Preview: Huawei Ascend W1

Huawei has just unveiled its first Windows Phone 8 smartphone, the Ascend W1.

The Huawei Ascend W1 is targeted at price conscious buyers, with Huawei saying it will be sold "at a price that makes sense to consumers". There's been no official pricing announced yet, however.

We do expect the Ascend W1 to be competitively priced as its specifications can't match flagship Windows Phone devices like the Nokia Lumia 920 and the HTC Windows Phone 8X. The Ascend W1 has a 4in IPS display with a resolution of 480x800, is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and has 512MB of RAM, so its true competitors are the lower priced Lumia 820 and Windows Phone 8S.

The Ascend W1 has 4GB of internal memory and a microSD card slot is present to add to that storage. There's also a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with flash and a front-facing VGA camera for video calls. The Ascend W1 isn't a 4G device, but it is compatible with all Australian 3G networks.

The Ascend W1 measures 10.15mm thick but the light weight (130g) is a positive. The design of the handset should appeal to the youth market, particularly the dream blue, black, magenta and white colours which appear bright and bold.

Huawei says the Ascend W1's 1950 mAh battery has the longest standby time of all smartphones in its class. Official battery life figures quote 11 hours of 3G talk time and up to 470 hours of 3G standby time.

The Huawei Ascend W1 will be available in China and Russia in January, with "other selected countries to follow" but there's no word yet on an Australian release.

• Bookmark this page
• Share this article
  •  
  • facebook
  • slashdot
  • digg
  • Reddit
  • stumbleupon
  • linkedin
  • twitter
• Got more on this story? Email Computerworld
• Follow Computerworld on twitter

• Share
  Share this article1

  •  google+
  • facebookfacebook
  • slashdotslashdot
  • diggdigg
  • RedditReddit
  • stumbleuponstumbleupon
  • linkedinlinkedin
  • twittertwitter
• print
• email
• Bookmark