Huawei Vision review: Farsighted

With Incredibly Fast and About to Take Off written across their flag, Huawei took this year's MWC by a storm. Firing up on all cores - four of them, in case you've missed it - they pinned themselves emphatically on the Android map with an impressive new lineup of smartphones and a shocker of a tablet.

Their rise didn't happen overnight of course. And although we're about to look back at a less glorious chapter of their history, phones like the Vision and the Honor deserve credit for helping the company get where they're now.

So, what about the Huawei Vision? Incredibly like an HTC Desire S and About as Smart makes a good motto. Come on, the Vision is no droid if it can't take a joke. And by the way, it looks strong enough to take a beating.

Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA3.7" 16M-color capacitive LCD touchscreen of WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels)Android OS v2.3.5 GingerbreadSPB Shell 3D launcher preloadedQualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 chipset, 1 GHz Scorpion CPU, Adreno 205 GPU, 512 MB of RAM and 2 GB ROM5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging720p video recording @ 30fpsWi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA, hotspot functionalityGPS with A-GPSmicroSD slot, up to 32GBAccelerometer and proximity sensorStandard 3.5 mm audio jackStereo FM radio with RDSmicroUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1Front facing cameraCompact aluminum unibodyBelow-par sunlight legibilityNo dedicated camera keyNo video calling out of the boxNon-user-replaceable batterySPB Shell 3D launcher looks messyNon-hot-swappable microSD slot

The Vision reports to the Honor in the previous generation of the Huawei Android lineup. By far the better-equipped smartphone, the Honor was let down by a stark lack of style. The Huawei Vision must've been quick to grab the chance. Not that it's propelled to staggering heights of finesse but the unibody design is a source of strength and credibility.

The Huawei Vision at ours

The Vision risks being soon overshadowed by its younger and more gifted siblings, and faces frightening competition. No one can reasonably expect Samsung, HTC, LG and Sony Ericsson to be nice to newcomers. With dual-core phones becoming more and more affordable, the Vision needs to be prepared to battle some tegra 2-yeilding brutes too.

The Huawei Vision looks good and is more than decently equipped to be a trusty day-to-day companion or your first smartphone to learn the basics with. All it needs is the right price and an audience to make happy. It has all our attention. Let's see if it can keep it.

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Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD announced, quad-core beast

Huawei just went official with their latest 10-inch MediaPad, after last night's foreplay.

We saw the beast on display yesterday at Huawei's press event but only now we got to learn the full specs. The MediaPad 10 FHD runs on Huawei's proprietary quad-core K3V2 processor, clocked at 1.5 GHz. The amount of RAM is the impressive 2 GB but there are only 8 gigs of on-board storage. Fret not though, as it has a microSD card slot to expand that.

The IPS display is a real treat - a FullHD-worthy 1920 x 1200 resolution resulting into a pixel density of around 226 pixels per inch, which is more than what any ultrabook, tablet or netbook out there can match.

Connectivity options are duly covered with HSPA+ speeds plus LTE (we're guessing in separate versions). An 8 MP camera on the back is in charge of imaging.

The MediaPad 10 FHD offers an aluminum unibody construction, it weighs 598 g and is just 8.8 mm thick.

The MediaPad 10 FHD will become available worldwide in Q2 of 2012.

For live pictures of the MediaPad 10 FHD you can check out our hands-on.

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Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD announced, quad-core beast

Huawei just went official with their latest 10-inch MediaPad, after last night's foreplay.

We saw the beast on display yesterday at Huawei's press event but only now we got to learn the full specs. The MediaPad 10 FHD runs on Huawei's proprietary quad-core K3V2 processor, clocked at 1.5 GHz. The amount of RAM is the impressive 2 GB but there are only 8 gigs of on-board storage. Fret not though, as it has a microSD card slot to expand that.

The IPS display is a real treat - a FullHD-worthy 1920 x 1200 resolution resulting into a pixel density of around 226 pixels per inch, which is more than what any ultrabook, tablet or netbook out there can match.

Connectivity options are duly covered with HSPA+ speeds plus LTE (we're guessing in separate versions). An 8 MP camera on the back is in charge of imaging.

The MediaPad 10 FHD offers an aluminum unibody construction, it weighs 598 g and is just 8.8 mm thick.

The MediaPad 10 FHD will become available worldwide in Q2 of 2012.

For live pictures of the MediaPad 10 FHD you can check out our hands-on.

Source

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MWC 2012: Huawei overview

Huawei's press conference marks the beginning of the quad-core smartphone era at this year's Mobile World Congress, which for yet another year is held in sunny Barcelona. The Chinese have raised big expectations and bet big to raise awareness of their presence in the Android world.

The big small player has grown ambitious to play in the same ballpark as the big Droids from Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony and Motorola. Huawei's punchline is "Incredibly fast and about to take off" put next to their impressive looking pegasus made up of smartphones.

