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Huawei is forging ahead with plans to launch the Mate 10 Pro in the US after deals with AT&T and Verizon both fell through due to government pressure level. The unlocked phone will price about $800, which will be a tough sell when you tin can get a Galaxy Note eight or iPhone X on a payment program from carriers. In a misguided attempt to hype up the phone before launch, Huawei appears to accept solicited fake reviews on the All-time Buy pre-order page in a heedlessly transparent mode. Currently, there are over 100 fake five-star reviews.

The Mate 10 Pro came out in Europe and Asia in late 2022, only information technology's still only up for pre-gild in the The states. This was likely a last-minute alter subsequently the AT&T deal cruel autonomously. Almost 2 weeks ago, one of Huawei'south official private Facebook pages offered its lx,000 followers a deal — post about why you are excited for the Mate 10 Pro and earn a adventure to become a beta tester. Translation: get a free phone. Notwithstanding, they were told to post that argument in the review section of the Mate ten Pro pre-lodge page on Best Buy'due south website.

It doesn't take a genius to judge what happened side by side. While Huawei didn't tell people to get out 5-star reviews, that'southward what everyone did. After all, they're trying to curry favor with Huawei to get into the beta program. And then, All-time Purchase ended up with more than 100 fake reviews for a phone that isn't even available in the U.s. however, making information technology painfully obvious something untoward was going on. The phone's overall rating is now 4.9 stars, which will dilute the effect of any negative reviews when the phone does launch. Well, unless Best Buy removes them.

The entire situation is shady — the review section of a retailer's site is non the place to post cloying fan promotions. It's only page subsequently page of people praising Huawei and talking virtually how corking the Mate 10 Pro is going to be with titles like "Unbeatable Smart Phone of the YEAR," and "Fantastic specs – it's a creature."

The deplorable matter is, the Mate 10 Pro doesn't demand people shilling to say it's adept — it's already a genuinely first-class telephone. The phone has industrial pattern that's on par with Samsung or Apple, and the performance is best-in-class. It too ships with Android viii.0 Oreo, which many Samsung phones even so don't accept. If it had launched on AT&T and Verizon as originally intended, it may very well have sold strongly and made Huawei a more visible brand in the US.

We've reached out to Huawei to see if the visitor has a argument on what happened here. So far, no one is talking. That'll probably change once the college-ups figure out who was behind this ill-conceived promotion.

Update: Huawei has issued the following statement:

Huawei'southward commencement priority is ever the consumer and we encourage our customers to share their experiences with our devices in their own voice and through authentic conversation. We believe in that location is confusion around a recent social media post reaching out to recruit new beta testers.  While there are reviews from beta testers with extensive knowledge of the production, they were in no fashion given monetary benefits for providing their honest opinions of the product. Notwithstanding, we are working to remove posts by beta testers where it isn't disclosed they participated in the review program.

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