IFA 2014: Huawei announces Ascend Mate 7; huge display, minimal bezel, eight cores

Huawei's smartphone market share continues to grow. Its new Ascend Mate 7 with a 6-inch display has the power to challenge other flagship devices.



The Ascend Mate 2 made me a believer in Huawei's devices. The Mate 7 impresses me even more because it's a phone that's all display. It has an 83 percent screen-to-body ratio, which beats the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy S5, HTC One M8, iPhone 5S, and more. It is just a bit larger than the 5.7 inch Galaxy Note 4, but also thinner at just 7.9mm.

In addition to the large 2,560 x 1,600 pixel resolution display and minimal bezel, Huawei is including a fingerprint scanner on the back. Unlike the failed HTC One Max scanner, this one just requires a touch to activate rather than a swipe. You will also find a 13 megapixel camera on the back.

Other interesting features include active noise-canceling headphones powered by the phone (the Sony Xperia Z3 has this too), an 8 megapixel front-facing camera (there's an interesting panorama front-facing feature on the Mate 2 as well), Octa core chipset that has two quad-cores which spin up when needed, tunable antenna, and a massive 4,000 mAh battery that can also be used to charge up other devices.

Pricing and availability were not revealed today, but I definitely look forward to taking this massive phone for a spin. There is a ton of high-end technology in it and with the large display, it may be a threat to small tablets.

Smartphone multitasking review: Samsung vs LG vs Huawei

Smartphones and tablets would be much more useful if they allowed us to multitask the way desktop and laptop computers do.



When I'm watching video, for instance, I have to pause it to read an email or text that comes in. When I'm composing a message to make plans, I have to leave the app to check the weather forecast. For the most part, I'm not able to do more than one thing at a time on a single screen.

That's starting to change with Android devices, though. Windows tablets do let you run multiple apps side by side, but Windows phones do not. The iPhone and iPad don't, either. 

Here, I assess some of the Android devices that offer limited multitasking. These approaches aren't as smooth as what I'm used to on Mac and Windows personal computers, but they are a start. 

Samsung devices
Samsung offers Multi-Window, which lets you see multiple apps running side by side on the screen. You're typically limited to two, though Samsung's 12.2-inch Galaxy Tab Pro tablet let you do as many as four. There's a slider you can use to control how much screen space each app takes.

Multi-Window works with only selected apps, though. You can use Samsung's Video or Google's Play Movies & TV app as one of the selections, but not Hulu or Netflix. Even so, the choices have gotten better since Samsung first made this feature available in 2012.

As much as I like this concept, I've rarely used it on my two-year-old Galaxy S III. It takes me longer to figure out which apps are supported than to simply grab another device and get what I need there. 

Owners of Samsung's Note smartphones and tablets also get a second way to multitask. It's called Pen Window and gets activated when you use the stylus that comes with the device. You simply use the pen to draw a box in the screen. The box floats over the main app on the screen, and apps open inside the box. You can have several apps open at once, and you can temporarily set an app aside by minimizing it into a small dot.

Again, this only works with selected apps.

LG's G3
LG's latest smartphone, the G3, has a Dual Window feature. Just hold the back button and choose two apps to open side by side. As with Multi-Window, you're limited in your choices. You can adjust a slider to determine how much on-screen real estate each app occupies. 

The phone also has Q Slide, which gives you easy access to three apps at once. Unlike Dual Window, these apps are in overlapping windows, similar to traditional PCs. There's a slider to make two of the apps semi-transparent while working on the third. So if you're composing a text message to make plans and need to see whether you're free, you can launch a calendar through Q Slide. Unfortunately, Q Slide works with even fewer apps than Dual Window. 

For the most part, you're limited to messaging, Web browsing and tools such as the calendar and calculator. Dual Window has a few extras, including Maps, YouTube and the photo gallery. Neither offers weather or streaming video services. 

Huawei Ascend Mate2 4G
The Mate2 has a feature called Window on Window, or WOW. When you turn it on, a small translucent circle hovers over the home screen or any app you're using. Clicking on it gives you quick access to some basic tools: a calculator, a calendar, a note pad and text messaging. You're limited to just those four. 

The app hovers in a window over whatever you're doing. Hit the arrow to expand it to full screen, or hit the "x" to make it go away. 

