Huawei Ascend Mate: First Look

Announced back in January at CES 2013, the handset which scored tech media world's attention for its mammoth screen size has now hit the Indian boundaries. Though, its a delayed entry, but Huawei Ascend Mate, the phone with giant 6.1 inch display has been very strategically clubbed against the release time of Samsung Galaxy Mega series in India.

In true sense, it can beat a 7" tablet. The handset was announced with pomp and show on June 18 at New Delhi. We were also expecting Ascend D2 to be announced along with Mate, but it was not launched. The Ascend Mate comes at a price tag of Rs. 24,990, which is priced cheaper to its nearest competitor-, the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3. GizBot was there at the launch event, and for a brief period of time we tried the device also. Let's have a look at the first expression.

Click Here For More Huawei Ascend Mate Smartphone Gallery

For you and for many, Huawei is a telecom manufacturing giant. What is the relation of Huawei with "connected devices"? You might not know, but the tech vendor is the world's fourth largest smartphone maker after LG. Analysts' believe that with Ascend Mate Huawei has shown its release strength. We experience the device with our own eyes and to be frank, it an awesome handset. The device won't disappoint you on the hardware quality. The build quality is great, and it is far better than Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3, when use it single handedly. Huawei says there's a special keyboard (virtual) designed in keeping the display size of the handset in mind.

The Ascend comes with a 6.1-inch IPS LCD display with resolution of 720p HD. We got an opportunity to play with the phone for a brief period of time. The quality of the display is not bad. It produced natural colors even the saturation level is far better than Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3. The phone measures 163.5mm x 85.74mm x 9.9 mm. It weighs 198g, which is light considering it resembles to a 7-inch tablet.

Click Here For More Huawei Ascend Mate Smartphone Gallery

Huawei has added a 4050mAh Li Ion battery to make this beast going. The company says you can run the device for at least 2 days on a single charge. That's fantastic, but we need to test the handset as per GizBot standards.

Talking about the processor, it's a homegrown Hi- Silicon 1.5GHz quad-core processor coupled with 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory which can be further expanded via microSD cards. The device is running on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. On the top of it, Huawei has used its Emotion UI.

Click Here For More Huawei Ascend Mate Smartphone Gallery

Huawei says they have improved Emotion UI, as per the feedback given to them by users. The experience is completely different from a typical Android device. There is no usual Android app stray. Everything is segmented in the home screen. There is a default lock screen, which let you open messages, camera, and dialer from the lock screen. We will soon test the handset in order to better explain Huawei's Emotion UI.

At the rear back you will find an 8-mega pixel camera with Auto Focus and LED Flash. It can even record HDR videos. On the front a VGA quality camera is provided for long video chat. The camera can shoot 1080p Full HD videos too. Other highlighted features include: DLNA, Wi-Fi, 3G, AirSharing, A-GPS, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, among others.

Click Here For More Huawei Ascend Mate Smartphone Gallery

We were not expecting Huawei to make such a decent handset. Again, it was an enriching experience to Witness Company's software side in the form of Emotion UI. At Rs. 24,990, a 6.1-inch IPS LCD display having resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of ROM ( expandable) , and solid build quality , is surely a better buy as per GizBot.