By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
Wind Mobile and up and coming smartphone maker, Huawei, are offering a 6.1-inch smartphone for as low as $99.00 on a two-year plan.
Aside from the large screen and ‘tweener functionality between large smartphone and small tablet, the Huawei Ascend Mate offers a decent set of specs that one would not expect from the value-focused brand.
“Having successfully launched several Huawei products with Wind, we’re excited to bring the newest smartphone in the ‘phablet’ category to the Canadian marketplace” said Huawei Canada President Sean Yang. “The Huawei Ascend Mate breaks barriers to deliver a supercharged entertainment, communication and creative experience”.
The Huawei Ascend Mate has a resolution of 1280 x 720 on the 6.1-inch HD screen. Huawei’s ’Magic Touch’ technology enhances screen responsiveness allowing Canadian customers, over the winter months, to use it while still wearing gloves. With its narrowest thickness only 6.5mm, the Ascend Mate is slim and stylish, designed to fit comfortably in a single hand.
The Huawei Ascend Mate features a 4050 mAh battery good for two days use on a single charge. It also has the fastest charging capability of any smartphone in its range.
It is powered by a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor. Combined with Huawei’s smart power-saving technology, the device provides up to two days of ordinary usage on a single charge.
Huawei Ascend Mate operates on Android 4.1, features an 8.0-megapixel AF rear-facing camera and 1.0-megapixel HD front-facing camera. It provides dual MIC noise reduction technology, Dolby sound system and stereo recording. With other features including ’smart reading’ functionality – which allow for quick reference to sites such as Wikipedia, Google Search; and ’swift sharing’ – designed to support uploading of pictures and videos at speeds 200%-300% faster than similar devices when in a Wi-Fi environment.
What this means for users is that they have a value option in the Phablet space that’s up to spec and offers the benefits of large-device use without the high premium attached to products like Samsung’s Galaxy Note or Sony’s Xperia Z Ultra. The Huawei Ascend Mate can be purchased outright for $399, which makes it a somewhat affordable option fie budget users choosing between a new Android smartphone and a tablet.
Most of the larger smartphones in the market cost up to double the Huawei Ascend Mate’s price.
I’ve used the Huawei Ascend Mate for two weeks and was quite impressed by the power and features that it offered. Call quality and reception were very good and despite the large size, I was able to navigate the device easily, although one-handed use is still a stretch at this size. Most Android apps scaled nicely on the 6.1-inch screen.
The limitations are the lack of any stylus or capacitive input device, you are running a slightly older build of Android Jelly Bean (4.1) with no guarantee of software updates, and the internal storage is a paltry 8 GB (but thankfully expandable via microSD cards up to 64GB). The Ascend Mate is also a bit thicker and heavier than the competition but the upside is that it feels more rugged.
The Ascend Mate’s solid build quality, no-frills but reliable functionality, and efficient battery life don’t just compare favourably to the competition, they actually surpass it in a number of ways.
If Huawei can continue to offer affordable handsets with great overall feature sets like this, they are well on their way to disrupt the current Android smartphone and tablet market.