The extent of apps available doesn't exactly wow me, but it's another effort toward making mobile devices as useful as laptops. There's more work to do, but I'm glad device makers are working on it.

Huawei Honor 3C smartphone: Review

When I received this new phone for review, for a while I kept on wondering what company it is! The box just said ‘Honor’. Similarly, the rear section of the phone was branded as “Honor”. I went to “Settings” and nowhere was it apparent what brand it is until I reached the “Legal information” section that talked about Huawei Privacy Policy. Oh, so much for finding a brand name!




The Huawei Honor 3C is amongst the newest smartphones to hit the Indian market. Huawei claims the Honor 3C has been “specially designed to fulfil all the aspirations that you can have from a smartphone.” It further adds that, to make it possible, every feature of the phone has been enhanced—bigger screen, a better processor, a better camera and a stronger battery. Sure, the Honor 3C starts to impress you once you unlock it and the screen comes to life. But how is the overall impression? Let’s find out.

First, the build quality. The Honor 3C, sure, is not in the league of, say, the Huawei Ascend G6 as far as build quality is concerned, yet it doesn’t really disappoint. (Okay, it is a bit too glossy and that means it will have fingerprints all over its body minutes after you start using it.) But the five-inch HD LCD screen of the Honor 3C gives you dynamic and rich colours so that you can enjoy lifelike images and videos. The screen is highly responsive and its reflection levels are just right. The phone has this unique rounded edge design that makes it comfortable to hold and experience. Further, its screen-to-body ratio is quite good—the upper bezel of 4.5 mm reduces down to 2.2 mm on the sides of the screen and that to the compactness of the phone.

The Huawei Honor 3C comes with a 1.3 GHz QuadCore processor. No issues with this. In fact, although this is not among the best processors in the market, it works well in combination with the 2GB RAM. So, be it playing online games, downloading or watching streaming videos, or sending mails– the phone handles most tasks decently.

Now, let’s talk about the camera. The Honor 3C comes with an 8-megapixel Sony BSI camera. Huawei says the camera boasts of a Blue Glass Filter that gives you the luxury of choosing the desired hue for your photos. The camera clicks good and clear photos and the videos it

shoots are also of HD quality. Well, nowadays, an 8-megapixel camera is getting common in most smartphones. So what is special about this camera? It is the Voice Photograph function, which enables you to click photographs by voice command. Nice. The front camera, too, is innovative. As you activate it, it tells you where to look on the screen (in a preview window that pops up) so that your expression is properly captured. At 5-megapixel, the front camera shoots great selfies and, as we found out, makes the video calling experience quite good. This camera also has a 22-mm wide angle lens.

The Honor 3C is powered by the Android 4.2 OS. Then there is this additional benefit of the EmotionUI 2.0 system (developed by Huawei) that makes phone management simple. For example, it starts your selected applications automatically when you turn the phone on. Besides, your applications also get better security through features such as harassment filter, permission manager and notification manager. It also gets motion control feature so that you can flip it to mute, shake to rearrange, double touch to turn on the screen and slide to turn on the screen and open specified apps.

Powered by a 2300 mAh battery, the Honor 3C also gets the Huawei patented power saving technology that uses the power 30% more efficiently than any other phone. This means that you can play more games, watch more videos and talk longer on a single charge. Although we couldn’t use 3G for a long period of time on the Honor 3C, we believe the battery life is among its strongest points.

At Rs 14,999, the Honor 3C is in a segment where it has to face a lot of competition. Agreed, it is not the best looker of the lot, but it certainly is among the better performers.

Estimated street price: Rs 14,999

Huawei outs Ascend P7 Arsenal Edition smartphone

Earlier this year, Huawei announced a new global partnership with prominent UK football club Arsenal, promising exclusive offers, content, and brand presence for Arsenal fans. The partnership apparently also includes specially-branded smartphones, as Huawei has just released a new variant of its Ascend P7 flagship that's especially targeted at Arsenal fans.




The Ascend P7 Arsenal Edition features the Arsenal logo mounted on the rear cover of the P7, alongside a wide range of Arsenal-based themes and menus. The integrated clock widget is even based on the famous Arsenal Clock End.


The special edition device is also set to come preloaded with FIFA 14 to take care of your football gaming needs. Huawei representative Richard Ren promised a few more surprises for Arsenal fans for the coming season, so be sure to check back with us often for more on the Huawei-Arsenal partnership.

