China's LeEco prepares to take over the U.S. with phones, TVs and cars
SAN FRANCISCO — Chinese tech giant LeEco is ready to make its North American debut.
The company, which has been called the "Netflix of China," introduced a new lineup of products on Wednesday, including two inexpensive Android smartphones, a VR headset, a 7-foot 4K TV and a new streaming service. LeEco also showed off its electric bike and self-driving electric vehicle concept.
Like the company's last generation of smartphones, the Le Pro 3 and the Le S3 are Android-powered handsets that use USB Type-C and skip the headphone jack.
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The $399 Le Pro 3 manages to cram in most of the features you would expect from Android flagships these days. It has a 5.5-inch HD display, 4GB of RAM, a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chip (the same one in the new Google Pixel phones). It also promises an impressive battery life with a 4,070 mAh battery that will get 14 hours of streaming video playback, according to the company. The Le Pro 3 has curved edges and comes in silver and gold finishes.
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The $249 Le S3 has slightly lower end, though still respectable, specs for its price point. It also has a 5.5-inch HD display and a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera but has 3GB of RAM and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 chip. It comes in silver, gold and rose gold finishes and is only available with 32GB of onboard storage. It also has a smaller 3,000 mAh battery.
Both smartphones will be available beginning Nov. 2 from LeEco's LeMall website.
LeEco also unveiled a new VR headset, called ExploreVR, that will be powered by the company's phones. LeEco didn't announce pricing or availability for the headset but said it would be equipped with an array of sensors to enhance the VR viewing experience.
A 7-foot, 4K TV, the uMax85, was also announced. It'll cost $4,999 when it goes on sale Nov. 2 (also on the LeMall website.)
The company also unveiled a new streaming service to bring content to its new devices. The company is partnering with content providers like Vice, Lionsgate and Showtime, as well as developing its own original content. Its first original title is called The Great Wall and will star Matt Damon.
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Some of the streaming service's content will be free and some will be available through a separate subscription, which also comes with free cloud storage and other benefits for people who buy multiple products.
And as if new phones, a huge TV and new content weren't plenty already, LeEco unveiled concepts for two electric self-driving vehicles, the LeSee and LeSee Pro, as well an electric "Super Bike," that was previously announced.
Flashy products aside, LeEco executives spent much of Tuesday's event making the case to those in attendance why they should care about the Chinese tech giant that's still not widely known in the U.S.
Executives shrugged off comparisons to U.S. tech companies like Netflix and Apple saying that they promised to provide a full ecosystem to consumers, from their phones and televisions, to the content they watch, to the vehicles to they drive.
Whether that pitch will resonate with U.S. consumers the same way it has with those in China is another matter, though LeEco is hoping its relative affordability will help sweeten the deal.
It may be a tough sell — at least initially — but the company, which made headlines earlier this year when it acquired Vizio for $2 billion, certainly has the resources to become a force in the U.S.
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Karissa was Mashable's Senior Tech Reporter, and is based in San Francisco. She covers social media platforms, Silicon Valley, and the many ways technology is changing our lives. Her work has also appeared in Wired, Macworld, Popular Mechanics, and The Wirecutter. In her free time, she enjoys snowboarding and watching too many cat videos on Instagram. Follow her on Twitter @karissabe.
