The new P8 lite smartphone, developed by Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., was recently released in the U.S. an event held in New York City last week.

The new Huawei P8 lite smartphone costs only US$249.99 and does not require any contract with wireless carriers.

During the event, President Zhiquiang Xu of Huawei said, "I think it's great value for the U.S. market,"

"It's a high end quality phone for street price." Xu added.

The new P8 lite is a mid-range version of Huawei's high-end P8 smartphone. The original P8 model does not exist in the U.S. In comparison, the high-end P8 has a larger display screen and higher pixel quality.

The P8 lite smartphone sports a 7.7mm ultra-thin body and weighs about 131 grams. It runs on the Android 4.4.4 operating system and is powered by Qualcomm's octa-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon 615 chipset.

The new dual SIM smartphone offers buyers 2GB worth of RAM along with 16GB internal storage memory. Its internal memory can be expanded up to 32GB only, via microSD card.

The phone has a 5 inch 720 x 1280 high-definition resolution display screen that's protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass 3. It uses a 2200mAh battery that can also offer users up to 11 hours talk time, according to Huawei.

It comes with a 5 mega pixel front-facing camera and a 13 mega pixel camera at the back. The colors available for the phone include white, black and gold.

The Huawei P8 lite is currently available at the Chinese company's official online store, Gethuawei.com, including Amazon and Target.com. USA Today reported that the new phone will also make its way into Best Buy at a later time.

As part of Huawei's efforts to step into the U.S. market, the Chinese tech giant also announced its intention to release higher-end smartphone devices in the U.S. later this year.