Huawei Ascend G6 review: Good selfie phone, bad pricing

Huawei Ascend G6 is a mid-range smartphone which the Chinese company first unveiled in February during the Mobile World Congress. Huawei, which does not have much presence in the Indian smartphone market both in terms of mindshare and sales, brought the phone to the country in May pricing it at Rs 16,999. 

Unlike other Chinese players notably Lenovo, Gionee, Oppo and now Xiaomi, Huawei and ZTE have never been very aggressive when it comes to pushing their phones though they have been present in India far longer. Huawei Ascend G6's USP is its sleek design and 5MP selfie camera. Is that enough to make it a competent smartphone? We try to find out in our review. 

Build and design 

Huawei Ascend G6 follows the same design philosophy as seen in Ascend P7. The compact and slim phone looks nice with its rounded bottom edge. It is surrounded by a metallic looking frame on the other three edges, giving it a premium look.

 

The front of the phone features a 4.5-inch display, three capacitive keys for navigation, an earpiece and the front camera lens. 

The 3.5mm headset jack is placed rather unconventionally towards the bottom of the left edge. This makes for poor usability if you want to keep the phone in your pocket with headphones plugged in. The power and volume keys are located at the right edge. These keys don't wobble and offer good tactile feedback. 

The micro-USB port sits at the top. The back features a removable plastic cover that sports a grey matte finish; hides a non-removable, sealed battery, micro-sim and microSD card slots. While the phone is well-built, we feel that the back cover could have been made a little more sturdy to give a feeling of durability. The back also features a camera lens and LED flash.

 

Overall, Huawei Ascend G6 is a sleek and compact smartphone that looks good and feels nice to hold. 

Display 

Huawei Ascend G6 sports a 4.5-inch qHD(540x960p) IPS display. The display is underwhelming and text and graphics don't look as crisp and sharp as they do on 720p phones. Viewing angles are good but sunlight legibility is average. The qHD display of the phone pinches as there are several phones with 720p HD display in the same price range. 

Software
Huawei Ascend G6 runs Android 4.3 with Huawei's Emotion UI 2.0Lite skin on top. Similar to Gionee, Lenovo and Xiaomi's MiUi ROM, the interface does not include a separate app launcher. App icons and widgets are spread across the home screens (one can have up to 9 home screens). 

The UI can be themed and the G6 comes with four preloaded themes, each of which comes with a different set of icons, wallpapers, font style, sounds and lock screen unlocks. The themes can be customized further. Some of the themes look good but we found the others to be bland. 

The unified home screen-app launcher style may come across as user-friendly to people who have not used an Android phone before. But it will take some time to get used to if you have already been using an Android smartphone.

 

The notification tray has also been skinned and features a white background. It features customisable toggles for frequently used settings in addition to notifications. At times, we noticed some usability issues with the white background reducing the visibility if a notification featured white text. 

Huawei has customized system apps in accordance with its UI style and some of these show a hint of skeuomorphism. It has also added additional features. For instance, the Music app is capable of displaying lyrics and also comes with a sleep mode to automatically turn off after a preset duration. 

The phone also comes with a Phone Manager app that allows power users to tinker with advanced settings and optimises the phone's performance by cleaning cache and large files, closing background tasks that are not needed, and allowing users to control notifications, app permissions and power settings. The phone doesn't come with a large number of third party apps, which is a good thing, especially when it offers limited storage. 

Overall, we're happy with the software experience offered by the phone barring some minor niggles. We hope Huawei updates it to Android 4.4 KitKat soon. 

Camera 

Huawei Ascend G6 features an 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a 5MP front-facing camera.

The camera app is simple to use and features controls for granular settings such as brightness, ISO, white balance and contrast. It also offers HDR and panorama modes.

 

The quality of images captured outdoors, in daylight was really good with accurate colour reproduction, very little noise and good contrast. Low-light shots were also pretty good and we were impressed by the amount of light the camera captured. However, these shots had a lot of noise. 

Pictures captured indoors in artificial light also turned out well and had very little noise. The rear camera can capture 720p videos and in our tests, we found the video quality to be above average. 

The 5MP front camera is among the best in its class and takes really good selfies, especially in brightly lit conditions. It also has a wide angle lens that helps in getting more people in the frame. The camera app also offers selfie features including a timer and a prompt that directs you to look at the camera.

