Huawei has unveiled their latest mid range smartphone, the HUAWEI Ascend G6, at the Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona.
The G6 sports some decent specs including a 4.5 qHD Display, a Quad Core Processor, a 5 megapixel front camera (you read it right), and support for 4G LTE.
Richard Yu, CEO, Huawei Consumer Business Group, had some words about the phone. He said,
“HUAWEI Ascend G6 4G is a stylish, colorful, and lightning fast smartphone designed to break down barriers. With its handy 4G LTE connectivity, easy to use interface and dynamic cameras offering a multitude of photographic opportunities, Huawei is delivering on our promise to ‘Make it Possible’ for more people around the world.”
The Ascend G6 comes in two variants, one with 3G and the other with 4G. Apart from this, both devices share the same technical specifications as shown below.
| Display | 4.5-inch qHD LCD display supporting a resolution of 960 x 540, at a pixel density of 245PPI. Emotion UI 2.0 |
| Processor | 1.2 GHz Quad Core |
| OS | Android 4.3 Jelly Bean |
| RAM | 1 GB |
| Storage | 8 GB expandable upto 32GB via microSD |
| Camera | 5-megapixel front-facing camera, 8 Megapixel Rear Camera with LED flash and Auto Focus |
| Battery | 2000 mAh |
| Connectivity | 3G, 4G LTE, NFC, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, |
| Dimensions | 7.85 mm |
| Weight | 115g |
One of the device’s key features is the amazing front camera which they advertised in their YouTube teaser video. It is a 5 Megapixel shooter, which has a four plastic element lens (4P), which provides audio controlled photo capturing, auto-scene recognition and auto-face enhancement.
The Voice Photo function lets you take a photo and record a 10-second audio clip which you can share to Facebook, WeChat, Google+, Twitter,etc
It also has a Selfie preview window, and supports shooting at 88° wide angle.
Huawei has introduced a customizable UI, called the Emotion UI 2.0. Users will be able to customize their homescreens with 1,000 online themes.
The tiles do resemble a metro-ish look.
On the rear the phone has an 8 megapixel camera which has a 5P lens. Supported features include multi-shot, horizontal shooting, panoramic photo capture. The camera also has AUto Focus and has an LED Flash. Huawei have packed in a blue glass infrared filter, Sony IMX134 sensor for low light photo captures and video recording.
Another important feature in the G6 is the support for NFC (Near Field Communication), which lets you share content to other devices easily.
The device itself is very slim at 7.85 mm thickness (7.5 for the 3G variant), and weighs just 115 grams.
The Huawei Ascend G6 will be available from Q1 2014, and the Ascend G6 4G from April 2014. The price for the 4G version is said to be around €249 ($340 or 21200 Rupees).
I am especially disappointed that the Ascend G6 does not have a 720p Display, the resolution of 960 x 540 is rather outdated for a modern phone. I also hope that an Android 4.4 KitKat update will be released in the future. The camera specs are impressive though, but gone are the days, when users will actually buy a device just for the camera.
Considering the price, this phone will have a difficult time competing with power packed phones such as the Moto G that offer a similar processor and a much better display, no to mention OTA Android OS updates.
