Huawei reportedly bringing Cricket its Glory this fall

We've been waiting a long time for that Huawei phone that puts the lesser-known manufacturer (at least in U.S. circles) on America's smartphone map. It's possible the Huawei Glory (Huawei M886) is the handset to do it.

Our friends at PC Magazine went hands-on with the device, a souped-up Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone with a 1.4-GHz Qualcomm MSM8655T processor (Huawei claims it's dual-core, but there's still some debate); a 4-inch TFT LCD screen with 854x480 resolution; and an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash.

The 3G-capable Glory will also come equipped with a 1900 mAH battery, which will hopefully translate into longer battery life, 2GB of onboard memory, and an expansion slot. There are apparently no TV or HDMI-out slots, but Huawei did tell PC Magazine that it has a "surprising" media solution up its sleeves.

Huawei has been slow to embrace smartphones for the U.S., and slower to instill them with enough features to write home about. There was the mid-level Huawei Ascend, for instance, and we're still looking forward to the Huawei Ascend 2, both with Cricket. They have yet to crack a top-tier carrier with a smartphone as well. If Huawei can take bolder strides with Cricket as its partner, it will stand a better chance of spreading brand awareness among U.S. customers, and getting some coveted leverage with tier-one carriers.

In the meantime, we're waiting to hear an official announcement, along with a release date and pricing, though PC Magazine suspects cash registers to ring just below $300.