We haven't heard much from Chinese smartphone company, Huawei, in the U.S. lately. Despite last year's launch of its very own webstore, GetHuawei, as well as the Ascend Mate2 smartphone, it has a ways to go to gain growing presence in this market. Worthy of an announcement, however, is Huawei's alternative its high-end P8 smartphone. Dubbed the P8 Lite, this one is said to be what the iPhone 5c is to the iPhone 5s. It's getting attention in the name of its $249.99 unlocked, carrier-free price, but will have to show plenty of variability when going straight up against its $279.99 rival from Alcatel, the One Touch Idol 3.

Americans love their iPhones and Galaxy S's, so what can Huawei give us that provides some incentive, despite being super affordable? Some pretty good hardware, for one. The P8 Lite features a an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor, comes with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a 2,200 mAh battery, runs Android 4.4, and has 4G LTE connectivity (PC World). All that, and it kinda looks like an iPhone.

More so, it looks just like its predecessor, but features textured white plastic instead of metal, and a Gorilla Glass-coated 5-inch (edge-to-edge) 720p screen, instead of the 1080p display and pure glass accents of the original P8. It also features a 13MP rear-facing camera, a 5MP front-facing camera, and a microSD slot for up to 32GB of additional storage. Don't forget, folks, the microSD doubles as another SIM card slot, making the P8 Lite a competitor to the other similarly priced, dual-SIM smartphone out right now, the ASUS ZenFone 2 (Engadget).

For the third phone to ever be sold in the U.S. Frin Huawei's online store, the company is really gonna have to spread the word on this device so people know it exists. Still, the incentive here is that it's both low-cost and unlocked, something you can't get with the higher-end dominators of the smartphone market. Perhaps those iPhone lovers will find the appearance of the P8 Lite inspiring.