 

Overall, Huawei Ascend G6 has good camera hardware though it misses out on full-HD video recording. 

Performance 

Huawei Ascend G6 is powered by 1.2GHz quad-core processor, developed in-house, and 1GB RAM. While using the phone, we did not encounter any hiccups while launching and switching between apps and there was not much lag. 

Casual games such as Subway Surfers run smoothly. However, we encountered some frame drops while playing graphics-heavy games like Asphalt 8. 

In terms of synthetic benchmarks, it scored 8,261 in Quadrant Standard, 16,920 in AnTuTu, 1113 in Geekbench 3(Multi-core) and 53 in NenaMark 2, lagging behind Motorola's Moto G by a small margin in some tests. But we do not recommend a phone based solely on benchmarks as real world performance is different at times. 

Ascend G6 sports a 2000mAh battery and sails through a full working day (13-14 hours) with moderate to heavy use (screen brightness at full, 3G on). 

Unfortunately, out of the 4GB storage, only 1.83GB is available to the user. However, you can expand the storage with a memory card of up to 32GB.

 

We were able to play most video and audio files on the phone without any hiccups. 

The phone offers good call audio quality and the speaker output was loud and clear. However, a number of times, the other party complained of not being able to hear us. We also noticed that the phone's signal reception is not as good as other phones in the same range and it dropped signal in weak reception areas. We experienced multiple call drops in a moving vehicle. 

The phone was able to lock to GPS without any hiccups. 

The external speaker on the phone offers loud stereo sound output. It also features DTS technology for clear and richer sound. 

Of course, the sound gets muffled when the phone lies on its back, which is a problem with all such designs that place speakers at the back. 

Gaming
We were able to play games like Subway Surfers, Temple Run 2, Banana Kong, and Asphalt 8 without encountering frame drops or freezes. 

Verdict 

Huawei has been selling phones in India (on its own) for over four years. Yet, very few people in India would be able to recall hearing about a popular Huawei smartphone. Perhaps, a major reason for the same has been the company's low-key marketing which has led to poor brand recall. Will the G6 work in the company's favour? 

Well, at a price of Rs 16,999, we're not sure if it would find many takers. The landscape has changed drastically and companies like Asus, Motorola, Gionee and Xiaomi are offering phones with top-end features at budget prices.

There's no doubt Ascend G6 offers a combination of pleasant form factor, a good camera and decent hardware performance. But it has its share of problems including the low-resolution display, signal reception issues and the steep pricing. 

You would be better off buying an Asus ZenFone 5 for Rs 10,000 or Motorola Moto G for Rs 14,000. You could even wait for the forthcoming Xiaomi Mi 3 that offers much superior hardware specs at Rs 13,999.

HP Slate 8+ could be the first non-Huawei device to pack HiSilicon processor

Being a Huawei-owned company, we have only seen the HiSilicon’s processors in Huawei products until now but looks like it is going to change soon. An unannounced HP tablet has leaked online, which is powered by 1.6GHz HiSilicon quad-core processor.

As the specs-sheet published by Chinese publication CNMO.com, this tablet will most likely carry Slate 8+ moniker and come with an 8-inch HD display, 1GB of RAM, 5MP rear camera and 1MP front camera. The tablet will also pack Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, SIM card slot, and microSD card slot.

There is no word on the release date right now but the tablet is reportedly going on pre-order soon for a price of 299 euros. It is likely to be released in select European markets, Asia and Latin American countries.

No other details are available at this point but we will update the story if anything new pops up.

Huawei E5730 Review: Enjoy power bank and router facility in one

WiFi routers and power banks are two common accessories for smartphones and tablets. Power banks especially considered very essential as current crop of smartphones and tablets, due to their high end hardware, usually have poor battery life. On the other hand, a WiFi router helps creating a WiFi hotspot anywhere and anytime. Of course, using one's smartphone or tablet, one can create a WiFi hotspot anywhere but that would deplete the device's battery juice very quickly.

Huawei, which is a leading maker of both WiFi routers and power banks, has now come out with a device that combines the benefits of the two. The product, called Huawei E5730, is available for Rs 5,999. We have used the E5730 for more than two weeks and here is our take on the E5730.

To start with, the device looks like any other WiFi router with a plastic outer shell but feels like a quality product. All sides of the device come with matte finish except one that has glossy finish. This glossy part contains the power button alongside five LED indicators for LAN, Network, WiFi, Battery, and Message.

