be able to choose between 3 color options i.e. Midnight Black, Pearl White and Sapphire Blue, which will be a Best-Buy exclusive for first 60 days.

For shelling out $399, consumers get a 5.2-inch 1920×1080 LCD, 4 GB of RAM, 32 GB storage with an SD card slot, and a 3000mAh battery. The 64 GB variant comes with a price tag of $449.99. The device will be powered by a lesser-popular eight-core HiSilicon Kirin 950 SoC.

Huawei is among the few companies that manufacture its own SoCs, and the aforementioned division is dubbed "HiSilicon."

The Kirin 950 makes use of four 1.8GHz A53s and four 2.3GHz Cortex A72s, thus making it a high-end chip that should be within the same league of an Exynos 8890 or a Snapdragon 820. Other features include a USB Type C plug, an NFC, a fingerprint sensor, 3.5mm headphone jack, and an IR LED, ARS Technica reported.

Those pre-ordering the Huawei Honor 8 will also receive a $50 gift card from participating retailers. HiHonor US offers a $50 rebate.

Weighing in at 153g, and measuring 145.5 x 71.0 x 7.45mm, the Honor 8 is powered by Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

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