While the smartphone race has been led by Apple and Samsung, there are some notable devices this year from names that aren't as familiar. However, they all come from one nation – China. The ZTE Grand S was favored by 49 international designers and stood out amongst 4,325 entries from 51 countries to win the 2013 iF Design Award. This smartphone has a white porcelain finish, 5-inch screen and the appearance of black water drops on the upper part of its curved back. A protruding area on the back accommodates both the camera and most of the other key components within the phone, while providing a visual focus from the back side that will be continued in future ZTE products as part of the design identity. Inside find a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor with 1.7GHz quad-core CPU, Android Jelly Bean and a 13M AF camera with flash and 2M FF 1080P video. Another company more well-known in the computing space that has now jumped into the smartphone race is Lenovo. With the IdeaPhone P770, Lenovo has launched what it calls a “Professional Business Device.” Sporting a 3500mAh battery with enhanced power management software, the P770 delivers up to 30 hours talk time between charges. In fact, with USB on-the-go, the P770 can even serve as a charger for other devices, while easily sharing files and data secured by native anti-virus software. Dual SIM capabilities, a 4.5-inch qHD IPS screen, a 1.2GHz dual-core MediaTek MT6577 processor and Android Jelly Bean complete the package. The final smartphone to show today aims to take on an entire continent. From Huawei comes the first Windows Phone 4Afrika, designed to help boost mobile accessibility and adoption within Africa. The Huawei 4Afrika is a customized version of the Huawei Ascend W1. It features a 4-inch IPS LCD 480 x 800 touchscreen with Zero-Gap Touch technology. With a 1730 mAh Li-Polymer battery and unique power saving technology, the smartphone provides up to 420 hours of standby time and up to 560 minutes of talk time on 3G. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8230 dual-core 1.2 GHz processor and Adreno 305 GPU. Additionally, the phone includes a 5 MP auto-focus camera, VGA front camera and comes in an array of colors.