A LAN port is there in the E5730 besides which lies a micro USB port for charging the device. A full sized USB port lies besides that using which you can charge other devices.

The E5730 has a non-removable battery. It has nonetheless a removable back panel, and under that there is a SIM card slot. So you can create a WiFi hotspot using this router by either using a SIM card or using a LAN input. A reset button is also there besides the SIM slot. Also, vital information regarding the set up including WiFi key, SSDI, user name and password are written alongside the SIM slot.

Setting up connection via LAN is as easy as the SIM method. You just need to power on the device to create a WiFi zone. Then from your laptop or PC (WiFi enabled), go to the IP mentioned inside the back cover. Put the user name and password and you are good to go. Since it is not locked to any operator, you can use a SIM card of any operator in this device. Moreover, its auto redirect function allows you to switch from WAN to LAN automatically.

The Huawei E5730 is able to create WiFi Hotspot for 10 devices, offering download speed of upto 21.6 Mbps and upload speed of uptp 5.76 Mbps. The range of WiFi is also quite good, we managed to had a good signal in a range of about 10 meters. As a power bank also, the device can hold onto charge for several days altogether and with full power it can recharge a smartphone of about 2000 mAh for about 4 times.

Conclusion:

At close to Rs 6,000, the Huawei E5730 definitely sounds quite expensive considering that routers are available below Rs 2,000 as well while power banks are available for less than Rs 500. However, E5730 combines benefits of both and with this you need not to carry two devices (power bank and a WiFi router).

Having said that the E5730 has a bit of flaw as well. Its LED indicators do not blink all the time, so it is quite difficult to know whether it is still on or has been drained out of power. The power button though blinks periodically but it is not visible from a distance. Other than that we had faced no issues whatsoever in the Huawei E5730.

Pros

• Works both as a power bank and a router
• Offers good speed and decent Wifi range
• Has a SIM slot as well as LA port

Cons

• Price is a bit on the higher side
• LED indicators are bit confusing

Huawei Honor 6 With 4G LTE Support and Android 4.4 KitKat Launched

Announced earlier this week, Huawei's latest flagship Android phone, the Honor 6, comes with souped-up specs that give it a chance against its competitors. And while Huawei's more well-known for its telecom side of things, the company has been putting in quite a bit of effort to become a player in the smartphone market.

But is the phone enough to give the Chinese electronics manufacturer a stepping stone into a very competitive market? Perhaps.

Instead of sticking with the tried and true Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, Huawei has for quite a while now, been using its own home-grown processors for its higher-end devices. The Honor 6 is no exception and comes with a Kirin 920 octa-core processor that uses the big.LITTLE configuration.

This means that it has four faster A15 cores and four less powerful A7 cores that work together and depending on what's required of the phone, the more powerful A15 cores can offload the work to the A7 cores to save on power.

Huawei says the chip's performance is comparable to the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor, which certainly sounds impressive on paper. Given that the performance of the Huawei Ascend P7's Kirin 910T processor didn't do as well against the equivalent Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chip, I have my doubts.

However, there's one benefit to using the new Kirin 920 chip -- the Honor 6 will be capable of connecting to Category 6 LTE, which is capable of download speeds of up to 300Mbps. However, there aren't many networks that currently support this standard -- in South Korea, where they are rolling out LTE-Advanced networks for consumers, speeds only go up to 225Mbps at the moment (though there are plans to exceed 300Mbps by the end of the year).

Designwise, the Honor 6 seems to have gone for an aluminum finish, and is just 6.8mm thick. Huawei has been pushing its super-slim phones for a while now, and the Honor 6 is no exception.
Also, instead of using a high-resolution QHD (2,560x1,440-pixel) display, the Honor 6 comes with a 5-inch full-HD (1,920x1,080 pixels) screen. This should help with battery life, which should easily last a day thanks to the 3,100mAh battery.

Other specs include 3GB of RAM, 16GB or 32GB of internal storage, and a 13-megapixel rear camera that uses a Sony sensor. It runs Android 4.4 (KitKat) and likely has Huawei's EmotionUI skin on top.

Pricewise, the 16GB Honor 6 will likely retail for 1,999 Chinese yuan ($320, £187, AU$339) while the 32GB version will cost 2,999 Chinese yuan ($400, £234, AU$423).