Huawei is now the third largest smartphone maker behind Samsung and Apple. The company has just officially released its 5.5-inch GX8 smartphone in the United States.

IDC recently reported that smartphone shipments reached a record 1.43 billion units in 2015. Samsung led the way with 324.8 million units, followed by Apple with 231.5 million and Huawei is in third with 106.6 million units shipped.

While Huawei is relatively unknown in the United States, the company is looking to change that and has been making great strides to make a name for itself. The smartphone maker was chosen by Google to build its flagship Nexus 6P and now it has officially released the Huawei GX8 in the United States.

The Huawei G8X is a midrange phablet wrapped in a premium aluminum unibody case, features a 5.5-inch 1,920 x 1,080 Full HD Corning Gorilla Glass 3 display with a pixel density of 401 pixels per inch (ppi). It is powered by a 1.5 GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor. The handset includes 16 GB of internal storage, 2 GB of RAM and a microSD expansion slot that will support up to 128GB microSD cards.

In terms of camera capabilities, the Huawei GX8 boasts a 13-megapixel BSI rear camera with OIS (optical image stabilization) and autofocus. It also has a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat and selfies. The smartphone includes a large 3,000 mAh battery and runs Android 5.1 Lollipop but is expected to receive an Android 6.0 Marshmallow update in the coming months.

Like Google's Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X, the Huawei GX8 has an embedded fingerprint scanner located at the rear of the device. In addition to making the handset more secure, users can also assign fingers as shortcuts to call contacts and take pictures.

The Huawei GX8 is now available for purchase from Amazon and is sold unlocked in choice of Horizontal Gold, Mystic Champagne and Space Grey for $349.99.