But words alone won't be enough for the Chinese to truly rise above the competition. They need something truly jaw-dropping. This is where the Ascend line-up comes in.

At the stage, Huawei's top men presented the company's flagship - the Ascend D quad, the Ascend D quad XL, the Ascend D1.

And here's the jaw-dropping moment - Huawei have built their own quad-core chipset, which they say smokes everybody else's hardware out of the game and is the fastest quad-core processor the world has seen. Now Huawei proudly stands next to Texas Instruments, Samsung, Nvidia and Qualcomm in the system-on-a-chip manufacturers list.

Smartphones aren't Huawei's only strong hand. The hiding ace in the sleeve of the Chinese is a 10.1-inch MediaPad, which in Huawei's world, proudly stands against the iPad in its tablet market dominance.

And we've been out there on the showroom floors to see if their statements hold any ground or is it just catchy phrases for the press release. Let's get to the hands-on.

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Huawei announces the Ascend D quad, D quad XL, and Ascend D1

Huawei has just lifted the curtains off of its new device lineup here at the MWC, starting with the Ascend D quad and D quad XL Android smartphones.

The Ascend D quad features Huawei's very own K3V2 quad-core processor with clock speeds ranging from 1.2GHz to 1.5GHz garnished with 1GB RAM. The Chinese claim this is the fastest processor in the world right now, so we're very excited to give it a try and test it for ourselves.

Huawei Ascend D quad official photos

Back on the Ascend D quad specs, it sports a 4.5-inch display with HD 720p resolution with a 32-bit true color graphic processor and 330ppi pixel density, which Huawei say should give the iPhone 4S a run for its money. Huawei also take pride in the excellent sunlight legibility of the phone.

Huawei official event MWC 2012

At the back, the quad-core Ascend D counts on an 8MP camera with a back-lit sensor, recording 1080p FullHD video, while a 1.3MP camera at the front takes care of the video-conferencing duties.

To keep the Ascend D quad running, Huawei have thrown in a 1800mAh battery, which they say will be good for two days of normal usage. The company says they made this possible thanks to proprietary power management technology providing up to 30% longer battery life.

Huawei official event MWC 2012

Huawei's quad-core flagship is also quite slim measuring at 64mm in width and 8.9mm in thickness and is one of the slimmest phones to run Android 4.0 Ice Scream Sandwich now. It also weighs in at approximately 130 grams which is not that bad for an Android smartphone with such specs.

In the feature list of the Ascend D quad are also a Dolby Digital 5.1 sound enhancement and earSmart technology which does wonders for noise cancellation, according to Huawei.

Expect the Ascend D quad to start its global market invasion around Q2 or Q3 of this year. Huawei claim their flagship will sell 15-25% cheaper than Samsung devices, although specific prices weren't disclosed.

The company also debuted the Ascend D quad XL version with a larger 2500mAh battery using the same chassis as the Ascend D quad. In the near future we should expect an even beefier 3000mAh version to be released.

The Huawei Ascend D1 is the second phone to get unveiled. It is a dual-core droid very similar to the D quad as far as the rest of the specs go - Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, 4.5" IPS+ 720p screen (330ppi same as the D quad), 8MP camera with 1080p video capture.

The Ascend D1 uses a TI OMAP 4460 chip rather than a Huawei-made one, it's clocked at 1.5GHz and is coupled with 1GB RAM. The D1 also packs quad-band 2G and penta-band 3G (with 21Mbps HSDPA and 5.76Mbps HSUPA).

The camera uses an 8MP backside illuminated sensor and shoots 1080p videos. This camera enjoys the company of dual-LED flash and HDR effect option. There's a 1.3MP front-facing camera too that does 720p videos.

The Huawei Ascend D1 has 5.1 surround sound emulation with Dolby Mobile 3.0 Plus and two microphones for noise reduction (Huawei calls is Audience earSmart).

Developing

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MWC 2012: Huawei overview

Huawei's press conference marks the beginning of the quad-core smartphone era at this year's Mobile World Congress, which for yet another year is held in sunny Barcelona. The Chinese have raised big expectations and bet big to raise awareness of their presence in the Android world.

The big small player has grown ambitious to play in the same ballpark as the big Droids from Samsung, LG, HTC, Sony and Motorola. Huawei's punchline is "Incredibly fast and about to take off" put next to their impressive looking pegasus made up of smartphones.

But words alone won't be enough for the Chinese to truly rise above the competition. They need something truly jaw-dropping. This is where the Ascend line-up comes in.

At the stage, Huawei's top men presented the company's flagship - the Ascend D quad, the Ascend D quad XL, the Ascend D1.

