Huawei Mate 10 Preorders Kickoff In The US With $150 Bonus Offer

Huawei is having a hard time breaking into the U.S. smartphone market -- at least when it comes to partnering with wireless carriers. It had a deal set up with AT&T to directly offer smartphones made by the Chinese company. That deal fell apart after AT&T was pressured by the U.S. government to not sell the devices. Verizon later backed out of its own deal to sell the smartphones under similar pressure.

Huawei said that it would simply sell its smartphones directly via retailers in the U.S. and the Mate 10 is now open for preorder via Amazon, Best Buy, and other retailers. The device is selling for $799, making it a high-end device. Whether that high price tag can lure buyers away from their iPhones and Galaxy S devices remains to be seen.

Huawei will begin to ship the smartphone on February 18 and if you pre-order you do receive a $150 gift card from the retailer. Two colors will be offered with titanium gray and midnight blue available during the preorder period. If you don’t know about this device, it has a Kirin 970 processor made by Huawei, which is said to offer performance comparable to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835. Huawei crams in 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage.

As for why the U.S. government is trying to keep Huawei from gaining a foothold in the American market, it fears the Chinese government will use the devices to eavesdrop on American businesses and government workers. The Skygofree malware was recently discovered and it had a feature specifically for Huawei smartphones that would allow the malware to continue running when the screen is off. That malware is capable of eavesdropping on users via the microphone and performing other nefarious tasks.