Huawei phone is rebranded to support 5G and escape U.S. restrictions

The Huawei Nova 9 SE was released this past March and of course, the phone's specs have to conform with the restrictions placed on Huawei by the United States. That means that the phone is powered by the 6nm Snapdragon 680 4G SoC. You see, Huawei is currently not allowed to have its devices support 5G thanks to an export rule that prevents foundries using American technology from shipping chips to Huawei even if they are designed by the company itself.

Huawei is working on a way around this and has submitted a patent for components that would be used by an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine (EUV). This machine, which etches circuity patterns smaller than the width of human hair on a silicon wafer, is made by one company in the world and that firm, ASML, is not shipping EUV machines to China. The thinner patterns are needed so that billions of additional transistors can be shoehorned into a chip. The higher a chip's transistor count, the more powerful and energy-efficient it is.

If Huawei can build its own EUV machine, something that isn't entirely clear at the moment, it would set the stage for Huawei to make a major comeback in the smartphone market. It has its own operating system, app storefront, and ecosystem. The only thing Huaweri needs is cutting-edge chips and if it builds its own EUV, it could help China's leading foundry, SMIC, manufacture chips in line with the silicon being served by TSMC and Samsung Foundry.

According to GSMArena, a French company using the Wiko brand name is trying to make a comeback in the marketplace by rebranding the Huawei Nova 9 SE as the Wiko 5G. The phone uses a chipset that Huawei doesn't have access to, the Snapdragon 695 SoC which does feature 5G support. The Wiko 5G, like the Nova 9 SE, sports a 6.78-inch LCD display with an FHD+ resolution of 1080 x 2388 and a 120Hz refresh rate.

The Wiki 5G features 8GB of RAM along with either 128GB or 256GB of storage. Keeping the lights on is a 4000mAh battery with 66W wired charging. The rear camera array is intriguing as it comes with a 108MP Primary camera, an 8MP Ultra-wide camera, a 2MP Macro camera for extreme close-ups, and a 2MP depth sensor. The front-facing selfie snapper weighs in at 16MP. The handset is pre-installed with HarmonyOS which means that software updates for the device will be coming straight from Huawei.

The price for the Wiko 5G is 1,999 Chinese yuan ($287) for the model with 128GB. The model with 256GB of storage is priced at 2,199 Chinese Yuan ($315).