And here's the jaw-dropping moment - Huawei have built their own quad-core chipset, which they say smokes everybody else's hardware out of the game and is the fastest quad-core processor the world has seen. Now Huawei proudly stands next to Texas Instruments, Samsung, Nvidia and Qualcomm in the system-on-a-chip manufacturers list.

Smartphones aren't Huawei's only strong hand. The hiding ace in the sleeve of the Chinese is a 10.1-inch MediaPad, which in Huawei's world, proudly stands against the iPad in its tablet market dominance.

And we've been out there on the showroom floors to see if their statements hold any ground or is it just catchy phrases for the press release. Let's get to the hands-on.

View the original article here

Quad-core Huawei Ascend D1 Q press shots surface

It's no secret Huawei has big plans for its Sunday press conference. The event, which should kickstart the MWC will feature at least one quad-core smartphone device and we get to see its press shots in advance.

The Huawei Ascend D1 Q will obviously have a pretty face to go along with all the muscle under the hood. Judging by those press shots, the Tegra 3-packing Ascend D1 Q won't have the impressively slim waistline of the Ascend P1 S, but it will still be one sleek smartphone.

Huawei Ascend D1 Q press shots

Usability and attention to detail are also advertised as the Huawei Ascend D1 Q strengths, though the wording of the Huawei PR team is rather strange. At any rate, the D1 Q has every chance of becoming the first quad-core global smartphone to be announced as the Huawei press conference is a few hours before the HTC one this Sunday.

Now enjoy those smooth lines for a while more and don't forget to watch this spot on Sunday for the updates from the press event.

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Huawei MediaPad review: On the rise

Huawei have been flexing their mobile manufacturing muscle lately and one of their latest creations, the 7" MediaPad Android tablet, is getting its high-res screen and aluminum unibody ready to take on the big boys.

Huawei MediaPad official pictures

The Huawei MediaPad skimps on almost no ingredient in a bid to challenge the best 7" tablets out there. Sure, it would have been great to have Android ICS out of the box, but the screen has WXGA resolution and 216ppi pixel density - almost as high as the 10.1" Asus Transformer Prime TF700T and its 224ppi 1920x1200 screen.

Not impressed yet? How about an aluminum unibody that's thinner and lighter than the plasticy Kindle Fire? What about some of these specs:

10.5mm slim aluminum unibody7.0" 256K-color IPS TFT capacitive touchscreen of WXGA resolution (1280 x 800 pixels)Weighs 390 gQualcomm MSM8260 chipset: Dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor; 1GB of RAM; Adreno 220 GPUAndroid 3.2 Honeycomb, updateable to 4.0 Ice Cream SandwichQuad-band GPRS/EDGE and dual/tri-band 3G with HSPA connectivity (HSDPA, 14.4 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps)Voice calls, texts and MMS5 MP autofocus camera, 2592x1944 pixels, geotagging720p HD video recording @ 30 fps1.3 MP front-facing camera, 720p video recordingWi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, dual-band, Wi-Fi hotspotStereo Bluetooth v2.1microHDMI TV-out, USB host (adapter required)Standard 3.5 mm audio jack; Stereo speakers; SRS sound enhancement8 GB of built-in memory, 5.8 GB user accessiblemicroSD card slotAdobe Flash 11 supportGPS with A-GPS support; digital compass1080p DivX/XviD/MKV video supportAccelerometer and proximity sensor; three-axis Gyroscope sensorOffice document editor preinstalled4100 mAh Li-Po rechargeable batteryPoor cameraNon-replaceable batteryNo scratch-resistant screen surfaceNo LED flash

The Media Pad is certainly dressed to impress, but the name Huawei just doesn't have a premium ring to it. However, with the super-thin Huawei Ascend P1 S and now the MediaPad, Huawei is sending a clear message that they can successfully compete in the high end too.

Huawei MediaPad live pictures

The MediaPad shows no lack of ambition in Huawei. But how good were they at taking it from the blueprints to a finished product? Jump to the next page where we begin to find out.

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Quad-core Huawei Ascend D1 Q press shots surface

It's no secret Huawei has big plans for its Sunday press conference. The event, which should kickstart the MWC will feature at least one quad-core smartphone device and we get to see its press shots in advance.

The Huawei Ascend D1 Q will obviously have a pretty face to go along with all the muscle under the hood. Judging by those press shots, the Tegra 3-packing Ascend D1 Q won't have the impressively slim waistline of the Ascend P1 S, but it will still be one sleek smartphone.

Huawei Ascend D1 Q press shots

Usability and attention to detail are also advertised as the Huawei Ascend D1 Q strengths, though the wording of the Huawei PR team is rather strange. At any rate, the D1 Q has every chance of becoming the first quad-core global smartphone to be announced as the Huawei press conference is a few hours before the HTC one this Sunday.

Now enjoy those smooth lines for a while more and don't forget to watch this spot on Sunday for the updates from the press event.

Source

View the original article here